Hello all, the details of my system and BOINC installation are below. I'm using Sophos Endpoint Security and I have automatic updates enabled for Windows. The Intel onboard display adapter drivers are up to date.

In a nutshell: BOINC used to run SETI@home for months on end without ever causing any problems (I never had to boot because of BOINC), but after I went and updated BOINC in August my screen started to freeze completely every few days. When I'd come back to the office in the morning, I might find the screen frozen.

The latest BOINC update in September (7.8.2) made it happen less often, but it still happens every now and then. The basic thing that changed on my computer was the BOINC version, not any other resident software or my computer-using habits.

To be more specific, the whole computer isn't frozen, it's just the screen. The computer is still responsive via network, e.g. it answers when I log on remotely using TeamViewer 12 and asks me for my TeamViewer password - but then all I get on my remote screen is the frozen SETI screensaver. Sending ESC or CTRL-ALT-DEL doesn't do anything (sent locally or remotely), and the mouse cursor isn't shown either - it seems like both the keyboard and the mouse are not being polled. But behind this impenetrable wall of not taking orders, the computer is chugging along.

This is extremely annoying because hard booting with power off/on, the only thing that seems to do the trick, causes my RAID1 array to check and repair itself for hours afterwards, making my computer slow as a snail to use for anything I actually need to do.

Any remedies, please? I wouldn't want to get rid of BOINC and SETI@home after about ten years of no problems...

S.

10/4/2017 12:20:37 PM | | cc_config.xml not found - using defaults
10/4/2017 12:20:43 PM | | Starting BOINC client version 7.8.2 for windows_x86_64
10/4/2017 12:20:43 PM | | log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
10/4/2017 12:20:43 PM | | Libraries: libcurl/7.47.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2g zlib/1.2.8
10/4/2017 12:20:43 PM | | Data directory: C:\ProgramData\BOINC
10/4/2017 12:20:43 PM | | Running under account ----
10/4/2017 12:20:51 PM | | No usable GPUs found
10/4/2017 12:20:51 PM | | Host name: ----
10/4/2017 12:20:51 PM | | Processor: 4 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9650 @ 3.00GHz [Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10]
10/4/2017 12:20:51 PM | | Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss htt tm pni ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 syscall nx lm vmx smx tm2 pbe
10/4/2017 12:20:51 PM | | OS: Microsoft Windows 7: Enterprise x64 Edition, Service Pack 1, (06.01.7601.00)
10/4/2017 12:20:51 PM | | Memory: 7.65 GB physical, 15.30 GB virtual
10/4/2017 12:20:51 PM | | Disk: 465.66 GB total, 13.00 GB free
10/4/2017 12:20:51 PM | | Local time is UTC +3 hours
10/4/2017 12:20:51 PM | SETI@home | URL http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/; Computer ID 7244341; resource share 100
10/4/2017 12:20:52 PM | SETI@home | General prefs: from SETI@home (last modified 30-Nov-2005 16:41:25)
10/4/2017 12:20:52 PM | SETI@home | Computer location: work
10/4/2017 12:20:52 PM | SETI@home | General prefs: no separate prefs for work; using your defaults
10/4/2017 12:20:52 PM | | Reading preferences override file
10/4/2017 12:20:52 PM | | Preferences:
10/4/2017 12:20:52 PM | | max memory usage when active: 3918.10 MB
10/4/2017 12:20:52 PM | | max memory usage when idle: 7052.58 MB
10/4/2017 12:20:54 PM | | max disk usage: 12.96 GB
10/4/2017 12:20:54 PM | | don't compute while active
10/4/2017 12:20:54 PM | | don't use GPU while active
10/4/2017 12:20:54 PM | | suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 25%
10/4/2017 12:20:54 PM | | (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
10/4/2017 12:21:06 PM | | Suspending computation - computer is in use
10/4/2017 12:21:06 PM | | Suspending network activity - computer is in use
10/4/2017 3:51:01 PM | | Resuming network activity
10/4/2017 4:17:11 PM | | Suspending network activity - computer is in use

If it's the frozen screensaver that prevents using the machine you could try not running the screensaver. Maybe a bad driver update broke it.

The problem is intermittent. Most of the time BOINC suspends fine when I touch the mouse, sometimes I find the screen frozen when I turn the display on.

I might add that there haven't been any driver updates for the on-board display adapter in years, the latest was way before this problem began.

Ok. It could be some updated Windows component that together with GPU driver freezes input/output. Worth trying, if only so that you can tell it wasn't that :)

Any chance the machine is overheating?

No, it's not an overheating issue... the fans are whirring away like they always did, there's no dust buildup inside to speak of, and this is an office computer with nothing exotic like a dedicated GPU - just a plain on-board display adapter with the latest Intel Q45/Q43 Express chipset drivers (dated 4 Oct 2012) that worked fine with BOINC/SETI@home until I updated BOINC.

It happened again... once more it's taking hours of working at snail speed while my RAID1 array checks and corrects itself... Now I have switched to the basic Windows 3D text screensaver, we'll see if that ends the screen freezes.

Do you remember what BOINC version you had before you updated it? That is, which version worked ok?

No, sorry... but I hadn't updated in a long time, it might have been my first installation on the present machine (the version that was current in mid-March 2014).

The oldest file I could find in the Program Files\BOINC directory is stderrgfx.txt dated 12 December 2014. I don't remember updating BOINC before this autumn, so I guess the mid-March 2014 version is the one that worked fine for me.

If stdoutdae.txt doesn't show it anymore (this file stores the output of the event log, but is by default just 2MB), stdoutdae.old may hold the older version still.
If neither of these show the previous version, then Windows Event Viewer may show it.

Start->Administrative Tools->Event Viewer->Windows Logs->Select Application, now click the Action menu (top) and then Find..
Type boinc and hit Enter. Just keep pressing F3 until you're at an event before the date you installed the newer BOINC.

---

Great, thanks - I found one event from July when there were no problems yet - no idea what the event means, but guessing from the description I was running 7.4.36 (released 1 January 2015):

169176022
22
RADAR_PRE_LEAK_64
Not available
94690894087
boincscr.exe
7.4.36.0
6.1.7601.2.1.0

Here you go: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/boinc_7.4.36_windows_x86_64.exe

---

Thanks! I'll downdate and see if that works.

If you still get the screen freezes and you have Windows on the other host you could try "tasklist" and "taskkill" commands. You can use those commands to list and kill processes running both on local host and remote hosts. The processes that would be of interest are setigraphics-*.exe, boincscr.exe and boinc.scr in that order. I have to warn though, I have no idea how Windows reacts if a screensaver if forcefully killed.

If killing screensaver related processes doesn't help you could then try "shutdown" command to do a clean reboot.

Using the commands may require some config changes on the remote host so you may want to practise using those commands before you have a frozen screen.

If your other host is a Linux machine you can use Samba to reboot the Windows host. See this Stack Overflow question.

None of that is obviously fixing the freezes but at least you'll have a chance of not having to wait for RAID rebuild.

Just to let you know, I haven't had a single freeze in the two weeks after downdating BOINC to the old version. That seems to have solved it for me, thanks.

Just for the record:

I had the same issue with BOINC 7.8.3 on Win 7 pro 64Bit. I never had the screensaver active and normally BOINC runs for weeks without problem. But using 7.8.3 i come home and find the explorer totally frozen. I could stop it with taskmanager and restart explorer.exe, but it kept unresponsive and the tasks of the project were NOT running. There was also no way of restarting the machine except forcing a restart with the reset button. Since i downgraded to 7.6.33 all problems are gone and BOINC is constantly running for over a week now.

There IS a problem inside 7.8.3, at least on Windows 7...