May 21st

Today is "Talk Like Yoda Day", but inspired not am I...

http://icanhas.cheezburger.com

Toshiba Satellite and BSOD error: System Thread Exception Not Handled (atikmdag.sys)

I've been using a Toshiba Satellite C75D-A laptop that we bought a year +1 day ago from Office Max. I have occasionally had problems over the past year while watching videos (especially Vimeo) with the computer locking up and receiving this error message.

Blue Screen Of Death or affectionately referred to as BSOD

Well, a few days ago it happened again and again and again and again and again... At least FIVE times.  Once in the morning with a Vimeo and four times in the evening with two different embedded YouTube videos on two different websites (my Firefox browser is up to date). This was too much and made me do a bit of investigating.

I did a search on the error message System Thread Exception Not Handled (atikmdag.sys) and received lots of suggestions. Fortunately one of the first few that I looked at was this thread on a Toshiba Forum from people with similar Toshiba laptops and using Firefox.

Here's the link: CLICK HERE
TOSHIBA FORUMS | Troubleshooting | Win 8 & 8.1 | System Thread Exception Not Handled (atikmdag.sys)

There were several suggestions as to updating your drivers, and doing stuff using the command line interface which I didn't want to do so I kept reading...

On page 2 of this forum thread, Jerry_Lippey suggested:

• For Firefox: Turn off hardware acceleration
• For Internet Explorer: Disable software rendering in Internet Explorer 

So, that sounded easy and definitely worth a try.  I went up to my menu bar at the top of Firefox and clicked on TOOLS, then OPTIONS. Got the popup box for Options and at the top right clicked on ADVANCED. Under the GENERAL tab in the lower BROWSING section I unchecked the box for USE HARDWARE ACCELERATION WHEN AVAILABLE. Clicked OK and that was it. Easy!

I retested the two sites and watched the videos that made my computer crash just an hour before. They played perfectly as did the Vimeo.

This was always a random problem and usually it would occur weeks apart but I now (knock on wood and cross fingers) feel like this is an issue of the past.

Just wanted to pass this along in case you are having similar happenings.

So it goes...

The Month of May

One of my favorite months when working in France is May.

There are four holidays of note and, if the 1st and 8th happen to fall on a Tuesday or Thursday, one gets to "faire le pont" or make the bridge between the weekend and the holiday thus getting a 4-day weekend... Youpi

• May 1st : Labour Day
• May 8th : Victory in Europe Day
• May 14 : Ascension
• May 25 : Whit Monday

So it goes...