Blue screen of death with LV7.0 Eval version

[Hollow Man]

I had been programming for a couple weeks with no problems, trying to see whether or not Labview could handle the data acquisition requirements that we need for our software. Specifically, I was a little concerned that LV maybe be too "high level" to run fast enough for us. We're acquiring 2 analog voltage signals and an edge counter for X, Y and Z position values and streaming them into an intensity graph to get a picture of our scanned object. I had been using the DAQ Assistant VI to do the acquisition, which understably contains quite a bit of overhead, but the acquisition rate seemed to be okay (around 400Hz while streaming points into a 200x200 array on a DAQCard-6036E). I wasn't quite done the interpolation routine though and was afraid that would slow it down some more.

On Monday I got my first BSOD just a couple seconds after starting my program after using the software for hours. I brushed it off as a fluke and rebooted. Yesterday late in the afternoon I got another one after working on it and testing all day, but this time it never dumped the physical memory (it just hung). Much more concerning, I got a third one today upon just loading up Labview and trying to run my program for the first time. I took down the error message as:

IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL
STOP:0X000000A(0X6D665346,0X0000002,0X0000001,0X80519E8C)

I rebooted, and upon trying to load windows, I got a message that SYSTEM was corrupt. Our IT guy came by and rebooted again, which seemed to work alright. But then when he rebooted again we got -another- one with no "IRQL" statement. I did manage to get it going again by rebooting for a 3rd time.

What worries me is that this is getting progressively worse. For weeks I seemed to be able to tinker at will with the software and do all sorts of neat stuff and it didn't give me any errors. I haven't installed anything new this week at all, and suddenly it's crapping out faster and faster.

I'm using (or was, until I uninstalled everything for safety) LV Eval version installed on NI-DAQ 7.0 with a Toshiba TE2100 laptop (P4, 2GHz, 256meg). Are there any known issues with version 7.0? I had tried installing the Eval version (I guess it's really called "Express") on NI-DAQ 7.2, but the DAQ Assistant never showed up in the menu. After a few calls to NI tech support, I tried version 7.3 and it still wasn't there (and if you're new at LV, you NEED the DAQ Assistant), so I tried 7.0 and it worked fine.

I've attached my program. It's disorganized, yes, but it does the job. Any ideas?

[TylerS]

A few questions for you...What is the operating system you are using when you have this problem? Have you tried this program on other computers? Does the BSOD give any other information on the problem?

[Hollow Man]

Hi Tyler,

I'm using WinXP Pro, and I haven't tried the program on another computer yet. The tricky thing is that it's one of those intermittent problems. So I could install it on someone else's computer and have it run fine for weeks, then crash on the last day. The BSOD did not identify any particular problem file, only the IRQ error and that it was dumping physical memory. I know they sometimes give you the exact file that the problem occurred in, but not in my case.

I did a fair amount of searching through this forum and in general regarding Labview and conflicts with other software. I found one message from a couple years ago on another forum regarding BSOD's, and one reply asked "You're not using Sophos virus checker, are you?". Coincidentally, this is the only thing that had been installed on my computer since installing Labview. However, it was installed about 2 weeks prior to the first BSOD. Something I forgot to mention was that my laptop was taking suspiciously long to boot up. I could type in my name and password and come back 5 minutes later and it would still be loading my desktop. It wasn't until I physically removed the DAQ card and then rebooted that I saw it return to normal. I then uninstalled all NI software and reinstalled everthing, this time going with the 7.3.1 drivers. On Friday I also disabled Sophos virus checker for one day. So far it's run error-free today (even with Sophos re-enabled), and my computer booted up normal speed even with the DAQ left in it over the weekend. However, for the first time, Labview crashed on me today (performed illegal operation... do you want to send error report to microsoft etc...).

I sure hope the problems I'm having aren't indicative of the normal operation of the software. It's been amazing to program with so far, and its unbelievably powerful, but if BSOD's and mysterious crashes are the norm, it's going to be worse than our current software (which in itself isn't very good).

[Ray.R]

Hi H-M,

Which Service Pack do you have installed with Win-XP?
Do you have "Automatic Updates" enabled?

I had a similar experience, where the PC "froze" when running LV. It had taken an "update" which rendered the PC rather useless. This occurred without changing the LV code. I uninstalled the update and turned off the feature off. The PC has not crashed since.

Do a search on Win-XP within this forum. You'll notice that there are quite a few posts already concerning PC freezing and blue screen of death.

Here are a few links:

Link1

Link2

Link3

Link4

-JLV-

[Ray.R]

HollowMan,

After posting my reply, I re-read your last post. it is interesting to read that you are experiencing something that I had experienced about 1 year ago >>> the PC slowing down symptom.

I do contract work for a number of customers, so I develop on their machines, most of which run Win-XP Pro.
I received a brand-new PC with Win-XP Pro and SP2. It ONLY has the basic programs installed, such as the OS and MS-Office. Nothing else. Development is done on another PC (Win-2K) in the lab.

I noticed that MS-Outlook would crash often (many times a day) at the beginning. I still crashes, less often... Maybe it will reach the 1 week mark this week 😉

Co-workers running Win-XP have shared similar stories, some had no problems. What confuses me is why does the problem "dissappear" by itself? (MS-Outlook for instance).

I share these stories because there may be a trend, a pattern that we can quickly establish and have a solid platform to develop. I still prefer Win-2K.

For some reason, re-installing seems to help with Win-XP (not logical to me...)

Hope things go well quickly for you.

-JLV-

[TylerS]

Hollow Man,

I think that because you've upgraded to the latest version of the DAQ driver, the blue screen won't be a problem. It was a known issue with versions 7.0 and 7.1, but seems to have been fixed since then. If you still get the blue screen after upgrading, let me know and I'll see what else might be causing it. As for LabVIEW freezing, it isn't a common occurance. Unfortunately, it does happen on occasion, like with any other Windows based program, but it isn't a chronic problem. Good luck with your development!

Tyler

[Hollow Man]

Hi Joe:

Thanks for your response. I do think its a good idea to keep the lines of communication open on this matter so we can track down the problem. Regarding your computer running slowly, I had another issue about 6-8 months ago that eventually led to my entire system locking up (couldn't even do a hard boot) and I had to get WinXP reinstalled (btw I have never installed SP2). It started with spyware and worked its way from there. On a business trip to Albuquerque I logged into the hotel internet and from then on things went haywire. After a whole bunch of HijackThis logs and troubleshooting, the cause of my slower and slower computer ended up being a program called mprocessor.exe, which apparently is somehow connected to Java. After uninstalling Java, the computer seemed to return to normal speed for awhile (mouse clicks were taking minutes to run and my hard disk was running constantly before I uninstalled). But by then the spyware was so rampant that it eventually killed my system.

Anyways, even though this might not have anything to do with Labview, it might be a good thing to just check the task mananger if the problem reoccurs to see if mprocessor is active. I too prefer Win2K. My audio workstation PC at home has Win2K and I would never install XP on it, ever.

[Ray.R]

I agree with Tyler, that any application will freeze. It sometimes happens to be LV, if that is what is running at the time.

However, I have not observed LV or any other programs freeze as often as they do with Win-XP.