BSOD Crash? (Emergency!)

[Alan C. Lawhon]

This is an emergency!

I don't know if this sudden and unexpected "Blue Screen of Death" system halt is related to execution of the FAH client (or the previous core crash I reported), but since crunching work units is 99.9 percent of what my desktop computer spends its time doing, I'm very concerned as to what is going on with my computer. Here are the details of the Windows system halt which I've copied (verbatim by hand) right off the monitor. (This halt occurred maybe twenty five minutes ago.)

<begin verbatim BSOD halt message copy>

A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

The problem seems to be caused by the following file: avgtpx86.sys

DRIVER_UNLOADED_WITHOUT_CANCELLING_PENDING_OPERATIONS

Two or three paragraphs of extraneous information follow starting with a warning to the effect: "If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps: followed by two paragraphs along the lines of: "Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any Windows updates you might need." There's also a paragraph on what to do if problems continue, including "... disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advanced Startup options, and then select Safe Mode."

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x000000CE (0xBA1590D0, 0x00000008, 0xBA1590D0, 0x00000000)

avgtpx86.sys
Beginning dump of physical memory
Contact your system administrator or technical support group for further assistance.

<end verbatim BSOD halt message copy>

And there my computer sits with the blue screen message displaying. (I've decided not to restart until I have some idea of what the blank is going on.)

Question: I don't know if this is relevant or not, but are you supposed to disable or halt your anti-virus software when you're running the FAH client? (I have the AVG 2012 Internet Security suite running on my box, so I'm just curious if this "avgtpx86.sys" file is part of my anti-virus software and it is somehow getting "screwed up" by the FAH software?)

[art_l_j_PlanetAMD64]

Question: I don't know if this is relevant or not, but are you supposed to disable or halt your anti-virus software when you're running the FAH client? (I have the AVG 2012 Internet Security suite running on my box, so I'm just curious if this "avgtpx86.sys" file is part of my anti-virus software and it is somehow getting "screwed up" by the FAH software?)

Alan, here is an answer from Microsoft on how to fix that problem:
vprot.cxe and avgtpx86.sys Problem messages

To cut to the chase, what they say to do, is to uninstall AVG, and install Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE):
Get Microsoft Security Essentials for the low, low price of free

The user reported that this fixed his problem:

Hi Syed N,
In belated response I am pleased to confirm that on following the suggestions made by ZigZag3143x my problems appear to have been resolved.
I now have MSE installed and a smoothly running computer.
I am most grateful to all concerned.
Thank you.

I use Microsoft Security Essentials on all of my Windows machines, and it works very well. All of my customers used it as well (I used to sell custom-built computers that I built myself).

I hope this helps!

EDIT:
As both Zagen30 and P5-133XL said, do not disable the anti-virus program (which will be Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) if you follow the advice from Microsoft above). You should run a full scan of your system immediately, as soon as MSE is fully up-to-date, to get rid of any possible virus infections.

[Zagen30]

I admit this doesn't actually address the issue behind your BSOD, but personally I don't get concerned over one-off BSODs or crashes. If it starts becoming a recurring problem, then I'll try to figure out what's wrong. Usually it's some random glitch that doesn't occur again.

You shouldn't need to disable antivirus. I know a couple of AV programs have been known to flag certain FAH files as malicious, but you can just tell it to ignore those files. I run AVG Free and I've never had it flag any FAH files. I don't know how FAH would actively interfere with it, but software's not my specialty.

[P5-133XL]

No, you are not supposed to disable your anti-virus when folding. The most you should need to do is exclude the folding work directories from the anti-virus program to prevent false positives in the folding data.

I Googled avgtpx86 and yes it appears to be part of AVG. What I'd be worrying about is the concept that you've been infected by some malware that is busy trying to disable AVG to prevent from being detected. I'd do more investigation by some other anti-malware programs to see if your system is compromised.

[Alan C. Lawhon]

I admit this doesn't actually address the issue behind your BSOD, but personally I don't get concerned over one-off BSODs or crashes. If it starts becoming a recurring problem, then I'll try to figure out what's wrong. Usually it's some random glitch that doesn't occur again.

You shouldn't need to disable antivirus. I know a couple of AV programs have been known to flag certain FAH files as malicious, but you can just tell it to ignore those files. I run AVG Free and I've never had it flag any FAH files. I don't know how FAH would actively interfere with it, but software's not my specialty.

Zagen:

I've just conducted an extended online "chat" with an AVG support tech. I've rebooted my box and discovered that Microsoft Updates (which are supposed to download and install automatically) apparently haven't downloaded lately ... So my first order of business is getting my box up-to-date vis-a-vis security updates and so forth. The AVG folks have agreed to send me a "Diagnostics Test" battery to run on my machine and check for any problems. Right now it looks like Windows "sensed" a potential serious problem and shut my system down as a safety precaution. I think what I'm going to do in the interim is put the FAH client on "Pause," download and install all my updates, and run the AVG diagnostics test before I resume running FAH. (If an out-of-date driver or something like that caused the BSOD, hopefully running the updates and the diagnostics test will nip this in the bud.)

Question: If I want to complete (and return) the currently executing WUs and then shut down (i.e. STOP) the FAH client, is the correct option to click the "Quit" button in the FAH Client Control?

[art_l_j_PlanetAMD64]

Question: If I want to complete (and return) the currently executing WUs and then shut down (i.e. STOP) the FAH client, is the correct option to click the "Quit" button in the FAH Client Control?

No, the correct thing is to click 'Finish'.

Alan, did you see my post here? Microsoft recommends that to fix the crashing problem, you should uninstall AVG and install Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). The user who had the same problem as you said that removing AVG and installing MSE fixed his problem:

Hi Syed N,
In belated response I am pleased to confirm that on following the suggestions made by ZigZag3143x [to uninstall AVG and install MSE] my problems appear to have been resolved.
I now have MSE installed and a smoothly running computer.
I am most grateful to all concerned.
Thank you.

[bruce]

I use MSE and like it, but what kind of advice would you expect from a Microsoft guy: Get rid of AVG and use our product....

Whether you eventually return to AVG or switch to MSE, you must scan your system with some other AV software. If you have acquired a virus, it might have infected anything, including some component of AVG.

I'd also be concerned about the missing WindowsUpdate security fixes. Did you disable those updates or did the virus begin by attacking that process? A well-written virus (i.e.- a really bad one) often begins by disabling WindowsUpdate and shutting down any AV program that might get an update that would purge the virus. Then it goes to work on other methods so assure it's survival.

[Alan C. Lawhon]

I use MSE and like it, but what kind of advice would you expect from a Microsoft guy: Get rid of AVG and use our product....

Whether you eventually return to AVG or switch to MSE, you must scan your system with some other AV software. If you have acquired a virus, it might have infected anything, including some component of AVG.

I'd also be concerned about the missing WindowsUpdate security fixes. Did you disable those updates or did the virus begin by attacking that process? A well-written virus (i.e.- a really bad one) often begins by disabling WindowsUpdate and shutting down any AV program that might get an update that would purge the virus. Then it goes to work on other methods so assure it's survival.

Bruce:

My (panic) statement about missing WindowsUpdate security fixes was a bit overstated. Once I began running the updates, I noticed that there were no missing critical "security" updates and six (of the eight) Windows updates were all related to the .Net 4.0 Framework. (I think critical updates have been downloading and installing all along and I just overreacted a bit when I saw that there were eight WindowsUpdates that had not downloaded.)

I've ran the AVG battery of diagnostic tests and sent them off for analysis. (I didn't see or notice anything alarming while the diagnostic reports were being generated. If the AVG folks notice anything out of kilter, I'm sure they'll let me know.) This is the first BSOD I've experienced in at least 3-4 years on my desktop box, so I'm going to call this a fluke. Like Zagen says, an intermittent crash every once in a blue moon is not a big deal. I'm back to crunching WUs right now and all seems to be going well. If I get another BSOD in the next day or two (or the next week or month), I'll have to consider upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 and doing a clean scrub of my hard drive. My gal has been running virtually nonstop for the past five years, so the operating system is probably getting tired. Plus, at times I'm hearing a lot of page swapping (disk swapping?) going on between the CPU and the hard drive, so FAH is pushing my system pretty good.

[art_l_j_PlanetAMD64]

I use MSE and like it, but what kind of advice would you expect from a Microsoft guy: Get rid of AVG and use our product....

Sure, MS will always plug their product. But getting rid of AVG and installing MSE did fix the user's BSOD problem, which is exactly the problem that Alan is having. AVG must have been doing something wrong, to be causing the BSODs. I think that should be the most important factor for Alan to consider.

[art_l_j_PlanetAMD64]

If I get another BSOD in the next day or two (or the next week or month), I'll have to consider upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 and doing a clean scrub of my hard drive. My gal has been running virtually nonstop for the past five years, so the operating system is probably getting tired. Plus, at times I'm hearing a lot of page swapping (disk swapping?) going on between the CPU and the hard drive, so FAH is pushing my system pretty good.

This might be a good idea (upgrading to Windows 7 and scrubbing (ie formatting) your hard drive) anyway. It would definitely eliminate any viruses you may have picked up. But a lot of disk swapping (if that's what it is, and not just normal FAH data saving) indicates that you don't have enough RAM. Task Manager shows a total of 442MB in use on my WinXP system running FAH with SMP plus one GPU. I have 2GB in that system, which is plenty for FAH work (I don't use that system for anything else).

[bruce]

Your software should not be able to cause a BSOD, though it's hard to define what might be in a virus if you have had one. A BSOD is a hardware error that was not trapped by the Operating System. It's more likely that something like heat, or marginal overclocking, or the impending failure of some component (etc.) caused it. Are your heatsinks dust free and are all your fans turning at appropriate speeds? Have you backed off a little on your overclocking?

[art_l_j_PlanetAMD64]

Your software should not be able to cause a BSOD, though it's hard to define what might be in a virus if you have had one. A BSOD is a hardware error that was not trapped by the Operating System.

I agree, but however it was caused, the user 'Gerrytrix' did find that in his or her computer:
Windows + AVG = system has BSODs
Windows + MSE = system works OK

Perhaps MSE was better at eliminating viruses than AVG. But I think the result (ie no BSODs) is what is most important.

PS: How did you get the [noparse] thing to work?

[bruce]

Windows + AVG = system has BSODs

A single event cannot prove cause and effect. I'm not here to defend AVG, but you're drawing a conclusion that can easily be refuted by the statistics of a multitude of examples of Windows + AVG + No BSODs.

[Nathan_P]

Googling the error reveals that it could be any one of a number of drivers, I looked at 5 different reports and got 5 different drivers as the cause. What is happening is that the driver is not closing pending tasks before it shuts down thus locking the system. The question should be, why was AVG shutting down on your daily use machine, was it checking for an update, shutting down after a scan or were you trying to shut the system down or had something crashed and taken avg down with it - a perusal of the event logs might be useful.