BSOD error troubleshooting

A Windows stop error is also called BSOD error which stands for "Blue Screen Of Death".
This error is displayed upon a fatal system error in the kernel layer of the operating system.

This is always caused by a problem in the Windows kernel or a faulty device driver.
Such error will not be caused by "user mode" software (desktop applications) like Hydromagic.

Since the error is not caused by Hydromagic itself, we can not offer support on this kind of failures.
However, we would like to give you some pointers on how to resolve BSOD errors in this document.

Why does the BSOD error only occur when using Hydromagic then ?

Although Hydromagic does not cause the operating system to fail, it can trigger a BSOD error by using a Windows device driver which has a software bug in it.
For instance, when Hydromagic tries to open a serial port with a particular setting,
and there is a bug in, for instance the USB-to-Serial converter driver, the system may halt.

When a BSOD error occurs when you select a device in Hydromagic, or after connecting or switching on your GPS or echo sounder,
the problem is almost certainly a faulty serial port driver.

When Hydromagic causes a BSOD indirectly before any devices are configured in the software, it may be caused by your graphics driver.
Although Hydromagic does not communicate with the graphics driver directly, but via DirectX, this can still cause a BSOD error.

We see the graphics driver error very often, but when it happens, go to the website of your graphics card manufacturer and check for the latest version of the drivers.

Examples of faulty drivers

In the past, we have experienced BSOD errors with the following device drivers:

• Prolific USB-to-Serial converters;
• FTDI USB-to-Serial converters under Windows 10;
• EchoLogger echo sounder under Windows 10 (Update FTDI chipset serial port driver);

Just a few examples. You can probably find out which device driver is causing the problem by reconnecting devices on by one and see when the problem starts to occur.

Updating device drivers in Windows

Most of the times updating to the latest driver will solve the error.
This can be done by installing a driver package from the hardware vendor's website, or by using Windows Update.

In some rare cases the problem is in the latest driver and it has to be replaced by an older version (which has to be done manually).

Use Windows Update to find an updated device driver

To let Windows update the device driver, open the "Device Manager" by right clicking the Windows start button and select the "Device Manager" option.
When the manager appears (you need Administrator rights), locate the device driver you want to update:

Right click the driver you want to update and select the "Update Driver..." option from the popup menu.
In the screen that appears, select the "Search automatically for updated driver software" option.

Windows will now start looking for an updated on your computer and online. This can take up to a couple of minutes.

Windows will now start looking for an updated on your computer and online. This can take up to a couple of minutes.
Depending on whether Windows could find an updated driver, you will see one of the following messages when ready:

When no driver update could be found, Windows offers you the possibility to try to find a updated driver on Windows Update.
When this is unsuccessful as well, you have no other option then to search for a newer driver on the web and install it manually.

When a new driver has been installed, Windows will display the message below. It is recommended to restart your computer now.

Update a device driver from the vendor's website

This method is probably the easiest, given that you know the vendor of the hardware.
Drivers can most of the times be found in the support section of the website.

When installing a new driver, unplug the device when possible, run the installer and plug it in again when asked, or when setup has completed.
Sometimes a system restart is required.

When no installer is supplied, and instead a zip file containing is offered, the driver has to be installed manually. See the paragraph on installing device drivers manually below.

Drivers for some USB-to-Serial converters can be found at the bottom of our download archive page.

Manually updating Windows device drivers

In the cases where you need to install driver files manually (for instance when the hardware vendor ships files without an installer),
or when you need to load a device driver that is older then the one currently loaded, you have to select the driver files manually.

To do so, open the "Device Manager" by right clicking the Windows start button and select the "Device Manager" option.
When the manager appears (you need Administrator rights), locate the device driver you want to update (or downgrade):

Right click the driver you want to update and select the "Update Driver..." option from the popup menu.
In the screen that appears, select the "Search automatically for updated driver software" option.

Next, you have to select the folder where the zip file containing the device driver files was extracted.
In this example we extracted the driver files into "C:\Temp\Driver\":

When a new driver has been installed, Windows will display the message below. It is recommended to restart your computer now.