PE (5 or 6) crashes XP Pro

Billo

Senior Member
Hi,

I've been running PE on a machine that runs XP Pro (32 bit) for some years. Now, out of the blue, running either PE5 or PE6 totally crashes the machine without warning. There is no dump produced, no blue screen. Just an immediate and complete reset.

I wish I had some diagnostics to pass your way, but there is noting I can think of.

About a month ago one anti-virus package was removed (CA) and another put on (AVG). It has run fine since then until this occurred. I am not aware of any other recent changes to the machine. Windows update has been turned off since 2010 and no one else has access to the machine. I have even tried removing the new AV and tried a system restore to a restore point 2 months ago.

This is my main development and design machine in my lab. I am usually very paranoid about making any changes to it (for this exact reason). Everything else runs okay and only the PICAXE PEs are having this trouble.

Has anyone got any ideas or suggestions? Has anyone seen anything like this? I'd really like to find a solution that does not involve re-building the machine.
 

Technical

Technical Support
Staff member
Its very unlikely that PE5 or PE6 will cause a blue screen internally in their own code.

However on startup they both 'ask' Windows which COM ports are available. Therefore it is much likely that this problem is, for instance, a damaged USB serial adapter driver is causing this issue, as drivers are far more likely to cause a blue screen.

If you have USB adapter cables pull them all out and try again. Investigate all the COM/bluetooth ports.
 

Billo

Senior Member
No Luck,

With everything removed except a mouse (to launch the application) it still crashes.
 

Technical

Technical Support
Staff member
PE5 and PE6 are built with completely separate development systems, so the fact that it happens with both really does imply the issue is external to PE5/6. We still think it will be a COM port issue. What COM ports show in Device Manager, maybe show us a screenshot?
 

Billo

Senior Member
Hi,

I'm not trying to imply that the PEs are the problem. They can't be, as they did not change from the time it was working to the time it stopped working. Something else has gone wonky (most likely the OS) and I was just trying to see if anyone had any experience with this before.

Do you want the screen shot with our without everything else plugged in?

Some of the USB devices, most notably the Logitech dongle for the keyboard and mouse, do not show as COM ports.

To eliminate them, the test I did used a regular USB mouse.

One thing that is unusual about this machine is that it has up COM302 registered (but only 6-8 USB COM devices are usually used at any given time). Might that be an issue? How would I remove them other than deleting the MB USB host controller(s)?
 
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