hal.dll and BSOD

Q & A about computer hardware and software. Discuss settings, errors, setup, etc.

hal.dll and BSOD

Postby AS223 Brett Lucas » 30 Mar 2012 14:51

My last two flights I had 2 BSOD's. Ran "Who Crashed" to read the dump files, and both times the "hal.dll" located in Windows/system32 caused the BSOD. Talked it over with an IT buddy of mine, who I have been trying to get him over here to Airsource, said my OS was corrupt and a fresh install of W7 was needed, which meant a fresh install of FSX was needed too. To make a long story short, I texted him and asked if he was sure and that there was now way around it, but I stated that it only happened while FSX was running. He thought that when windows booted that when I got the BSOD. So we narrowed it down to hardware. I was running FSX on an OCZ Agility 3 SSD. I made an image of my FSX folder, (62Gb that I was dreading reinstalling), and returned the SSD to Micro Center, and picked up a Crucial M4 128Gb SSD that was on sale for the same price of my defective SSD. Restored the image and bingo, FSX was back in place. That is the first time I have ever made an image, and how sweet it is.
Point here is, hopefully this post will help folks that might have a problem that is hardware related and not an OS problem, that with the right tools, make an image of your FSX, replace broken hardware and restore and you are back in business, instead of installing for a day and a half....

Note, after all this, did some researching on the OCZ SSD's and the "sandforce" controllers and known for bugs and failing. The guy at micro center was very helpful, I did not want to go back to OCZ and was thinking about an intel SSD, but he pointed me to the Crucial. I actually have 3 Crucial drives, one runs my OS. out of the first two, only had one failure, but it was first gen Crucial, and with the replacement, have not had any problems...(knock on wood). One last thing... I have noticed that my FSX boot time is way faster with the Crucial than the OCZ!! Makes me a happy camper, no reinstall and faster boot time, and did not have to spend .01$. Drives were same price and I gained 8Gb with the Cruical.

Hope this might help someone that has a problem similar to mine!!
AS223 Brett Lucas
 

Return to Hardware / Software Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests