Boinc seems to run just fine on my Toshiba Satellite A75 system running Windows XP. But more than half the time when I move the mouse to stop the screensaver, The graphics on the screen just freeze, And don't allow me to access the desktop, Also waiting for the screensaver to activate again doesn't work. The screen remains frozen until I power down the computer. This is a standard 3.2 GHZ pentium 4 laptop, With no overclocking. The Mouse is an external USB mouse, Could this be the problem? Ill test to find out.
Any help is appreciated.

If that is a laptop, check the answers by Mike and Gary in this Einstein thread. You may have that same effect.

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Thanks for the reply.
I had thought that maybe it was the power saving capabilities, And turned off all hibernate/sleep functions over two weeks ago.
I also set my screensaver to activate at two minutes, This way I would know its not sleep related.
This problem is prevalent in all Boinc screensavers, Not just Einstein, While using my laptop.

The problem seems to be a video card problem, Wether it's the way windows drivers handle these particular video chips, Or a malfuntion in the Boinc screensaver subroutines, I cannot say.

But I can tell you it's not hibernate/sleep related, It appears to happen only when the mouse has been moved, And the screensaver tries to shut down, So I would probably look at the screen clearing code first, Im sure that name is wrong, But you get the idea.

Anyway, With two minute startups on the Boinc screensaver, The laptop has managed to restart the screensaver about 60% of the time, So it is still usable, I just have to wait the two minutes when it does lock up my screen.

And of course, Above all else, I have no problems with Boinc on any of my desktop computers, Only on my laptops. Go figure eh?

I have forwarded your problem to the developers. One of them might know what's happening here. There was a similar problem with another manufacturer's laptops and it going into hibernation. I must say I don't remember off-hand which brand, but perhaps that this is something like that as well.

If any of them comes back to me, I'll relay their message. Else they'll probably post to this thread, so please keep tabs on it.

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Dan, could you please download this Boinc screen saver. Put all the files in the zip file in your BOINC Programs directory (default at C:\PROGRAM FILES\BOINC\), overwriting any of the same files in there.

Do watch out, in the zip file is a directory, make sure you do not copy the directory to the BOINC programs directory, only its contents.

Then run BOINC with the screen saver. At the point where it crashes, do whatever you need to do to get your computer working again, then navigate to your BOINC Data directory (default at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BOINC\ .. this directory may be hidden, just fill in the path into a Windows Explorer window's address bar and press Enter), then copy stdoutscr.txt and send that to me. I've put my email address in a private message to you.

I'll make sure it gets to the right people.

With thanks.

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Ok thanks for the help, I'm adding the data now, One thing to note while I wait, Is the esc key seems to stop this from happening, In other words hitting esc rather than using the mouse pad, Or external mouse to turn off the screen saver does help it work properly.



update, The second I wrote that esc works, It failed.

update, The second I wrote that esc works, It failed.

Murphy has stricken again! ;-)

Gruß,
Gundolf

OK, there was a mistake in the instructions I gave earlier. I didn't get any from the developer and only quickly looked at what was in the zip file.

So, here goes again. Open that zip file, go into the directory that's in there.
Now extract boinc.scr and boinc_scr.pdb into your Windows directory (default C:\Windows\)

Next extract the .manifest and .dll files into the System32 directory (default at C:\Windows\System32\)

Then run the BOINC screen saver. The output file stdoutscr.txt should be in either your Windows of Windows\System32 directory.

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Ok I sent the file to your email address.
After cleaning the files out of my boinc folder, Boinc froze up immediately on first run, So something in the test files was helping it run better, While they were in my boinc folder.

Thanks for all your help with this problem.

OK, a new version of the test program, more refined and sophisticated.

Download it from http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/boincscr.130910.zip
Same instructions as before:

Open that zip file, go into the directory that's in there.
Now extract boinc.scr and boinc_scr.pdb into your Windows directory
(default C:\Windows\)

Next extract the .manifest and .dll files into the System32 directory
(default at C:\Windows\System32\)

Then run the BOINC screen saver and wait for the crash, but this time the resulting log file will be in your BOINC Data directory. Please send that one back to me.

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Thanks!
Im downloading it now.
Ill update this as soon as it crashes.

Well that was fast. The new log is emailed to your account. Lets hope i got some decent data in this one.