For the past few months I have been having random crashes to both Firefox and IE while running SETI@home v7 on my Windows 7 machine sometimes my gadgets crash as well.

This only happens once or twice a week even though the PC is running 24/7, still it is often enough that it is starting to annoy me a fair amount so I thought I would try some troubleshooting to see if I can narrow down what is causing it.

The first thing I would like to do is to disable SETI from using my Radeon 6950 and see if this stops the other crashes I mentioned above. I think this would be done by using the cc_config.xml.

I was wondering if someone could help me with the specifics of what exactly this would look like in the cc_config.xml file? Any help here would be appreciated.

I wonder why this option isn't under the Computing Preferences anyway? It seems it would make things much easier and questions like this much less frequent.

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SETI V7 stresses hardware more than V6 did plus the AVX instructions that your CPU supports are also in action now creating more heat.

Have you cleaned the dust out of your case out lately?

But a lot of people lately have found that they do need better cooling to run SETI V7.

[edit] Better ventilated cases are usually the best option for most people (as their old case/s are no better than ovens at getting rid of heat), but if your case already has good ventilation then a better CPU cooling solution is required.

Check your Event Viewer though to see if something else is causing your problem.[/edit]

Cheers.

I wonder why this option isn't under the Computing Preferences anyway? It seems it would make things much easier and questions like this much less frequent.

It's under SETI@home preferences, third item down:

Use ATI GPU
Enforced by version 6.10+ yes

It makes more sense for that to be a per-project option, rather than a global BOINC computing option.

If you set that option to 'no', SETI won't allocate any new work to your GPU, but will let you finish off any work you currently have cached - so don't expect it to take effect immediately.

I wonder why this option isn't under the Computing Preferences anyway? It seems it would make things much easier and questions like this much less frequent.

It's under SETI@home preferences, third item down:

Use ATI GPU
Enforced by version 6.10+ yes

It makes more sense for that to be a per-project option, rather than a global BOINC computing option.

If you set that option to 'no', SETI won't allocate any new work to your GPU, but will let you finish off any work you currently have cached - so don't expect it to take effect immediately.

Thanks Richard as I forgot to answer that 1 due to being annoyed by another here.

Cheers.

I wonder why this option isn't under the Computing Preferences anyway? It seems it would make things much easier and questions like this much less frequent.

It's under SETI@home preferences, third item down:

Use ATI GPU
Enforced by version 6.10+ yes

It makes more sense for that to be a per-project option, rather than a global BOINC computing option.

If you set that option to 'no', SETI won't allocate any new work to your GPU, but will let you finish off any work you currently have cached - so don't expect it to take effect immediately.

If everybody read the documentation...

I wonder why this option isn't under the Computing Preferences anyway? It seems it would make things much easier and questions like this much less frequent.

It's under SETI@home preferences, third item down:

Use ATI GPU
Enforced by version 6.10+ yes

It makes more sense for that to be a per-project option, rather than a global BOINC computing option.

If you set that option to 'no', SETI won't allocate any new work to your GPU, but will let you finish off any work you currently have cached - so don't expect it to take effect immediately.

If everybody read the documentation...

...we'd all be out of a job? Wait, we're not employed here. :-P

I wonder why this option isn't under the Computing Preferences anyway? It seems it would make things much easier and questions like this much less frequent.

It's under SETI@home preferences, third item down:

Use ATI GPU
Enforced by version 6.10+ yes

It makes more sense for that to be a per-project option, rather than a global BOINC computing option.

If you set that option to 'no', SETI won't allocate any new work to your GPU, but will let you finish off any work you currently have cached - so don't expect it to take effect immediately.

If everybody read the documentation...

...we'd all be out of a job? Wait, we're not employed here. :-P

Or anywhere else. I just watch the largess from Social Security
roll in every month.;)

I have a Cooler Master HAF X, and I am meticulous about keeping it clean. I even go so far as to keep a can of compressed air on my desk so I will see it all the time and remember to keep my case clean. I also have a Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler and one of my Gadgets that I refereed to that is crashing is set to monitor my CPU temps and I keep an eye on that as well. No problems with heat or airflow to date.

I am not having any BSODs either the PC doesn't reboot, it doesn't shut down, mainly what happens is that my browser crashes when running SETI lately. I always run Firefox for the past several years but just for kicks I tried running IE to see if that fixed my problem, it didn't now IE crashes the same as Firefox did. My event viewer merely shows an App Crash.

As for my other oversight I DID read the documentation but I seem to have ended up in wrong place. I was using the link for "Your preferences" in the BOINC tab and it was taking me here http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/prefs.php?subset=global which I assumed incorrectly was where the option to disable the GPU would be. Anyway I wish to thank everyone that offered help here as well as apologize to those who I obviously annoyed here as well.

Now we will see whether the GPU is causing my browser crashes or not, if it is then I guess I will keep it shut off.

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I have a Cooler Master HAF X, and I am meticulous about keeping it clean. I even go so far as to keep a can of compressed air on my desk so I will see it all the time and remember to keep my case clean. I also have a Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler and one of my Gadgets that I refereed to that is crashing is set to monitor my CPU temps and I keep an eye on that as well. No problems with heat or airflow to date.

I am not having any BSODs either the PC doesn't reboot, it doesn't shut down, mainly what happens is that my browser crashes when running SETI lately. I always run Firefox for the past several years but just for kicks I tried running IE to see if that fixed my problem, it didn't now IE crashes the same as Firefox did. My event viewer merely shows an App Crash.

As for my other oversight I DID read the documentation but I seem to have ended up in wrong place. I was using the link for "Your preferences" in the BOINC tab and it was taking me here http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/prefs.php?subset=global which I assumed incorrectly was where the option to disable the GPU would be. Anyway I wish to thank everyone that offered help here as well as apologize to those who I obviously annoyed here as well.

Now we will see whether the GPU is causing my browser crashes or not, if it is then I guess I will keep it shut off.

Do you have use Hardware Acceleration checked in Firefox?

Options-Advanced.

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Yes it is. Are others here having issues with that browser setting?

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Yes it is. Are others here having issues with that browser setting?

I keep mine off, since I I usually have my GPU's full blast.

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Same here.
My old HD 5850 didn`t like it enabled.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

I'll try disable it as well.

After further thought this actually makes sense that feature would cause a conflict if both applications were trying to use the GPU at the same time. First I will run SETI with the GPU turned off for a week or so and verify this is indeed my issue, and it is looking as if it may be as I have had no further crashes in the past 24+ hours since it has been disabled. Anyway thanks for all the help I doubt if I would have ever solved this by myself.

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Try and uninstall flash player and see if you still get crashes.
FP has been giving me huge problems as of late

Just to rule it out

When I switched from Version 6 to Version 7 I had crash after crash.
I now don't run cpu tasks at all.
Just the GPU tasks and only AP when available

Try bumping up your CPU voltage and see if that helps. Same as GPU voltage
Version 7 puts far more stress on the CPU then Version 6 did for sure..

Just a thought

Thanks I will keep that in mind if I continue having app crashes now that I have disabled GPU computing.

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