Screen saver freezes/crashes system

[TexasTreat]

Within minutes of Marine Aqua.2 starting, my entire system freezes and have to reboot. I even installed the MD version. I have applied the latest video drivers etc. Any ideas of where to start in troubleshooting?

Here is what I'm running:

WinXP2
AMD Athlon 2500, MMX, 1.8GHz
512 MB Ram
Directx 9.0c
Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 w/128MB
Driver: V6.14.0010.7189 on 4/1/05

Thanks!
Cheers, Ms. Tee

[Jim Sachs]

The most common cause of this is the video processor overheating due to trying to process too many frames per second. Make sure the frame rate is set to 60 or less.

[TexasTreat]

Hi Jim, Made the change and it still freezes. In the event log there are some messages in the application section about a database engine starting and stopping but nothing that shows an obvious error problem.
sample: "wuaueng.ddl (1376) SUS20ClientDataStore. The database engine
stopped the instance (0)." Thanks for your help. I truly love the screensaver and hate to lose the ability to use it.

Now if only I could put it on my big screen tv!haha
Cheers, Ms. Tee

[feldon34]

Many others are having the same problem. It has nothing to do with the Aquarium. It is a problem with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and the Auto Update feature.
http://www.wsus.info/forums/index.php?showtopic=3830

The computer isn't actually dead/frozen by the way, it's just hung up. If you wait 5 minutes, the computer will unfreeze. Not what I call an ideal situation though.

The easiest solution is to disable Windows AutoUpdate. Make sure it's disabled not only in Security/Firewall but also in the Services admin control panel (Control Panels -> Administrative Tools -> Services).

If you are running Norton Internet Security, add an Exclusion for the SQL log files folder generated by Auto Update.


Days like these I'm glad I stuck with Windows 2000.

[TexasTreat]

Thanks, I'll give it a try...mine never unfreezes tho...it will sit like that all night long! But at this point I'll try anything cos I really like the screensaver...
Thanks..I'm off to turn off auto update!
Cheers, Tee

[TexasTreat]

Turning off the auto update feature did not do the trick. Still continues to
freeze the entire system within 2 mins of the screen saver starting...

what can I try next?

[Jim Sachs]

What is your framerate for the Aquarium? (Press the 's' key to display it.)

[feldon34]

TexasTreat,

Go into the Administrative Tools (in Control Panels) and fire up the Services panel. Look to see if Windows AutoUpdate is still set to Start. Turning it off in the control panel doesn't really completely turn it off. Microsoft = idiots.

[TexasTreat]

Jim, the framerate bounces between 49 - 52.

Feldon29: I turned it off via services and the control panel.
Of course now I continually get an annoying popup warning me that
it's off

What's next to try?

[TexasTreat]

PS: I tried changing the framerate to as low as 15 (looked awful), still froze, and then I let the system choose the framerate..still freezes within 2 mins - I just can not imagine what else to try...it all looks soooo beautiful for about 2 mins then the freeze (the bubble sounds become like a cd that is stuck on one note too) that jittery kind of sound..I am un able to break out of the freeze too. Always have to reboot...sigh...

[ESHIREY]

Did you check the water? hehehehe Just kidding.

[Jim Sachs]

Can you verify that the fan on the video card is working? (Coincidentally, mine failed today.)

[TexasTreat]

yep the fan is running...I opened up the case and verified it by sight.
I even thought maybe Diskeeper was interfering so I turned that off...and the system screensavers (MS) are working ok.

btw, what did your system do when the fan died? I've not experienced that one yet.

Thanks for all of your help..I sure hope we can find this elusive gremlin!
Cheers, Tee

[Jim Sachs]

The fan got very loud and started rattling before it gave out. Nothing else was damaged. I'll be looking for a new fan today.

I'm running out of ideas as far as your problem goes. This is a very rare problem, and is virtually unheard of since we put in the frame-limiting code. When you say that the system screensavers work fine -- are any of them 3D?

[Edgar]

There are a couple programs that you can run that will generate information about your system, DxDiag and MSInfo32. From Start Menu, click on "Run..." to run these tools.

DxDiag has a test for your display driver under Display, click on "Test DirectDraw" and follow the instructions. After that click on "Test Direct3D" and follow the instructions. When both of those tests are done, click on "Save All information..." to a text file.

MSInfo32 has a menuItem named "Export..." under File menu that will save out your system info on a text file.
MSInfo32 can take a long time to finish if you have many programs installed. MSInfo32 took at least 5 minutes on my system to complete.

If your computer crashes during these tests, then the problem can be anything from spyware, trojans, virus, corrupted files, or overheating.

If they succeed, you can either post the two files here for everyone to see or, email them to me.

Edit: Warning!!! You should look at the information reported before you post them here. There might be information you don't want anyone to see.

Edit2: On the MSInfo32 info, any info after "[Program Groups]" is not needed to resolve your problem, so you can search for that and delete everything below it on the log file.

[Edgar]

After looking at a copy of what MSInfo32 reports, there are actually useful infomation after "[Program Groups]". It is only "[Program Groups]" that is not so useful. There are plenty of information reported there that I did not know about. I will definitely save my current copy of the report to compare later if I start having problem with my own system.

Edit: Warning!!! There are definitely information in this file that is not appropriate to post in the open. Please just email the info to me.