PICAXE Editor and Programmer reboots PC

I have a Windows XP Home Edition PC running Service Pack 2. It is an Intel Pentium 4 machine running 1.8 GHz and 1MB of RAM. I installed the PICAXE Editor (5.1.5 printed on the CD) and the USB drivers for the AXE027 cable that came with the starter pack. When I ran the program editor for the first time, it displayed the welcome screen and then without warning my PC rebooted. I upgraded to 5.2.0 and had the same result. Is there any way to fix this or did I purchase a doorstop?

Well, I've had several versions of the Editor on 2 PCs with nominally the same config as you - no problems whatsoever. (Except I had 1Gb AM not 1 Mb - I know,typo).

I have seen various issues now and then with the Editor but not yours.
The trouble is:-
1) We don't know your PC config.
2) We don't know what software you already have installed on your PC which may interefere.
3) We don't know what software (e.g. freebies and games) you've had and removed from your PC - all leaving remnants in your registry etc.
4) We don't know if your disk is fragmented.
5) We don't know if your RAM is 100%.
6) We don't know if you installed the correct USB drivers and that you installed them correctly. I use them on 2 PCs XP/SP2/1GB RAM. Perfect.

There is just so much in a PC to go wrong or get messed that any suggestions will be based on guess-work from seeing similar issues.

I had an unrelated issue with IE7 crashing. I ran 'RegCure' and it discovered 1253 possible 'faults' mostly associated with faulty links and old registry remnants.


You say: "Is there any way to fix this or did I purchase a doorstop?"
- implying the Programming Editor is faulty. That's not really fair when thousands use it without major problem.

What I'm trying to say is DON'T blame the Programming Editor at such an early stage.

Hopefully, someone will have a great suggestion which will cure it. But my first step would be to check the integrity of my PC before proceeding.

Programming Editor also crashes my XP computer. The PC then restarts with a "the system has recovered from a serious error" message. The only way I can get it to load properly is if it is the first programme I run after switching on. The same version (5.1.4) runs reliably on my Windows 98 PC.

It's a nightmare when this happens. Sometimes there's no option but to re-install Windows, get the basics up and running and try the application which is having problems again before adding any other applications. If it works then something had gone wrong with the previous Windows configuration, if it doesn't work there could be something fundamantally wrong with the PC or its setup condiguration.

Most times applications "just work", and it's very difficult to say why something doesn't. I've run into problems which a Windows re-install has fixed, so although it's the last thing you want to hear ( and the first customer Support usually suggests ), it can often fix the problem.

One thing you could try is ...

1) Uninstall the USB drivers ( the USB-to-Serial may need to be plugged in to do that )
2) Uninstall *all* Programming Editor entries
3) Delete C:\Program Files\Programming Editor
4) Re-Boot
5) Re-Boot again - Don't skip this step !
6) Do *not* install any AXE027 USB drivers
7) Install latest Programming Editor
8) See if it gets past the start screen

Thanks to everyone for the information. I can try both the uninstall/re-install and the Win 98 PC and let you know how it goes. One other question. Does the editor have any problems with the USB connection being assigned to COM5? If so, any ideas (or links?) on how I can unmap one (or both) on-board serial devices and reclaim COM1 or COM2 for the PICAXE?

Unmapping the COM1/COM2 is usually a BIOS setting. There shouldn't be any problems with the Programming Editor using COM port numbers via USB. You can usually re-assign the USB serial port to a specific port number via Device Manager ( right click on My Computer ).

I got the Programming Editor to run by loading it onto a newly loaded Windows 98 SE drive. However, now I am having a another problem. I can't get the AXE027 drivers to install properly. It will load the USB portion but not continue on and load the VCP portion. When viewed through device manager, the AXE027 USB item is there, but it is in the "questionable" category with a few other USB devices. The first time I "installed" it, I took it to the correct temp directory where I had unzipped the driver files and it was looking for (and found) the *.cat file. I tried skipping the file on the second USB port, but it still did not continue to the VCP install. Any ideas?