Blue Screen of Death

[Kragen Ironfist]

ok here goes I have two machines at home...

My main PC (Built March 2003)
Windows XP Home Edition, Service Pack 2, Version 2002
Abit IT-7 Max 2 Mainboard
Pentium 4 2.80 GHz CPU
1.0 GB RAM (uprgaded from 512 MB in April 2004)
120 GB Maxtor HDD (10.3 GB Free) (replaced 2 x failed 80 GB HDD's June 2005)
PNY NVidia GeForce 6600 128 MB DDR Video Card (Replaced Failing Leadteak GeForce 4 card in May 2006) Driver Version 8.4.2.1 (08/03/2006)
Creative Sound BLaster Audigy Live

My Laptop (Bought September 2006)
Hewlett Packard Pavilion zd7000
Windows XP Media Centre Edition, Service Pack 2 Version 2002
Pentium 4 3.20 GHz CPU
512 MB RAM
60 GB Toshiba HDD (47.1GB Free)
NVidia GeForce FX Go 5600 128 MB Video Card Driver Version 4.7.1.2 (10/12/2003)
Conexant AC-Link Audio (whatever that is )

Now on my laptop the game installs and works perfectly first time. However on my main PC it is a different story...

the game starts to run (opens the little window to put the game into or trys to enter fullscreen mode) and then I get a  blue screen of death, I don't even get to see a WZ splash screen before it dies.

The BSOD contains a STOP code which reads  STOP: 0x0000008E (0xC0000005, 0x84A82006, 0xB871CB40, 0x00000000) althought please ntoe that the strings enclosed in the brackets change every time this happens.

It then dumps physical memory and restarts my machine.

I have tried this with debug mode, the stout file remains empty but the sterr file contains the following information

wz:        Warzone 2100 - Version 2.0.5 - Built Dec 24 2006
wz:        Compiled against PhysFS version: 1.0.1
wz:        Linked against PhysFS version: 1.0.1
wz:        Write dir: C:\Documents and Settings\David Bond\My Documents\Warzone 2100\
wz:        Base dir: C:\Program Files\Warzone 2100\
wz:        Loading the registry from config
wz:        Parsing the registry from config
error:      Registry file config is empty!
wz:        Saving the registry to config
wz:        We are to write (config) as (config) of size 0
wz:        Successfully wrote to C:\Documents and Settings\David Bond\My Documents\Warzone 2100\\config with 0 bytes
wz:        registerSearchPath: Registering C:\Documents and Settings\David Bond\My Documents\Warzone 2100\ at priority 2
wz:        rebuildSearchPath: Cleaning up
wz:        rebuildSearchPath: Switching to multiplay mods
wz:        registerSearchPath: Registering C:\Program Files/data/ at priority 3
wz:        rebuildSearchPath: Cleaning up
wz:        rebuildSearchPath: Switching to multiplay mods
wz:        registerSearchPath: Registering C:\Program Files/share/warzone2100/ at priority 4
wz:        rebuildSearchPath: Cleaning up
wz:        rebuildSearchPath: Switching to multiplay mods
wz:        registerSearchPath: Registering C:\Program Files\Warzone 2100\ at priority 5
wz:        rebuildSearchPath: Cleaning up
wz:        rebuildSearchPath: Switching to multiplay mods
wz:        Search paths:
wz:            [C:\Documents and Settings\David Bond\My Documents\Warzone 2100\]
wz:            [C:\Program Files\Warzone 2100\mp.wz]
wz:            [C:\Program Files\Warzone 2100\]
wz:            [C:\Program Files\Warzone 2100\warzone.wz]
wz:        gamedesc.lev found at C:\Program Files\Warzone 2100\warzone.wz
main:      reinitializing
net:        NETinit
never:      NETPLAY: Init called, MORNIN'

the one time I tried to run in fullscreen, I did so without the debug switch and the sterr file read

error:      Registry file config is empty!

HELP!!!!!

[Cmdr]

Well, looking here

0x0000008E: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
(Click to consult the online MSDN article.)
A kernel mode program generated an exception which the error handler didn’t catch. These are nearly always hardware compatibility issues (which sometimes means a driver issue or a need for a BIOS upgrade).

• “STOP 0x0000008e” Error Message During Windows XP Setup {KB 315335} Win XP
• Games: “Stop” Error Message That References Nv4_disp.dll {KB 325730} Flight Simulator, other games (wth Nvidia-based video adapter)
• Your Computer Stops Responding When You Use the Highlighter Feature & the Font Color Feature {KB 829578} Win XP

On top of making sure you have up to date drivers / bios / directx - I would run memtest to make sure you ddon't have any flaky memory.

[DevUrandom]

We don't utilize DirectX... (But it doesn't hurt to have the latest version installed, neither.)

Additionally this doesn't look very much as if Warzone could have generated that BSOD.
And the MSDN link from Cmdr also suggest that the exception happened in the Kernel, and not in an userspace program. (Are userspace program able to create BSODs anyway? On Linux I know they can't cause a Kernel Oops (the equivalent to the Windows BSODs).)

[kage]

actually, "kernel panic" is the equiv to the windows bsod -- "kernel oops" is very often continuable without many side effects (though kernel oops sometimes leads to a kernel panic).

anyways, though, dev is right: there's no way warzone could cause a kernel oops in linux, since none of it is run in anything but userspace, and i'm not as familiar with the boundary between kernel/userland in windows, but if you get a bsod, it's always an operating system or driver problem, but not directly the program you were running. i think something has to be running in "ring 0" ("unmonitored kernel space" in windows) to generate a bsod -- half the time it's windows, half the time it's some third party driver, but you can never be sure since everything's proprietary; you might update to a new video card driver and think you fixed the problem, but it may have been some wierd interaction between the video card driver and something unrelated.

best bet, actually, is to downgrade all your drivers to those you remember may have done better (if you've experienced bsods on this current config with other games), or failing that, unfortunately, reinstalling windows always works, and if it doesn't, it generally means it's a hardware problem.

[Kragen Ironfist]

well updated drivers as suggested

now running NVidia driver 6.14.10.9371 (22/10/2006)

and Creative driver 5.12.4.1196 (11/08/2006)

and game seems to be running ok

[DevUrandom]

(Please remind of adding a paragraph to the readme/installer: "Make sure you got the latest drivers, especially for your video-card.")