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[avmad]

Hi all,

I have a Dell D420 laptop with an external "HL-DT-ST CDRW/DVD GCC4244" drive (a standard Dell modular combo drive).  I'm running fully patched Win XP Pro.  My (licensed) MC is version 12.0.380.

I have successfully ripped many CDs to MS Media Player but have apparently hit an issue trying to do the same with Media Center 12.

During ripping, my machine will experience a Blue Screen (BSOD) and immediately reboot itself.  Because of that, I cannot read any data on the Blue Screen (not that it would probably help anyway).

In the last few days, I have sometimes been able to "put off" the BSOD by shutting down and restarting MC between CD rips but today, I simply cannot get through a whole disk without a BSOD and forced reboot somewhere in the ripping process.

I am fairly sure that I used to have this issue with MC 11 (but using a different Dell laptop with a different employer's image on it) and that this fact caused me to move away from MC for a while.

Any idea how I can eradicate this problem?

Thx!

avmad

[JimH]

Blue screens are usually hardware.  Could be a driver issue.  A different drive might work if you can swap.

[avmad]

Thanks.

I updated my firmware on the drive (I don't think there are other drivers) and then also updated my laptop bios.  Still getting the blue screens.

I'm going back to Media Player for a bit to see if I get the BSOD there too.  I'll report back if I find anything out.

Cheers!

avmad

[glynor]

A BSOD is almost always caused by either faulty hardware or faulty drivers.  This is certainly not 100% of the time, but it is the vast majority.  If you posted more information on what kind of BSOD you are getting (the specific error code) then that could be confirmed.  It is certainly entirely possible that you could never encounter a specific problem when using WiMP to do the rips (which uses completely different encoders and far less complex math) where the ripper in MC (or EAC or Foobar or any number of other applications) would manifest the problem.  LAME (the MP3 encoder MC uses) pushes the system pretty hard in order to generate the best quality MP3 file as fast as is possible!

It is quite unlikely (though certainly possible) that the blue-screen error in this case would be caused by the physical optical drive (firmware or whatever).  Optical drives aren't that complex (comparatively) and don't really do much that could cause that kind of issue.  If the drive was bad you could get read errors, failed rips, failed burns, and other similar errors, but not really a BSOD.  I'd look at these things (roughly in order of likelihood):

0. Drivers or Spyware -- Step one is to make sure the system is clean.  Lots of spyware inserts kernel hooks and/or "fake drivers" that intercept system calls and commonly cause blue screens (because they are written badly).  Scan your system thoroughly with Spybot Search and Destroy.  Remove anything it finds, reboot, scan again.  If there is anything it "can't" remove, visit the Bleeping Computer forums for more help.  Also, make sure you have the latest and greatest motherboard drivers for your computer.  You can typically obtain these from the manufacturer of the system (Dell, ASUS, HP, whatever), or directly from Intel, Nvidia, AMD, or whomever made the chipset for your system.

1. RAM -- Run Memtest86+.  Download the ISO CD-Rom Version, burn a Boot CD (using Nero in Burn Image mode or something similar), and then boot your computer up using it (you may need to go into the BIOS settings and tell it to boot to the CD-Rom Drive) Run the test for at least a good 4-5 "passes" (a few hours).  Make sure it doesn't show any errors at all.  If it does, you may have a bad stick of RAM (or it could be something else).  If it fails, I might first try bumping up the voltage on your memory (look for DDR voltage in the BIOS settings) by a small amount (0.1v or so).  If it still fails, try removing one or the other stick of RAM -- assuming you have two -- and trying again (and then repeat with the other removed).  If it fails in both cases, it might not be bad RAM, but a bad CPU or memory subsystem.

2. CPU -- The next thing to test is your CPU (and motherboard subsystem).  A good start would be to use the Orthos Stress Prime Test application (which is a special version of Prime95 designed for testing and which supports dual-core machines), and run it for at least 24 hours.  If both this and the Memtest86+ tests pass, then you can be reasonably sure it isn't your CPU or your RAM.  In this case, if you get errors it is likely the CPU, though it could be the RAM (but probably not if it passed #1).

3. The next thing to test, and which is a lot more difficult to test without special tools, is your Power Supply.  When your computer is ripping discs, particularly at high speed, it ramps up the power draw.  If your PSU is flaky or underpowered (did you add a bunch of hard drives and a new video card?) you could be getting power drop-outs that can cause BSODs.  If you have a voltage meter and know how to use it, you can test the pins on a free molex plug on the system, while it is running under load (during the Orthos test for example).  Also, if you disconnect the 20-pin or 24-pin connector from the motherboard (you can't do this while it is running obviously) you can force the PSU to "start up" by shorting out certain pins and test the individual power rails for the proper voltages.  As I said... This is hard for a "layman" to test.  If you know of a good computer shop around town, it might be worthwhile to take the computer in and ask them to test the power supply.

[avmad]

If you posted more information on what kind of BSOD you are getting (the specific error code) then that could be confirmed.

Thanks very much for the long post.  I'll be moving into full diagnostic mode asap.

Unfortunately, the BSOD flashed onto the screen for less than a second then immediately restarts the computer  ?.  Because of this, I cannot see the error code at all.  I have started to look at whether there is anything I can set in XP to get a dump file that contains the error that should be displayed on the screen but I don't know how to do that yet.

The power supply comments are less relevant to me given that my machine is a laptop but I will try the diagnostics suggestions.

I have been ripping using Media Player for an hour now with no blue screens, which has surprised me because I expected it to BSOD just the same as MC.

Thanks again!

avmad

[glynor]

That's because of a default stupid XP option.

Go to Start --> Control Panel --> System.  Switch to the Advanced Tab and click the Settings button under Startup and Recovery.  Uncheck Automatically Restart in the System Failure area and check Write an event to the system log (if currently unchecked).  Then OK and OK to back out.

Then it should keep the BSOD visible and not reboot automatically.

[glynor]

The power supply comments are less relevant to me given that my machine is a laptop but I will try the diagnostics suggestions.

Well, yes and no.  The Power Supply can certainly still go bad, though this is far less likely.  It's also possible to eliminate this possibility by running off of battery power and trying the test.  Usually the first sign that a PSU on a laptop has died is that the battery won't charge up anymore!

My list was more of a general-purpose list though, and yes, the PSU test would be more difficult to confirm on a laptop (as is everything else on a laptop).

Also...

I have been ripping using Media Player for an hour now with no blue screens, which has surprised me because I expected it to BSOD just the same as MC.

You might not have seen it because I added it later, but...

It is certainly entirely possible that you could never encounter a specific problem when using WiMP to do the rips (which uses completely different encoders and far less complex math) where the ripper in MC (or EAC or Foobar or any number of other applications) would manifest the problem.  LAME (the MP3 encoder MC uses) pushes the system pretty hard in order to generate the best quality MP3 file as fast as is possible!

[avmad]

Thanks for the quality input.

I'm a relatively frequent battery user (now actually) and the battery on this machine is in good shape and charges OK.  Just for reference, the drive on these Dell laptops is within an external case and connects via a custom double height USB that has an extra power connector built it.  During these ripping sessions, the laptop has been plugged into its base station and the drive socket is on that base station (although I do not know if there is separate power within the base station I suspect there might be).  I have no other power hungry devices attached to the machine (only the wireless keyboard transmitter device).

My next move is to update the motherboard drivers as you suggested.

BTW - I borrowed a Dell modular DVD RW drive (fits into same modular case as my CDRW - DVD ROM drive) and tried the rip with that instead.  It instantly blue screened as soon as it started to read the CD!

Stand by for the next riveting installment...

avmad

[glynor]

BTW - I borrowed a Dell modular DVD RW drive (fits into same modular case as my CDRW - DVD ROM drive) and tried the rip with that instead.  It instantly blue screened as soon as it started to read the CD!

Stand by for the next riveting installment...

In your case I'd really guess that it is either Spyware or drivers.  I've personally seen Spyware cause similar problems.

[fitbrit]

Just to echo what Glynor's saying, I used to get BSoD all the time when trying to import media files into my library. This was cured by simply upgrading the video card drivers. I ddin't think it would work, but it did; the link between incorporating video files into the library and vid card drivers is intuitively tenuous.

[avmad]

Quick update:

I still haven't had time to run the full diagnostics.
I did run SpyBot (was already installed on my machine anyway) - no threats detected beyond the usual smattering of cookie stuff.
I did update all firmware and drivers on the Dell page for my machine.
I did setup the restart options so that the machine would write a dump file
I did indicate for it to not restart immediately after a BSOD.  However, this setting is being ignored cos it still does restart straight away  ?

Just tried to rip another CD in MC.  Blue screened immediately I clicked onto the "unamed drive F:" menu item on left.

I have a directory called "minidmp" which is where the system is keeping the dump files.  However, I have not yet downloaded whatever tools I need to actually read the dump file.

More later...

avmad

[glynor]

I did indicate for it to not restart immediately after a BSOD.  However, this setting is being ignored cos it still does restart straight away  ?

That's odd.  I suppose there could be something vendor specific set on your Dell.  I haven't encountered that myself though!

One little thing.... You did make sure to update your Spybot copy, right?  A Spybot scan is only as good as the last time it was updated.  The malware vendors change amazingly quickly...

Also, would you mind downloading and trying EAC to see if you can rip with it?  If the rip works in EAC, perhaps you do have something MC-specific (a corrupted install or encoder plugin or something).

[AoXoMoXoA]

Perhaps you need to change a BIOS setting to prevent the restart upon crash and keep the BSOD showing.

[JohnT]

You could try enabling all logging in MC and then click on the drive to cause the BSOD. After rebooting go to logging and view the previous log file. You can email this to me at johnt at jriver.com
Because of the blue screen, the log may not contain anything relevant but it might be worth a look.

[avmad]

Another quick update:

I downloaded the latest spybot version (I was on 1.4) - Still no threats showing.
I downloaded MemTest86+ but have not yet run it
I downloaded Orthos Stress Prime test but can't use it because it depends on Prime95 and the website for that tool seems to be down.
I enabled logging in MC and sent the output to johnt.
I installed EAC OK but it will not work.  When I try to rip it says:

Unhandled Exception

at NativeSCSI.504 -> INDEX-RANGE

EAC reports the same error with either of my external modular Dell drives (one is a CDRW DVD reader and the other is a DVD+RW).

Will report back when I have anything else.

Cheers!

[Alex B]

What other CD/DVD programs you have installed? The programs that can make CD-RW discs show up like big floppy discs with drag and drop support are known to be able to cause problems. For example, personally I don't install the InCD part of Nero.

at NativeSCSI.504 -> INDEX-RANGE

I am not sure if this would help, but you could try to install the good old Adaptec ASPI drivers:
http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/speed/software_pc/aspi/aspi_471a2_exe.htm

(I assume your are on XP, the drivers may not work on Vista)

[avmad]

Quick Update 3:

I figured out that the Ortho Stress Prime does not need a separate installation of Prime 95, so I have run that for 10 and a half hours and all tests were completed successfully.

I downloaded the "Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO (.zip)" version of MemTest86+. Does anyone know how to create a bootable CD using this file?

Thanks.

[ThoBar]

Download BurnCDCC from here ... http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html
It does not need installation, and has only basic XP dependancies.

Use this to burn the (extracted) ISO to a CD.

[rjm]

Just a hunch I will throw out which you can promptly ignore if you wish...

I have experienced many memory problems on laptops over the years. Sometimes a simple re-seat of the memory module fixes the problem. Other times the memory is defective and needs to be replaced. In some worst cases I have seen motherboards with known design problems that require a motherboard replacement and/or never work properly.

Frequently the problem occurs with the 2nd memory module. In other words, the module that is added on to the base configuration for extra memory.

I make this last point because a couple months ago I saw what appeared to be a serious memory leak in MC when ripping some cds. I have not been able to reproduce the problem since then, but to be honest, I have not tried very hard either.

Puting these two observations together we arrive at one plausible explanation for your BSOD. When ripping MC may leak up into the higher address space, hence accessing your 2nd memory module (which may not be accessed very frequently in normal day to day use) and if the memory is defective you will get a BSOD.

It has been my experience that memory tests are very poor at detecting some memory module problems. I don't know why, I just know that tests have passed for me on known bad memory.

The best way to prove or disprove this theory is to remove your 2nd memory module. Your system will still run fine but will be a little slower. Then rip a CD and see if the problem is fixed.

Of course if you only have one memory module then I have wasted your time with this idea.

Good luck.

[glynor]

I just thought I'd mention that if EAC can't rip either than the problem certainly lies with your computer and not with MC.  It could be hardware, or it could be software.  Since software is easiest (and cheapest) to fix, I'd probably make that my top priority.  There are great tips in this thread (particularly the tip on the packet writing software which is often junky).  I'd probably uninstall ANY software you have installed that handles CD/DVD burning, and test systematically (reinstalling one item at a time).

I'd also certainly test the RAM (though it's rare that a bad module can pass even one Memtest86+ test, much less multiple passes).

[JohnT]

My next move is to update the motherboard drivers as you suggested.

Did you get a chance to check on this? The EAC error "at NativeSCSI.504 -> INDEX-RANGE" seems to point to a possible IDE driver problem.
I looked at the log files you sent and didn't find anything unusual, other than the large number of tracks on the CD - 43 tracks.

[Alex B]

JohnT,

Do you remember our discussion about ISO file creation? It would be useful if MC could alternatively save an ISO file instead of direct burning. For example, if the user has a problem with the burner on the PC where MC is installed it would make possible to compose the disc contents with MC and burn the ISO file with some other PC (using a generic burning program).