CPU-Z Error

[Grand Maester]

When I start CPU-Z sometimes I get a message saying something like "an error occured, CPU-Z will still load but some features may be unavailable." When I get this message some of the information doesn't show up after it loads, but often all I have to do is restart it and it opens fine with full functionality. The error seems to occur at random, anybody have any idea what's going on?

[Grand Maester]

Apparently it's a driver error, although I'm not sure which one:

And it seems to only happen when it hasn't been started recently, it generally doesn't happen if you shut it down and immediately start it back up.

[Grand Maester]

I just downloaded the new version 1.49 (I was using 1.47). It loaded fine the first time, but when I tried again a little later I got the same error again.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

make sure everything in your device manager is ok.

(you can't use the edit button?)

[Grand Maester]

  Mindovermaster said:

make sure everything in your device manager is ok.

(you can't use the edit button?)

You mean that there are no red flags?

There are no errors. Although I noticed a couple "System Devices" components that have no driver at all. However, I've never had problems with any other programs that might be related to these components so I don't know that that means anything. And even if there were red flags it wouldn't explain why I only get the error when I start CPU-Z after it's left the RAM (I'm assuming that's the case since it starts fine if I close it and then immediately restart it).

The time difference between posts didn't allow me to edit.

Edited December 7, 2008 by Grand Maester

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

you can always edit your first post...

yes, make sure there are no "!" or "?"

[Grand Maester]

  Mindovermaster said:

you can always edit your first post...

yes, make sure there are no "!" or "?"

Yeah I knew that, but the first post was several days old and nobody would have seen the update if I didn't bump the thread back to the top of the first forum page from page 2. I'm pretty sure an edit wouldn't have done that.

There are no such errors, (see my edit to my previous post).

[_dandy_]

That's probably going to be difficult to diagnose since the problem can go away just by relaunching the app.

FWIW, I doubt Device Manager will yield anything useful. CPU-Z is probably having difficulty running its own internal driver, for one reason or another. Are you on Vista, or running as a restricted user? If so, do you also see the same intermittent problem running CPU-Z as an admin?

Does CPU-Z create a log file, or have options to show more detailed diagnosis information? While the message is still on the screen, I'd look for recently created files in the %TEMP% folder. Not sure what you'll be able to derive from that, but it's a starting point...

[Grand Maester]

  _dandy_ said:

That's probably going to be difficult to diagnose since the problem can go away just by relaunching the app.

FWIW, I doubt Device Manager will yield anything useful. CPU-Z is probably having difficulty running its own internal driver, for one reason or another. Are you on Vista, or running as a restricted user? If so, do you also see the same intermittent problem running CPU-Z as an admin?

Does CPU-Z create a log file, or have options to show more detailed diagnosis information? While the message is still on the screen, I'd look for recently created files in the %TEMP% folder. Not sure what you'll be able to derive from that, but it's a starting point...

I'm running XP Pro SP3.

What's an "internal" driver?

It has buttons that say registry dump and html dump, but they aren't really dumps they just give a single sheet tabular view of the information that CPU-Z splits between tabs in the UI.

[_dandy_]

  Grand Maester said:

What's an "internal" driver?

I was mere speculating that CPU-Z probably includes its own driver, so it can get to some data that is only accessible from kernel mode. Should run totally transparent to an end user, but (for some reason) fails in your case.

It wouldn't have anything to do with Device Manager, and you probaby wouldn't see it listed there either, which (in part) is why I was suggesting that looking at Device Manager is not likely to be terribly helpful.

[Grand Maester]

I was wrong about it occurring only when you start it for the first time. I just started it after restarting my computer and it started fine, no error, I didn't have to restart it (the program) to get full functionality. It appears the error occurs entirely at random. How does that make sense, with a computer shouldn't it occur all the time or not at all?

I've added images of the tabs which differ in the amount of information available depending on whether I get the error at start up or not (All tabs except the Cache and About tabs differed). In each image the image on the left is what I get without the error, the one on the right is what I get with the error:

  _dandy_ said:

I was mere speculating that CPU-Z probably includes its own driver, so it can get to some data that is only accessible from kernel mode. Should run totally transparent to an end user, but (for some reason) fails in your case.

It wouldn't have anything to do with Device Manager, and you probaby wouldn't see it listed there either, which (in part) is why I was suggesting that looking at Device Manager is not likely to be terribly helpful.

You know I was thinking, If I have Everest Home Edition, is there anything CPU-Z would give me that Everest wouldn't? It's hard to tell because they are organized differently.

Edited December 7, 2008 by Grand Maester

[Grand Maester]

I noticed that there are configuration settings you can change int he accompanying ini file, might I be able to fix it by changing those?

Excerpt From CPU-Z 1.49 Read-me:

... - Sensor : Set to OFF (or 0) disables sensor chip detection and voltages measurement. 1 to enable.

- PCI : Set to OFF (or 0) disables the PCI information. This disables chipset, SPD and, depending on the hardware, sensoring information. 1 to enable.

- MaxPCIBus : Sets the maximum PCI bus to scan. Default value is 256.

- DMI : Set to OFF (or 0) disables the DMI (Desktop Management Interface) information. This concerns BIOS vendor and version, motherboard vendor and revision. 1 to enable.

- SMBus : Set to OFF (or 0) disables SMBus information : SPD, and, depending on the hardware, sensoring information. 1 to enable.

- Display : Set to OFF (or 0) disables the video card information reported in the validator. 1 to enable.

- ShowDutyCycles : Set to 1, switches the alternate clock computation method based on duty cycles. 0 to disable. ...

[_dandy_]

  Grand Maester said:

I noticed that there are configuration settings you can change int he accompanying ini file, might I be able to fix it by changing those?

Well, the problem is still that it's inconsistent, so I doubt a configuration setting would change that.

Get in touch with whoever makes CPU-Z if you want to get to the bottom of this. Unless we have the source, we can only speculate.

[Grand Maester]

  _dandy_ said:

Well, the problem is still that it's inconsistent, so I doubt a configuration setting would change that.

Get in touch with whoever makes CPU-Z if you want to get to the bottom of this. Unless we have the source, we can only speculate.

I'm uncertain what you mean by "the source," if you are referring to the source of the problem, that's kind of why I posted this issue in the first place, because I couldn't find it.

I found numerous references to the same type of error in a google search but even the ones where a solution was put forward found the problem to be something that doesn't apply to me. For example, the most prevalent explanation of the problem is that the user is trying to run it on an account that doesn't have administrator rights, I have only one account on my system and it has administrator rights. Another reason that this problem has been found to occur is when multiple instances of the program are running at the same time (something about only one instance at a time being able to get full access to the CPU), but I'd never even tried to do that before, and when I tried running multiple instances just to see what would happen, the failure rate was pretty much identical.

[Invader ZiM]

Have you tried reinstalling the motherboard chipset drivers?

The processes that monitor some of the bios functions are indicated by them iirc.

-ZiM

[Grand Maester]

  Invader ZiM said:

Have you tried reinstalling the motherboard chipset drivers?

The processes that monitor some of the bios functions are indicated by them iirc.

-ZiM

I had a major problem with my computer about a month ago that required me to repair windows from the installer disk, while I'm not positive on this, I'm pretty sure I had to reinstall the drivers at that time to. This problem was occuring even before that so I doubt that's the issue, however I'll give it a try.

Edit: In the process of doing it and am now certain I never did.

Edited December 12, 2008 by Grand Maester

[Grand Maester]

Nope, it didn't work. I'm still getting the error sporadically.

[_dandy_]

  Grand Maester said:

I'm uncertain what you mean by "the source," if you are referring to the source of the problem, that's kind of why I posted this issue in the first place, because I couldn't find it.

The source code.

Given the randomness of the problem, unless we have the source code, all we can do is speculate and go through trial and error.

And even with the source, I doubt anyone would find an "obvious" problem. Like I said, take it up with whoever wrote CPU-Z.

[Grand Maester]

  _dandy_ said:

<br />The source <i>code</i>.<br /><br />Given the randomness of the problem, unless we have the source code, all we can do is speculate and go through trial and error.<br /><br />And even with the source, I doubt anyone would find an "obvious" problem. Like I said, take it up with whoever wrote CPU-Z.<br />

<br /><br /><br />

Well since it only happens sporadically, I'm not sure that I really want to go there. If anybody has any other ideas though, I'm all ears.

[_dandy_]

  Grand Maester said:

<br /><br /><br />

Well since it only happens sporadically, I'm not sure that I really want to go there. If anybody has any other ideas though, I'm all ears.

Why not? Of all people, the guy who's in the best position to diagnose your problem and offer constructive suggestions is the who guy wrote the app. He might even be able to provide you with some undocumented diagnostic switches or a special build--if I was in his position, I'd want to know about such problems.

[Grand Maester]

I e-mailed the creator and he asked me to post the following:

  Quote

I'd need to send a debug version to all concerned persons, would it be possible that you post a message asking to all concerned persons to send me a small email to cpuz@cpuid.com, with a subject like "driver error bug" or something I could easily sort ? Then I'll send them back the debug version.

Edited December 15, 2008 by Grand Maester

[Grand Maester]

I'm posting the debug version that the creator sent me in case anyone else is having the same problem and would like to provide him with info that could help him find a solution. This version will create a debug file in the same directory in which it resides, you should e-mail it to him at cpuz@cpuid.com.

[Grand Maester]

The author seems to be convinced it's a rights issue, although I'm not. It just doesn't make sense, when it only happens at random.

If anybody else is having this problem I'd appreciate it if they'd post. Not just because it might be helpful in solving the problem, but also for my own peace of mind. I would be nice to know I'm not alone on this.

[Grand Maester]

I think 1.5 fixed the problem, I won't know for sure until I've used it for a while but I was able to get it to start four times one after another without the error. I could never make that happen before.