Crashing

[Theresamarie1]

Hi,
I'm not sure if this is the right place or not, my first post, so please move if not.

I am experiencing instability and crashing of the latest version of the software.    I've had it lock up on me a couple of times recently, to where nothing other than cntl-alt-delete will bring my system back, and several times now (doesn't seem a fluke) it's caused a system restart either automatically or forced by me.   I'm not seeing this anywhere else right now.

On the crashing I was running DBE and could not get it to recognize keystrokes.. system was chirping at keystrokes.   I tried to see if any dialog was open but I couldn't do anything, couldn't move or minimize anything.    I couldn't get other programs to the front, basically the system was locked up.   

And now several times over the last 10 days, it's locked up while coming back from hibernation or I find a reset system (I come to a system which is clean and nothing running and loosing some work on a project).    I went into event viewer but really don't see what might be causing the issue.   For the most part I only have a browser open along with PixInsight.

Debug help?

Thanks,
Terri

[ngc1535]

Hi Terri,

I can't offer any suggestions on the software side. It would be pretty unusual for a software to cause that kind of crash. I defer to others.
If you cannot find a software reason for what is going on...
You description does strike a chord with me. I recently struggled with some computer issues like this, and it turns it the issue was bad memory. PI and image
processing programs use quite of bit it... so you might not see issues until that part of RAM is active. Bad memory is so insidious.
Anyway, this might not be the issue- but certainly is an issue to consider in the panoply of possible problems.
-adam

[Theresamarie1]

Thank you Adam,
You know I wondered about this but not entirely clear on how to debug.  I've put 16G into this machine recently, a windows machine (which I'm not entirely fond of), but it's also my capture machine so I thought I might be able to keep all astro-work on one machine.  I guess I could process on my MacBook and just move the files around.  The MacBook, for the most part, will run forever without a reboot it seems.

Since no one else is seeing this, which I noticed when I looked around, the system is suspect.   It's just funny that it happens mostly while idle and not when I'm using it or running a process.   


Terri

Hi Terri,

I can't offer any suggestions on the software side. It would be pretty unusual for a software to cause that kind of crash. I defer to others.
If you cannot find a software reason for what is going on...
You description does strike a chord with me. I recently struggled with some computer issues like this, and it turns it the issue was bad memory. PI and image
processing programs use quite of bit it... so you might not see issues until that part of RAM is active. Bad memory is so insidious.
Anyway, this might not be the issue- but certainly is an issue to consider in the panoply of possible problems.
-adam

[pfile]

you can run memtest86 to find out if you have a bad memory, and prime95 to see if the CPU for some reason is making mistakes (this is usually only likely when you have overclocked the CPU or perhaps if your cooling is suspect.)

rob

[Theresamarie1]

Thanks Rob, I'll give memtest a try.  This is a laptop, so no over clocking or accelerating in any form.


Terri

you can run memtest86 to find out if you have a bad memory, and prime95 to see if the CPU for some reason is making mistakes (this is usually only likely when you have overclocked the CPU or perhaps if your cooling is suspect.)

rob

[pfile]

one thing that sometimes comes up with laptops are blocked air vents/dusty air vents which hampers cooling. having said that most modern CPUs are pretty good about keeping themselves out of thermal shutdown, but maybe it still gets hot enough to cause computation errors...

rob