Is it normal for a REAPER crash to take down the computer?

I'm not sure what is making REAPER crash on me. Trying to figure that out. I am starting with selecting a different 'Audio system' in the 'Audio device settings' preferences dialog. Was using asio4all, but about to try WDM kernel streaming. Anyway, I get at least one crash every day. When REAPER crashes, it always takes my whole PC down though. Is that normal? Does this behaviour indicate anything to anyone? I am on a bit of a low end PC right now and I am using the on board sound. It is 'Realtek High Definition Audio' driver version 5.10.0.5345.

You are using XP right? The chain of events is this: A plugin crashes Reaper. When Reaper closes unexpectedly, ASIO4ALL is causing the wrapped Realtek driver to crash and create an "IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL..." BSOD. Solutions: 1.) Don't use plugins that crash Reaper. 2.) Use an audio interface with native ASIO driver to avoid BSODs. 3.) The ASIO4ALL/Realtek related BSODs don't happen in Vista.

:D I should point out again that this is not normal and a very specific and known problem with ASIO4ALL and Realtek drivers on XP. It is probably a Realtek problem (since it doesn't happen with other onboard chips/drivers and ASIO4ALL). The only real solution is of course finding the offending plugin in first place and finding out why it crashes Reaper. :)

pd: and of course one integrated realtek not...integrated sounds cards sucks for asio...

So now I am using WDM kernel streaming for mixing because if I try to mix using asio4all, REAPER crashes. When I want to render to wav or mp3, I have to switch back to asio4all because if I have WDM selected, REAPER crashes. :) Okay, so... is there a way to start REAPER with some kind of logging turned on so I can get an exception message written out that tells me which plugin is causing the fault?

While tweaking ReaDelay? That sounds kinda fishy... (SCNR) :) Try to get a fresh crash/reboot. Then go 'Start Menu->Run' and type EVENTVWR <Enter>. In Event Viewer, open the 'Applications' branch and look for the latest error entries. One of them should contain a fresh crash log with Reaper or your Realtek driver, the faulting module and the offset. Post them. If your computer just restarts instead of showing you a blue screen with stop error message etc., you have the blue screens turned off (default in XP): Open Control Panel, click 'Performance and Maintenance->System' go to the 'Advanced' tab, click 'Settings' in 'Startup and Recovery' and uncheck 'Automatically Restart' in the System failure section.

My event viewer tells me there are three separate VST's that reported fatal errors just before I crash. One is Amplitube Fender, one is BFD 2 and the other is 2C Aether. I also had the computer crash and restart on me once yesterday and I was using WDM :(. The one that reported the failure when I was using WDM is Amplitube. I don't know the VST architecture, but most plugin architectures consist of known interfaces and a dynamic loading mechanism that loads the plugin implementation for those interfaces into the process. Isn't it possible for REAPER to catch exceptions around all of the VST interface calls and handle it gracefully? The VST is running in the host application's process space, isn't it? I suppose the problem is my crappy audio interface?

If you get a way to reproduce the crash using any plugin, please let us know. IK stuff is known to be twitchy, we have some special cases in the code for it (specifically to prevent sending plugins different sized buffer blocks), but more special casing may be needed. What would be most useful is if you can reproduce a crash with any one particular plugin, and let us know the recipe for reproducing.

I'll see what I can do schwa...

kindafishy twould be helpfull if you listed the config of that pc. i can honestly say ive never had a crash of reaper on xp. instead of the realtek, and being unrich (lol..is that a word) myself due to family responsibilities, check out a toneport gx for 60 buks or even lower cost is a behringer uca202 for 30 buks, for getting audio into the computer. and playing back etc.