Hog/Pc crash!! Argggg

[Gazlights]

Right so I was using a wholehog IIpc today and whilst changing show the computer crashed and I got on internet explorer error reporting message come up......I had to ctr alt del and end task...restart the hog pc and reload the show...this has happened several times now and its alwas when changing show folder, I can reliably recreate the crash....anyone experienced anything like this before? am I best of just saving the shows to disk and reinstalling windows/hogpc?

 

then to top it all off during the show both screens just went black and the computer restarted, this has also happened a few times...and I havent got a scoobie what the problem might be...

 

any ideas?

[five_pin_xlr]

I had this error once, and just repaired hogpc. Now works fine.

 

br

 

alex

[Frank]

Did you tried to repair the HOGPC app.?

And did this solve your problem.

 

Thanks

[paulears]

This is exactly the kind of issue that plagues PC based equipment - and I for one, would not consider using any pc that has anythng other than a clean PC configuration. I kind of feel sympathy with the manufacturers - as they have no way of testing their software with typical other software installations - no such thing. I have two PC set ups, one for audio and one for video. with just one application. They run perfectly, cause little trouble. I can't see me daring to run a show on a machine with word, excell, I-tunes, burners, dvd players, firewalls, virus checkers, msn, yahoo etc etc as these things allways seem to combine to cause instability. It isn't then air to blame the lighting manufacturers. An internal pc, even with windows seems better - as long as the internet isn't involved anywhere. Maybe I'm a bit paranoid?

[skier]

I have to agree with what has been said above. We used Hog pc for 2 years with out any real problems. (although it would sometimes croak when we used pig + active but a quick save before doing this stopped it being a problem.) Our machine had no internet access and only had office installed which was for sorting out our rota's.

 

I would re install windows/Hog Pc and then think about who uses the machine and what they use it for!

[lightsource]

This is exactly the kind of issue that plagues PC based equipment - and I for one, would not consider using any pc that has anythng other than a clean PC configuration.

 

An internal pc, even with windows seems better - as long as the internet isn't involved anywhere.

 

Maybe I'm a bit paranoid?

 

No Paul you're not paranoid, but you can also add Windows Media player to the list, we have a PC that constantly crashes while playing certain media files, which play perfectly well on the same machine using other software. And when I say crash, I mean the only button that woks is the power switch :unsure:

[musht]

Apart from all the good advice about minimum install would also look at the hardware, blanking screen sounds possibly hardware related.

 

Usual checks, hard drive`s SMART reporting OK, CPU temp OK, all air flow and fans clear, everything firmly in its socket,power cons, processor, cards and especially memory.

 

Once sure its plugged together solidly and its running as cool as it should, stress test it for as long as you can, preferably 48+ hours, look on the net for `burn in` software which should expose any hardware giving in under pressure.

[lightsource]

PM sent to Gazlights

[Darkfold]

Interesting programs to look at if you suspect that the hardware is faulty are:

 

Prime95 and memtest86+ (the plus sign is important)

 

Those will error if you have a problem with either a flakey CPU motherboard or memory.

For the hard drives, I haven't found a SMART monitoring program that I like, but a little trial and error should find one. Stellar seems ok, but I just don't get on with it.

 

Also, if you have a (nearly, it has to power on...) completely busted hard drive that you need to get data off, have a look at Spinrite. Very effective, it'll get the data back from just about anything.

 

 

Personally, anything critical PC based should be set up specifically before use. I have an image of a clean windows xp install that I load in just before use. I then make very sure that no grubby hands get anywhere near it while I need it.