Installing Audacity crashes XP Pro.

[GeorgeBuck]

I've just bought a new PC (spec'n below) running XP Pro, and everything was fine until I downloaded and installed Audacity Stable 1.2.6. The computer crashed spectacularly: no power to the PS2-connected keyboard and the screen displayed the ASUS P5N-D setup screen (but I couldn't type anything of course!)
I returned to the shop, they suspected either Windows Service Pack 3 which I'd downloaded, or Audacity (though they weren't familiar with it).
I tried again to install Audacity but the same problem occured.

Spec'n:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200
ASUS P5N-D motherboard
4Gb Corsair DDR2
NVIDIA GeForce 210 512Gb
2x 500Gb SATA2 Maxtor drives.

Any ideas please?
I don't have any problems with my old PC running Audacity in XP Pro, with its AMD Athlon and very little storage or memory!

[steve]

I don't think that Audacity is capable of creating such a spectacular crash. Even if Audacity goes into nuclear meltdown, your system should still be running. I suspect that there is something more fundamentally unstable about your computer. For now I would suggest leaving Audacity and running your computer without it to see if there are any other problems that need to be sorted out first.

It may be worth checking that all of your hardware drivers are installed and running correctly:
Right click on "My Computer" and select "Properties".
Click on the "Hardware" tab.
Click on the "Device Manager" button.

This should open the "device manager" which will show a list of "devices" on your computer. You should not see any big yellow question marks "?" or red "X" s or any other warnings. It should look something like this:

device-manager.png (24.98 KiB) Viewed 1270 times

[GeorgeBuck]

It's been running stably for about a week now, Steve. No problems in Device Manager. One suspect I've thought of is Norton Internet Security; this was supplied free with one of the installation discs and the supplier installed it. I've removed it as I've got a Kaspersky licence for 3 PCs. I'm nervous about chancing Audacity again but I guess I'll have to try it.

[kozikowski]

Do you use any other memory hungry programs? Audacity and many other live production programs use up all the memory you have and would like more if you could afford it.

Many people go for years not knowing that the last memory stick near the top is bad until a program tries to use it. Doesn't have to be Audacity. Any audio or video program -- or Photoshop. Do a gaussian blur in Photoshop and the machine will go nuts trying to complete the task. In your case, it would probably go nuts and stay nuts.

When the operating system tries to use the memory way up there and fails, it will crash back to boot up.

"Hello and welcome to ASUS!!"

No. Windows XP is not in the habit of doing that.

Microsoft makes a delightful memory checker.

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

Let it run multiple times.

Koz

[Bryan Bradshaw]

Good Day, after changing from windows xp to Windows 7 I am unable to install the recording soft ware Is audacity compatiable with windows 7 ? I would be gratifull for any help

[steve]

Until Audacity 2.0 is released you need to use the latest beta version.
You may also need to use it in XP compatibility mode.

[andreasm82]

I also had a crash while installing audacity. My explorer crashed. But this only happens on the first installation attempt.

Ereignistyp: Fehler
Ereignisquelle: Application Error
Ereigniskategorie: Keine
Ereigniskennung: 1000
Datum: 02.12.2009
Zeit: 18:02:49
Benutzer: Nicht zutreffend
Computer: VENSYS51
Beschreibung:
Fehlgeschlagene Anwendung explorer.exe, Version 6.0.2900.5512, fehlgeschlagenes Modul ntdll.dll, Version 5.1.2600.5755, Fehleradresse 0x00011980.

Weitere Informationen über die Hilfe- und Supportdienste erhalten Sie unter http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Daten:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 65 78 70 ure exp
0018: 6c 6f 72 65 72 2e 65 78 lorer.ex
0020: 65 20 36 2e 30 2e 32 39 e 6.0.29
0028: 30 30 2e 35 35 31 32 20 00.5512
0030: 69 6e 20 6e 74 64 6c 6c in ntdll
0038: 2e 64 6c 6c 20 35 2e 31 .dll 5.1
0040: 2e 32 36 30 30 2e 35 37 .2600.57
0048: 35 35 20 61 74 20 6f 66 55 at of
0050: 66 73 65 74 20 30 30 30 fset 000
0058: 31 31 39 38 30 0d 0a 11980..