HwInfo locking up PC

[Martin]

I performed a crash dump analysis on those BSOD dumps you provided and it actually crashes in win32k.sys and I don't see any trace of HWiNFO involved there.
I don't know the exact reason of the crash, but it's somehow related to font processing in the win32k driver.
Here are some more details about it:

PROCESS_NAME: csrss.exe
FOLLOWUP_IP: win32k!EngFreeMem+21
IMAGE_NAME: win32k.sys

stack:
nt!KeBugCheckEx
nt!ExDeferredFreePool+0x12da
win32k!EngFreeMem+0x21
win32k!bLoadGlyphSet+0x104
win32k!bReloadGlyphSet+0x24b
win32k!ttfdQueryFontTree+0x66
win32k!ttfdSemQueryFontTree+0x5a
win32k!PDEVOBJ::QueryFontTree+0x63
win32k!PFEOBJ:fdg+0xa3
win32k!RFONTOBJ::bRealizeFont+0x46
win32k!RFONTOBJ::bInit+0x548
win32k!ulGetFontData2+0x31
win32k!ulGetFontData+0x7f
win32k!NtGdiGetFontData+0x4d
nt!KiSystemServiceCopyEnd+0x13

 

[doveman]

Thanks Martin,

It's a strange one and I have no idea what caused it but as you say it's somehow related to fonts and it seems from that link I posted that it's affected quite a few other users as well.

The system seems stable at the moment anyway, now that I've fixed the fonts, so I might try putting the Nebula card back in in a few days and see if it's still causing HwInfo problems.

 

[doveman]

Thanks Martin,

It's a strange one and I have no idea what caused it but as you say it's somehow related to fonts and it seems from that link I posted that it's affected quite a few other users as well.

The system seems stable at the moment anyway, now that I've fixed the fonts, so I might try putting the Nebula card back in in a few days and see if it's still causing HwInfo problems.

Well I did put the Nebula card back in and had no problems launching HwInfo for a week or so.

Then I shipped it to my brother and the first time it was booted and I tried to run HwInfo it locked up and so I lost my TeamViewer connection.

I've had him remove the card again now as it seems quite random. I'd already disabled a lot of the scans/options but maybe it's worth trying again with the latest version of HwInfo and using the "Safe scan of potentially problematic PCI devices" option.

 

[doveman]

Ah, I see the "Safe scan" isn't a new option, I've just not noticed it before!

Do you think enabling this could help and/or "Low level PCI Access"? I'm not sure exactly what options I had set on my brother's PC anyway, so I'll have to check later.

Apart from locking up when HwInfo loads, the Nebula card does seem to work so it would be a shame to not be able to install it, but obviously if it's a choice between using the card and not having the PC lock up when launching HwInfo, the latter would win.

 

[Martin]

Since this problem is not easy to trace and might be related to other system components, I'm afraid I don't know what advice to give you. You'll probably have to try various options and see what happens. The Safe IDE/SATA option is enabled by default in HWiNFO.

 

[doveman]

Since this problem is not easy to trace and might be related to other system components, I'm afraid I don't know what advice to give you. You'll probably have to try various options and see what happens. The Safe IDE/SATA option is enabled by default in HWiNFO.

OK, no worries. I'll try both low-level and Safe Scan for PCI devices and see if that stops it happening. If not, I'll tell my brother to sell the card and buy himself a USB capture device instead.