I started using BOINC v6.10.58.0 yesterday, it’s not the first time I used BOINC so I had no problems configuring the software.
The program runs without any problems until I start watching videos with VLC player or Media Player Classic then my PC freezes and the only thing left to do is a forced shutdown.

BOINC only uses my GPU if my PC is not in use for 60 minutes, tasks using CUDA are halted and my GPU temperature drops 15° C once I move my mouse so I’m sure it’s configured correctly.

I checked the error logs and the cause of the crash is VLC & MPC, both programs run without any problems if BOINC is turned off so my guess is that there is an incompatibility problem with BOINC.

Projects
SETI @ home
ABC @ home

My question:
Is there a solution for this problem?


PC info: source DXDIAG
------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 1/21/2011, 08:43:22
Machine name: PC_VAN_MAARTEN
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6002) Service Pack 2 (6002.vistasp2_gdr.100608-0458)
Language: Dutch (Regional Setting: Dutch)
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: Inspiron 531
BIOS: oC)Phoenix - AwardBIOSTeDell System v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+ (2 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 3582MB RAM
Page File: 1121MB used, 6265MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 7.00.6002.18107 32bit Unicode

------------
DxDiag Notes
------------
Display Tab 1: No problems found.
Sound Tab 1: No problems found.
Input Tab: No problems found.

Display Devices
---------------
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 9500 GT
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0640&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_A1
Display Memory: 2032 MB
Dedicated Memory: 497 MB
Shared Memory: 1535 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: SyncMaster 931B/931BF/931BA/930BA(Digital)
Driver Name: nvd3dum.dll,nvwgf2um.dll,nvwgf2um.dll
Driver Version: 8.17.0012.6099 (English)
DDI Version: 10
BGRA Supported: Yes
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 10/22/2010 07:23:05, 10023528 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
WHQL Date Stamp:
Device Identifier: {D7B71E3E-4500-11CF-6374-0C201FC2C535}
Vendor ID: 0x10DE
Device ID: 0x0640
SubSys ID: 0x00000000
Revision ID: 0x00A1
Revision ID: 0x00A1

Use the <exclusive_gpu_app> tags in a cc_config.xml file to exclude the VLC and Windows Media player from reactivating BOINC. See this FAQ for more information (part of Ways around it?)

If you already have a cc_config.xml file, you can append the below. Else open Notepad and copy/paste the below in there. Save as All Files, with ANSI encoding, as cc_config.xml (check for the _ underscore and the .xml extension) in your BOINC Data directory. For Windows Vista, the default BOINC Data directory lives at C:\Programdata\BOINC\

<cc_config>
<log_flags>
</log_flags>
<options>
<exclusive_gpu_app>vlc.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
<exclusive_gpu_app>mplayer2.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
<exclusive_gpu_app>wmplayer.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
<exclusive_gpu_app>mpc.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
</options>
</cc_config>

Save the file, exit BOINC fully (check the option "stop running science applications when exiting manager" and click OK) and restart it (Start->All Programs->BOINC->BOINC Manager).

Now each time you start using your Windows media player or the VLC player, your GPU app will stay out of memory until these players have vacated physical memory. The CPU part of BOINC will still continue to run. This is because the players aren't really seen as 'activity'. You're not tapping your keyboard or moving your mouse during this time. So for all indications, you're idle.

If this will still give problems, please consider cleaning out your system first. Dust build-up can kill a system quickly.

And if that doesn't fix it either, you can add the <exclusive_app> tags for the same applications. That way all of BOINC will pause when these players are in memory.

That's then this cc_config.xml:

<cc_config>
<log_flags>
</log_flags>
<options>
<exclusive_gpu_app>vlc.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
<exclusive_gpu_app>mplayer2.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
<exclusive_gpu_app>wmplayer.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
<exclusive_gpu_app>mpc.exe</exclusive_gpu_app>
<exclusive_app>vlc.exe</exclusive_app>
<exclusive_app>mplayer2.exe</exclusive_app>
<exclusive_app>wmplayer.exe</exclusive_app>
<exclusive_app>mpc.exe</exclusive_app>
</options>
</cc_config>

---

Thanks for the quick & detailed response, i will try with the </exclusive_gpu_app>.
Hopefully that will solve the problem if not I’ll try the second option </exclusive_app>.

Cleaning my system won’t be necessary: I clean my PC & reinstall my OS every 6 months, the last pc maintenance I did was +- 6 weeks ago.

Regretfully i have to report that both options failed to solve the problem,
the only way to prevent my PC from crashing is too manually suspend
all work when a media player is active on my PC.
I use my PC to play music & videos most of the time,
so BOINC will lose +60% of processing time!

If you have a solution for this problem, please let me know…

Please post the error log of one of the crashes. Is it really a crash (with stop error and blue screen of death), or a mere hang of the system?

What (exact) error messages do you get?

---

It’s not a blue screen of death, it’s an application hang.
My PC locks up and the only thing that works is pressing
the power button for 6 seconds to do a forced shutdown of my PC.
The problem is not GPU related I get the same errors when
doing ABC@home tasks (CPU only)
I tried solving it by lowering my CPU usage to
30% CPU load & 30 CPU clock time but that didn’t help either.

At the moment I’m running dreamweaver CS3, IE7, chrome,
MS word & BOINC @ 80% cpu usage & 55 CPU clock time and
my PC doesn’t even slows down.

This is one of the error logs:
- System

- Provider

[ Name] Application Hang

- EventID 1002

[ Qualifiers] 0

Level 2

Task 101

Keywords 0x80000000000000

- TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2011-01-21T16:10:17.000Z

EventRecordID 2068

Channel Application

Computer PC_van_Maarten

Security


- EventData

wmplayer.exe
11.0.6002.18311
17c
01cbb985a8b2f458
13
54006F00700020006C006500760065006C002000770069006E0064006F0077002000690073002000690064006C00650000000000


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Binary data:


In Words

0000: 006F0054 00200070 0065006C 00650076
0008: 0020006C 00690077 0064006E 0077006F
0010: 00690020 00200073 00640069 0065006C
0018: 00000000


In Bytes

0000: 54 00 6F 00 70 00 20 00 T.o.p. .
0008: 6C 00 65 00 76 00 65 00 l.e.v.e.
0010: 6C 00 20 00 77 00 69 00 l. .w.i.
0018: 6E 00 64 00 6F 00 77 00 n.d.o.w.
0020: 20 00 69 00 73 00 20 00 .i.s. .
0028: 69 00 64 00 6C 00 65 00 i.d.l.e.
0030: 00 00 00 00 ....

I made a screenshot of the applications that are running atm on my PC
so you can see I wasn’t joking about the workload.
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/2951/boinc1.jpg

I'm asking one of the developers to come take a look and give me a hint as I am quickly running out of ideas. I agree with you that your common cause seems to be BOINC.

As to why? No clue.
What you could do is run Dependency Walker on all affected software and see what they share. Then post about that.

---

I ran dependency walker a few times and it showed a lot of
nvidia related problems.
So this is what I’m gonna do next: finish my work in BOINC,
finish my P2P downloads backup the data on my PC. After that
I will try another GPU (geforce 8600GT) & check for the same
or new errors if that doesn’t work I will try with a clean BOINC install.

I will keep this topic updated.



GetProcAddress(0x76700000 [c:\windows\system32\GDI32.DLL], "D3DKMTChangeSurfacePointer") called
from "c:\windows\system32\NVCUDA.DLL" at address 0x01631CB6 and returned NULL by thread 1.
Error: Kan opgegeven procedure niet vinden (127).


GetProcAddress(0x76700000 [c:\windows\system32\GDI32.DLL], "D3DKMTCheckExclusiveOwnerShip") called
from "c:\windows\system32\NVCUDA.DLL" at address 0x01631D26 and returned NULL by thread 1.
Error: Kan opgegeven procedure niet vinden (127).


GetProcAddress(0x76210000 [c:\windows\system32\KERNEL32.DLL], "GetSystemWow64Directory") called
from "c:\windows\system32\NVAPI.DLL" at address 0x04BD93FD and returned NULL by thread 1.
Error: Kan opgegeven procedure niet vinden (127).


LoadLibraryExW("C:\Windows\system32\Physx.cpl", 0x00000000, LOAD_LIBRARY_AS_DATAFILE | 0x00000020)
returned NULL by thread 1. Error: Het systeem kan het opgegeven bestand niet vinden (2).