Predictable BSOD on save

[AJ4TW]

Hello. I am not a new PSDR user, but I am new to KE9NS. I recently built a brand new computer, it's pretty whiz bang, for the Flex 5000 that I have. I installed a fresh Windows 11 OS on it. The radio runs fine until I try to save some data or until I hit the stop button, which I think also prompts to save data, and then it immediately goes BSOD. So anytime I go into settings, if the radio is running, and I press apply or save, I get BSOD. Every Time. Same with starting the radio, it runs fine, when I press the Stop button, instant BSOD. It is 100% predictable when it is going to do it. I have gone through all of the Win11 recommendations on the KE9NS website regarding firewire issues with windows defender and etc. I think I have done my homework, but it still continues. and again, 100% predictable BSOD.

TIA for any and all help.

[ke9ns]

If you already tried increasing the PFN Crash delay value, then you may want to try a FireWire card with a Chip from a different vendor (TI vs VIA)
I found TI chip was stable on my Win11 install, but others had to use a VIA chip.

With Win10 you could run the Legacy FireWire driver, unfortunately Win11 does not allow unsigned drivers (which the Legacy driver is). I have been searching for a signed legacy driver.

Darrin

[AJ4TW]

I guess I'll have to pull the card out and look at the chip, I don't have the box for it any longer. I'll try it.

I increased the PFN delay to 1000 and it didn't seem to make any difference.

Thanks!

[ke9ns]

If you get a chance, in windows search type "View Reliability History"
run the app.
It logs all crashes (by date).
If its crashing when you touch the start/stop button in PowerSDR, I would like to see which app or driver is causing it?

Darrin

[AJ4TW]

I got the report, do you want me to email it to you? Screenshot it here maybe.

[ke9ns]

You can just screen shot it here.

Also, I am curious if you set the Setup->Audio->Primary-> to 48000khz, does it stop the crashes?
or if you go into the Flexradio.exe program and set the operation mode to "Safe Mode", does that help any?

Darrin

[AJ4TW]

Short answer, yes, switching to 48000Khz stops it from crashing when I start/stop the radio!

Longer response, I swapped to a TI card, I made sure the driver was up to date, and I replaced that actual Firewire cable and none of that had any effect, it was still the exact same crashes. Oh also tried Flex's last version of PSDR and that was also exactly the same result.

But changing that sampling rate seems to have made it much happier. Does that point you to something?

I have not tried safe mode yet.

[ke9ns]

I have seen that before during the Win7 days when some PCs or FireWire cards just could not handle the higher speeds.
So I am assuming you have a newer PC with more than 4 CPU cores?
And you have gone into the BIOS and turned off all power saving and CPU throttling features?
and windows power options is on High performance.

It appears your PC is having trouble with either the size of, or number of, data transfers being requested by PowerSDR over FireWire.

I have found I can run my PC and Flex-5000 at Setup->Audio->Primary->192khz with a 256 buffer size.
Lower Buffer decreases the size of each transfer but more load on both the CPU and FireWire chip.
Essentially the same for the Sample Rate.

Try 48khz and either 256 buffer or 2048 buffer and see if it stays stable?
Then try 96khz and 256 or 2048 to see which appears to be more stable?

[AJ4TW]

Screenshot 2025-03-10 114445.png (89.26 KiB) Viewed 176429 times

So minor update/correction. 48000khz works with PSDR 2.7.2 but not 2.8.

The computer is an AMD Ryzen 5 8600G. 64GB RAM, 64bit Windows 11 pro
Installed TI Firewire card.

It should be able to easily handle 192K, my 10 year old heap did it without an issue. So I am wondering if there isn't some configuration or driver that isn't set right.

[ke9ns]

Your PC appears to be similar to my own. I have a Ryzen 7, 32gb ram, 2tb M.2, Win11 Pro, I use only physical Ethernet (no Wi-Fi to the PC) and only Win Defender for virus protection.

Your Motherboard is probably running the same or similar AMD chipset on the motherboard (a B550 for something close)

I have used Ryzen for years now and have gone through a few motherboards (just transfer over the hard drive), and the FireWire has worked all the time. I have run a B530 and B550 motherboard chipset, and went from Ryzen 5 to 7 with no issues.

So I lean towards the Firewire card or chip on the card is having troubles?
If you are using a built in Wi-Fi, I would try Disabling its driver just to make sure its not interfering with FireWire?

[AJ4TW]

I ordered another dang ol firewire card. I guess I have two to offload at the next hamfest. lol

So I paid a little closer attention to your specs this time, and I think even though I ordered a TI firewire card I got a 400 card. So I just ordered another new card that is an 800 card and has the exact chip part number that you spec'd out. I should have slowed down and RTFM.
So I hope that is my solution. I'm eager to start setting up the software. I've been able to use the radio but not able to set it up in any meaningful way because I can not save any setting, nothing sticks and I start back over at the beginning every time I turn the radio on, groundhog day.

The other possibility that I'm considering is that the RAM isn't exactly right. I bought RAM based on PC Parts pickers suggestion, and then last week I started poking around and found that the exact part number I have for RAM is not listed on the Mother Boards compatible RAM list. I did a couple of RAM tests, one test lasted an hour and came back with zero errors, so I'm hoping that the RAM is not the problem because I don't think I'll be able to return used RAM just because, again I moved too fast and didn't RTFM, I ordered the wrong part number. I *think* the RAM is okay. Hopefully the new firewire card is my solution.

Thank you for all of your help. I'll let you know when the new card comes in and I get a chance to install it and test it out.

[n8em]

Same issue here. No result with new card posted. Please update us.

[K5KMB]

All my BSOD issues were solved when I changed (reduced) my audio sampling rate to 96000. I had it set to 192000, which I learned cannot be supported by my Flex 3000. Radio and software are happy campers now with the lower sampling rate. Downside is that the amount of spectrum viewable on the bandscope is slightly decreased, but I can easily live with that.

[K5KMB]

Radio is Flex 3000. I was having these kinds of shutdowns and more. All of it was solved by changing the audio sampling rate to 96K. It was set to 192K because I was unaware that the 3000 does not support this rate. Was blaming it all on Windows 11. So the joke was on me ! Good luck to all.