Can a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) damage hardware?

mshan

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2004
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I just got a Dvico Fusion HDTV 5 Lite HDTV tuner and installed it on my MSI K8NGM2-FID.

Right now, system is fairly unstable and I'm getting a lot of blue screens of death (5 in about the alst 5 hours).

Is there any potential to damage hardware with a BSOD, or is the worse case that I would just need to do a fresh install of Windows (probably do that in the next couple of days)?
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
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Mar 4, 2000
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A BSOD will not cause hardware damage. It is occurring because of a conflict in memory usage for the most part (a collision of resources.)

Assume that it was OK before you installed the HDTV tuner? If so, then uninstall the HDTV tuner and start over. Research the install options and make sure your system, and especially your video card can support it.
 

SparkyJJO

Lifer
May 16, 2002
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BSOD won't damage hardware but it could be a sign of bad hardware/drivers or like corkyg said some conflict. You could try putting the card in another slot (is it a PCI or PCIe card? I'm not familiar with that card so I don't know).
 

mshan

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2004
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Yes, system was totally stable before I installed the Dvico ( http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/eng/Products/RTLite.aspx )

However, I had an ATI HDTV Wonder installed in the same slot, though I tried to remove all of the ATI software.

I am using the integrated graphics and 2 x 256 MB matched RAM (Twinmos Speed Premium PC3200 with Winbond CH5 chips at stock speeds and voltage).

Could you explain further what you mean by conflict in memory usage?
 

MagnusTheBrewer

IN MEMORIAM
Jun 19, 2004
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I wouldn't worry too much about damage to hardware unless BSOD's are being caused by wildly spiking power supply or shorted components. A BSOD caused by software problems will not damage the hardware.
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
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Mar 4, 2000
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My guess is that the integrated graphics chipset conflicts with the HDTV board. Why not go back to the ATI? What do you lose? Actually - what you gain is stability.
 

mshan

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Nov 16, 2004
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The Dvico is supposed to have a much better tuner in it (I'm about 24 miles away from the transmiiters and use the Zenith Silver Sensor clone included with the ATI HDTV Wonder, which is supposed to have a range of about 20 miles).

One option the Dvico offers is either a DxVA video decoder or a full software decoder.

If I switch to the full software decoder, do you think that should eliminate the conflict of memory usage?

And would a dedicated video card or more memory (2 x 512 instead of 2 x 256) also eliminate the problem?