I have found my random "blue screen" crash problem on my dual CPU system.

AMD Athlon MP 2800+, 2.13 Ghz, 1 G byte memory.
Win XP Pro sp2 (all updates)

I have been getting a few crashes since I built this machine, even took it back and they found nothing, but it was so random and seldom I lived with it.

When the newest version of Boinc came out I added most of the projects and started getting crashes within 20 minutes of rebooting. UNLESS I turned off Boinc.

I know that the first ClimatePredictor would not run on a Dual CPU system. BUT I did not know it would crash my system.

I have been detaching projects to find the ones that are not DUAL AMD CPU compatible.

Is there a list of projects that will not run under a dual CPU system?

My Dell Inspiron 8200 single CPU laptop runs all well and never crashes. I would like to get my Dual system back to being dependable.

So far I have turned off
boincSimap
Sztaki Desktop Gird

Now one of the following is still causing crashes.
CPDN Seasonal Attribution Project
or Einstein

As I was typing this the CPDN did a application crash, but no blue screen.

---

What kind of error messages would you get in the BSODs?

BOINC as a whole sets your CPU and RAM under stress. So if either is only the slightest bit broken, you'll notice it. Test your system with Memtest86+ and Prime95, if you want comparable stress tests.

---

SAP runs very well on AMD dual core, many of the top machines in the project have this configuration. As Ageless says, you need to make sure it is completely stable - try running two copies of Prime95 (one per core).

---

I will try those utilities, tho it will take me a few days.

BUT the Climate project had a disclaimer deep inside their support site saying their 1st version would not work with 2 CPU's on the same system.

SO I was wonder if other projects had the same limitation. Finding such details is not easy since most FAQ's don't have this and most system spec's don't either.

The bottom line is I can't run ANY projects with out the blue screens. No Boinc, no crash.

Well I need to mow the yard and get ready for cutting some hay.

---

CPDN is saying that a single work unit cannot use two threads.

---

That might be true also. But back when they first came on line I got a message from their board that their software would not run on dual CPU systems.

Now the person I got that from might have been wrong, or they may have fixed it since then but I removed their stuff from my Dual system and it ran fine, mostly, until the newest version of Boinc and the new projects.

I guess my main question is are the crashes from Boinc or my system, but since I can stop the crashes by not loading boinc.....

Now if you are saying that dual AMD systems are well tested with all projects, then I will go back to see if my system has a problem.


I also guess I am PO'ed because almost none of the MS blue screen info/crash info is useful and I would just be guessing what part is bad if it is on my system. I hate to pay for new parts I don't need. (I replaced my video card because M$ keep saying it was a video diver problem)

replacing my CPU fans maybe semi-cheap, and I might add another 1 Gig memory anyway, but anything else would just mean I would stop Boinc on that machince since I can't justify fixing large items when the only thing that does not work is Boinc.

---

Best to find out what might be wrong before spending money on fixing things :-)
* CPU temps can be picked up with Everest, ASUSProbe, and MotherboardMonitor
* 1 gig should be more than enough RAM to run two copies of the CPDN model. The SAP model uses much more ram, but you can just about get away with 1GB (I have 2 x SAP + 1 x CPDN sharing a 1gb dual core intel box, but it does get near the limits sometimes)

Other things which can cause problems are overclocking (neither SAP nor CPDN likes machines which are 'near the limit' - I backed mine off by 30MHz or so after O/C-ing it). Relaxing the memory timings fractionally can also help.

Power supplies can cause problems, but these are impossible to diagnose unless you can find a spare to experiment with.

Prime95's torture test is the best way to test stability of CPU and memory, but as noted you'll need to run two copies of it rather than just one.

---