Blue Screen after 15 secs...

[fluid]

Has anyone had problems starting PTF, and then, after everthing is loaded, it looks fine, and then all of a sudden I get a blue screen that reads:

An exception OE has occured at 0028:C159C2A9 in VXD ctpci9x(01) + 000534F9. This was called from 0028:C159F19C in ctpci9x(01) + 0005F19C. It may be possible to continue normally.

I posted this same thing a week ago, and tech supt. told me to check and see if my sound card is sharing with anything else. My sound card is sharing #10 with "ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI ICQ Steering." I'm not sure how to change the setting or if is actually my problem. Please help.

Athlon
320 mb ram
soundblaster card

fluid



[This message has been edited by fluid (edited November 12, 2000).]

[Kenn LeGault]

Hi Fluid,

If you're seeing a crash in a certain VxD file (in your case, ctpci9x), I would try to figure out what application/device is using this VxD and see if you can disable it or remove it. I searched my systems and I don't see a driver file by that name, so I don't think it's a standard windows system file -- it must have come from something you installed.

You could use regedit to search for the name of the VxD and see if that gives you any clues as to the application/driver it belongs to, or you could use the Microsoft System Information tool (in Programs->Accessories->System Tools). Once you identify what that driver is used for, you could either try to get a newer version of the file (and hope the conflict has been fixed), or you could temporarily disable that driver (using a different hardware profile, or by uninstalling it).

As always, it's probably a good idea to backup your system before you start messing with driver files. I highly recommend "Ghost" for backing up system partitions.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Kenn LeGault
Digidesign

[fluid]

Ken:

In my system properties, under Device Manager-System Devices, I have two Direct Memory Controllers, one of which has a yellow exclamation point next to it. When I click on properties, the device status says:

The VDMAD.VXD device loader(s) for this device could not load the device driver. (Code 2)

Would this affect PTF?

fluid

[Kenn LeGault]

Hi Fluid,

It sounds to me like the VDMAD VxD isn't getting loaded, but that there is another similar driver that is being loaded (so it's probably OK). A yellow exclamation on a "duplicate" device in the device manager usually indicates a driver that had a bad installation (1/2 installed) or one that was paritally removed. If you see another device of a similar type right next to it that is functioning, it's probably OK. You could try to remove the one that has the yellow exclamation icon on it -- this shouldn't hurt. I guess there is a chance this is related to your problem, but it's not obvious to me.

But your original post cited ctpci9x.vxd -- did you ever try disabling this driver? Did you track down what it was used for/by?

Regards,
Kenn LeGault
Digidesign

[fluid]

When I use regedit, I do a "find vxd", and it comes up as Name: ab (Default), Data : "vxdfile".

fluid

[Kenn LeGault]

Hi Fluid,

I've tried to determine what the ctpci9x.vxd driver is used for, but I can't find anything by that name anywhere. Someone here at Digidesign mentioned that drivers starting with the letters "CT" may be from Creative, but all my searches on the web and on Creative's website didn't yield a file by that name.

If this driver is crashing, one possible work-around is to disable or remove the driver (I tried to suggest this before, but I didn't explain it well enough). Try this:

Search your hard drives for the file called "CTPCI9X.VXD" and when you find it, rename it to something like "CTPCI9X.XXX" and then reboot. When Windows restarts, this driver will not be loaded, so you could try to launch PT Free and see what happens.

There is a chance that this driver is used by some device on your computer, such as a sound card or video card, so renaming the file may have undesired side-effects (like the device won't work). So, this is probably not a long-term solution, but it may help you isolate the problem. If this file is used by your sound hardware, then this is obviously not a good solution. You may want to use the "System Information" utility under Programs/Accessories/System Tools to look for the CTPCI9X.VXD file and see which device(s) it is associated with. You can use this utility to list all of the devices/drivers in your system.

If you reboot and Windows crashes (unlikely, but possible), you should restart Windows in "Safe Mode" (press F4 as soon as you see the Windows logo during boot), and rename the driver file back to the original name (CTPCI9X.vxd).

By the way, we are working on an update release for PT Free that will fix several known bugs, and your blue-screen problem may be resolved by this next release (we found a bug that caused some wave drivers to crash under certain conditions). We plan to release a new version within a couple weeks.

Hope this helps,
Kenn LeGault
Digidesign

[fluid]

It turns out that my sound card IS using this driver. I've read on the DUC that many people are using SB live cards. Would this fix my problem? Is PTF incompatable with regular SB cards, or is it just mine? I've also read about people uninstalling, and then reinstalling their sound card drivers. Would this work for me?

fluid

[Kenn LeGault]

Hi Fluid,

We tried several flavors of Sound Blaster cards (like the Live! version) and they seem to work well for many people. It is probably worth doing a search on the Windows PT Free DUC for "Live!" and review some of these posts.

Other versions of Sound Blaster and "Sound Blaster-compatibile" cards should work, but we didn't test all of them.

If you've tried all the suggestions for Sound Blaster cards (including getting the latest drivers for your card) and you're still seeing problems, it may be time to get another sound card (there are some pretty inexpensive ones out there). Also, we should have a new version of PT Free out in a couple weeks that will have bug fixes -- this may solve the problem(s) you're seeing.

Good Luck,
Kenn LeGault
Digidesign

[alhafvar]

maybe off-range
but what kind of video do you use ???