XP reboots when starting Audacity

[kozikowski]

The machine reboots literally -- like you just turned it on? It's correct that this is very unusual behavior and the list of things that can do this is pretty small. You could have a bad memory stick. Only powerful audio and video editing software (and Photoshop) needs to access all the memory in your machine and you could have a bad segment way up in high memory that doesn't affect anything else. Microsoft makes a nice memory tester and it's free.

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

One of the variations is to create a bootable CD and start the machine from that instead of regular Windows. Then launch the test. Go through the test multiple times -- start it when you go to bed.

It's a memory tester, but it's really stressing the rest of your machine, too. Highly recommended.

Koz

[sandra987]

I checked the drivers - I do have the latest version.

I've seen the new post - Yes it does a reboot just as if I'd just switched it off at the mains and then on again (not as if I'd done a 'restart' from the menu when it does a lot of closing-down activity first).
It's getting a bit late to start downloading stuff now, but I'll have a go with the memory tester tomorrow night.
Thank you both for your efforts on this.

[Gale Andrews]

It's a computer crash like a "blue screen error". Windows is I guess configured to restart automatically without showing the blue screen. Audacity itself does not have the kernel privileges to cause a system reboot, so it's a driver problem.

If this only started when using Audacity, it's almost certainly a problem with your sound device drivers. Just possibly it could be a conflict with some other software that configures the sound device. It could possibly happen for example if you install a program that installs its own drivers for the sound device. These special drivers then become in effect a separate "virtual" device. Total Recorder for example installs a "virtual" sound device and if that "device" is set as the default Windows device, Audacity will use that by default and has been known to crash (though that does not necessarily make the system crash too).

If you are only using a single Realtek sound device (check at "Sounds and Audio Devices" in the Windows Control Panel) then simply updating its drivers to the latest ones specific to XP and to your particular computer model might cure the problem. See Updating Sound Device Drivers for help. The drivers should be supplied by the motherboard manufacturer if possible. Realtek do have generic drivers on their site but that would be second-best to downloading drivers from the motherboard or computer manufacturer. Avoid drivers made by Microsoft, which are only generic.

If that does not resolve the issue you may want to search the computer for "Appcompat.txt" and see if that identifies the exact file that caused the problem. If that does not identify the problem, the memory dump should do so. You can analyse the memory dump fairly easily by downloading WhoCrashed. Before using WhoCrashed, you’ll have to make sure that Microsoft Debugging Tools for Windows has been installed. The first time you click the Analyze button to look at the dump, WhoCrashed will ask you to select the path to the Microsoft Debugging Tools for Windows (usually in C:Program FilesDebugging Tools for Windows). If you don't have the tools then you can download the required installer by clicking “Download the required file from Microsoft site now”.

If you are not sure where the memory dump is, right-click over My Computer which should bring you to "System Properties". Click the "Advanced" tab, and then click "Settings" under "Startup and Recovery".



Gale