Multiple crashes running Boinc/seti last 3 days

Win98, 512meg ram, Athlon xp2100. Current boinc (3.19) + seti (3.08)

All the crashes look the same. That is, the computer locks up hard.
Mouse doesn't respond, CTRL-ALT-DEL doesn't do anything. Have to hit
the reset button to restart the computer.
I had thought it was connected with running my media player
(BSPlayer) and boinc at the same time. Over the last 3 days I've tried
suspending boinc while watching videos. No crashes when I've done this.
HOWEVER, there are still too many crashes at other times.
I often notice I'm doing something related to copying files when it
crashes. Copying a file from the CD to the hard disk, unzipping a zip
file. Stuff like that. A bittorrent client is running almost all the
time. It was running almost all the time on the old seti program
without incident.
After the crash there are usually a few lost clusters here and there.
Some are obviously seti related (they look like the messages from the
boinc window) and there's a log file from my anti-virus program.
Disabling the anti-virus did nothing to diminish the frequency of the
crashes.
Although my computer is hardly the model of stablilty I've almost
never had crashes this severe, this often.
During the recent BOINC outage, once I ran out of work units, I had
no crashes like the ones I have while the new seti is running.
I had been running the old Seti (mostly CLI) since 1999 with few or
no problems (that I could blame on seti G)

These crashes are common enough and dangerous enough so that I don't
feel I can run boinc/seti on this computer anymore without risking a
massive hard disk screwup on a future crash. Not running the BT client
is not an option.
Unless somebody has a good idea I'll say so long to seti until I get
around to installing WinXP. I might start it up every week or so to see
if there's a new version of the seti client but would there be any way
to know if the changes were for more stabliity or for difference science
calcs? If they were for stability then I'd be happy to try it out.

(if you see this message twice I fouled up the subject line first time
and cancelled it later. but not all news servers accept cancels)

There's a good chance some of you won't be coming back.
I can deal with that. - Synonamess Botch

On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 20:35:10 +0000, Arthur Kimes wrote:

Win98, 512meg ram, Athlon xp2100. Current boinc (3.19) + seti (3.08)

No matter how buggy a program is, it should never bring down your system
or cause disk issues. The fact that Windows 9x allows that to happen
makes it a worthless piece of crap. Hell, I'd rather use Linsux than
Win98.

Unless somebody has a good idea I'll say so long to seti until I get
around to installing WinXP.

That is a very good idea. Windows XP/2000 is 10 Trillion times more
stable than Windows 9x. Windows XP is the best OS there is period.

On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 20:35:10 +0000, Arthur Kimes wrote:

Win98, 512meg ram, Athlon xp2100. Current boinc (3.19) + seti (3.08)

No matter how buggy a program is, it should never bring down your system
or cause disk issues. The fact that Windows 9x allows that to happen
makes it a worthless piece of crap. Hell, I'd rather use Linsux than
Win98.

Unless somebody has a good idea I'll say so long to seti until I get
around to installing WinXP.

That is a very good idea. Windows XP/2000 is 10 Trillion times more
stable than Windows 9x. Windows XP is the best OS there is period.

Al Wilson wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 20:35:10 +0000, Arthur Kimes wrote:


Win98, 512meg ram, Athlon xp2100. Current boinc (3.19) + seti (3.08)


No matter how buggy a program is, it should never bring down your system
or cause disk issues. The fact that Windows 9x allows that to happen
makes it a worthless piece of crap. Hell, I'd rather use Linsux than
Win98.


Unless somebody has a good idea I'll say so long to seti until I get
around to installing WinXP.


That is a very good idea. Windows XP/2000 is 10 Trillion times more
stable than Windows 9x. Windows XP is the best OS there is period.


I cannot say XP Pro is that great or even good. I had numerous BSOD
on a new Dell computer with it. I will admit that it was more stable
than Win 98 but not as stable as Linux, at least for me. I dumped XP
pro after to many crashes and reboots. Full time Linux.

Al Wilson wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 20:35:10 +0000, Arthur Kimes wrote:


Win98, 512meg ram, Athlon xp2100. Current boinc (3.19) + seti (3.08)


No matter how buggy a program is, it should never bring down your system
or cause disk issues. The fact that Windows 9x allows that to happen
makes it a worthless piece of crap. Hell, I'd rather use Linsux than
Win98.


Unless somebody has a good idea I'll say so long to seti until I get
around to installing WinXP.


That is a very good idea. Windows XP/2000 is 10 Trillion times more
stable than Windows 9x. Windows XP is the best OS there is period.


I cannot say XP Pro is that great or even good. I had numerous BSOD
on a new Dell computer with it. I will admit that it was more stable
than Win 98 but not as stable as Linux, at least for me. I dumped XP
pro after to many crashes and reboots. Full time Linux.

On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 20:35:10 GMT, (Arthur Kimes) wrote:

] Win98, 512meg ram, Athlon xp2100. Current boinc (3.19) + seti
(3.08)
]
] All the crashes look the same. That is, the computer locks up
hard.

I made what I THOUGHT was a trivial hardware change to my
computer over the weekend. I replaced my non-working 3.5" floppy with a
new(er) one. Since I didn't note the time I put it in I don't know for
SURE if I was having a lot of SETI crashes before. That floppy seemed
to be dead on arrival but I left it in the computer while fiddling with
other stuff.
After many crashes this weekend I tore the computer apart and
checked all the disk cables (thinking that I may have jarred something
when installing the floppy). I didn't notice anything. Kept having
crashes. I pulled the data and power cables out of the non-working
floppy last night and haven't had a crash since (and I've been running
seti again). Only 12 hours but running that long before this outbreak
of crashes (over the long weekend) would have been unlikely.
So. Could a floppy drive be SO MESSED UP that it makes my
computer crash even when I'm not using it?

(I'll take out the floppy for a detailed visual inspection later
on. I noticed that it wasn't packed very well when I took delivery)

There's a good chance some of you won't be coming back.
I can deal with that. - Synonamess Botch

On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 20:35:10 GMT, (Arthur Kimes) wrote:

] Win98, 512meg ram, Athlon xp2100. Current boinc (3.19) + seti
(3.08)
]
] All the crashes look the same. That is, the computer locks up
hard.

I made what I THOUGHT was a trivial hardware change to my
computer over the weekend. I replaced my non-working 3.5" floppy with a
new(er) one. Since I didn't note the time I put it in I don't know for
SURE if I was having a lot of SETI crashes before. That floppy seemed
to be dead on arrival but I left it in the computer while fiddling with
other stuff.
After many crashes this weekend I tore the computer apart and
checked all the disk cables (thinking that I may have jarred something
when installing the floppy). I didn't notice anything. Kept having
crashes. I pulled the data and power cables out of the non-working
floppy last night and haven't had a crash since (and I've been running
seti again). Only 12 hours but running that long before this outbreak
of crashes (over the long weekend) would have been unlikely.
So. Could a floppy drive be SO MESSED UP that it makes my
computer crash even when I'm not using it?

(I'll take out the floppy for a detailed visual inspection later
on. I noticed that it wasn't packed very well when I took delivery)

There's a good chance some of you won't be coming back.
I can deal with that. - Synonamess Botch

Al Wilson wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 20:35:10 +0000, Arthur Kimes wrote:
[...]
Win98, 512meg ram, Athlon xp2100. Current boinc (3.19) + seti (3.08)
[...]

No matter how buggy a program is, it should never bring down your system
[...]

Very true. Entire computer systems should _never_ crash. Anything less
than this is unacceptable and wrong. (Only applications might be
expected to crash on occasion while being 'developed'.)


That is a very good idea. Windows XP/2000 is 10 Trillion times more
stable than Windows 9x. Windows XP is the best OS there is period.

Some of us have been there, fought with the Group Policy Editor and
Services, and seen enough of the holes to move on elsewhere.

I'm amazed people put up with all the Windows problems. Their
'expectations' must be very low...

I have no need of any virus scanners, and similarly need not use any
firewall. (Read the sig below (;-))


Good luck,
Martin

--
---------- OS? What's that?!
- Martin - To most people, "Operating System" is unknown & strange.
- 53N 1W - Mandrake 10.0.1 GNU Linux
---------- http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en-gb/concept.php3

Al Wilson wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 20:35:10 +0000, Arthur Kimes wrote:
[...]
Win98, 512meg ram, Athlon xp2100. Current boinc (3.19) + seti (3.08)
[...]

No matter how buggy a program is, it should never bring down your system
[...]

Very true. Entire computer systems should _never_ crash. Anything less
than this is unacceptable and wrong. (Only applications might be
expected to crash on occasion while being 'developed'.)


That is a very good idea. Windows XP/2000 is 10 Trillion times more
stable than Windows 9x. Windows XP is the best OS there is period.

Some of us have been there, fought with the Group Policy Editor and
Services, and seen enough of the holes to move on elsewhere.

I'm amazed people put up with all the Windows problems. Their
'expectations' must be very low...

I have no need of any virus scanners, and similarly need not use any
firewall. (Read the sig below (;-))


Good luck,
Martin

--
---------- OS? What's that?!
- Martin - To most people, "Operating System" is unknown & strange.
- 53N 1W - Mandrake 10.0.1 GNU Linux
---------- http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en-gb/concept.php3

Arthur Kimes wrote:
[...]
So. Could a floppy drive be SO MESSED UP that it makes my
computer crash even when I'm not using it?

Yes. Problems on that interfacing could have unexpected knock-on effects.


(I'll take out the floppy for a detailed visual inspection later
on. I noticed that it wasn't packed very well when I took delivery)

If you've got another PC, try swapping the hardware around to
diagnose/confirm. Then again, FD drives are so cheap that it may not be
worth the effort.


There's a good chance some of you won't be coming back.
I can deal with that. - Synonamess Botch

If that is intended as a sig, preceed it with a "-- " (that's a dash,
dash, space).


Good luck,
Martin

--
---------- OS? What's that?!
- Martin - To most people, "Operating System" is unknown & strange.
- 53N 1W - Mandrake 10.0.1 GNU Linux
---------- http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en-gb/concept.php3