HP performance Advisor crashes workstation

[Charkatak]

I have Z440 and have the latest Bios update 2.48 and have 1903 Win 10 version, latest as well.  I haven't used Performance Advisor for about 2 or 3 months, but the last time it did work properly.  Today, I tried running Performance Advisor, it took the update and right when it was "Interrogating something", PC crashed.  It is the first time that my Workstation crashed.

One thing I did, is that yesterday I purchased and installed HP Intel 8260 Wireless/Bluetooth PCI card and also installed latest drivers from HP.  No other issues except with HP Perf Advisor

[HHH003]

Whatever the cause for these crashes, your hardware isn’t the cause. People aren’t experiencing this crash with the Zx20 series and 1903. They did have problems with version 1809 when it first came out, but it seemed to have been fixed later on... I know it did work on version 1809 and a Z840. I don’t know if the Z8, Z6, Z4 series workstations are having an issue with Performance Advisor. Everyone with a Zx40 series workstation and Windows 1903 is experiencing the crash or “power failure”.  I say “Power Failure” because of how the crash happens. Pull the plug on your computer and it will act the same exact way as this Performance Advisor crash. HP hasn’t officially released a Windows 10 1903 image for workstations as of yet, 1809 is the current Windows 10 version. But they have stated 1903 is being installed at the factory on Z series workstations right now. We do get 5 years of Windows 10 support after production ends. I wish they would fix Performance Advisor so it will work correctly... I was hoping HP was monitoring these posts and give up a updated version or a BIOS fix; whatever it needs to get it working correctly. If your computer is still under warranty, I believe you could open a case on this issue. It is their software and their machine. So it should work on all models it was intended for. 

[Charkatak]

Yes, machine is still under warranty.  I do know that Perf Advisor didn't crash in Bios 2.47 and Win 10 1809.  After that, I got 2.48 version, but didn't run the advisor app.  I guess it won't hurt to pull the HP Intel 8260 PCI card and see, but as you mentioned that it isn't my new card that is doing this. I wanted to go back to 1809, but that 10 day window has passed.

[HHH003]

BIOS version 2.48 and 1809 work just fine. I used it before the 1903 update. You can use the HP Cloud recovery tool that is offered on HP’s driver download site for your model. It will create and format a USB drive with windows 1809 installed on it.  You also have the option of getting all the drivers too when you download the OS. One thing about the HP Windows 10 you get from them... It will won’t offer an upgrade to a newer version of Windows 10.  I have tried to do it when 1803 was the official HP version of Windows 10.  Only with a Windows 10 update tool was I able to update their version to 1809.  Something in the HP image stops updating to a newer windows version. You get everything else, but you won’t be offered a 1903 upgrade.   “sp85318.exe” is what you need. It detects your model and serial number and downloads HP’s version of Windows 10. I do believe it will allow you to install it inside of windows so you won’t loose everything. I normally do a clean install, so I can’t really be 100% sure of this. Hope this will be helpful. 

[HHH003]

Just to inform anyone who is having this problem... I did contact customer support about the Performance Advisor issue.  Of course they didn't know their was a problem with the program.  So we wait and see now if it does gets resolved.  

[Charkatak]

When I was browsing for HP drivers for my PC, I did see Cloud recovery, but never needed it or even tried.  I will check the HP Cloud recovery.  

[Charkatak]

Nice, hope the problem is in the program itself as I do like my HP Intel 8260 PCI card.  I even had to use System Restore to restore the system 30 mins before Performance Advisor was updated.  I did uninstall Perf Advisor after yesterday's issues with it.  So I would just go to HP's website and download the latest/fixed version in the near future or HP will let you know?

Thanks!

[HHH003]

They say they will email me when they have an answer or solution. I gave them as much info as possible... as I said, they wasn’t aware of any problems or crashes being caused by the Performance Advisor on the Zx40 series workstations. I imagine it’s within the program itself since it works okay with Zx20’s and 1903 and it works okay with 1809. What really concerns me is that they didn’t know there was a problem with Performance Advisor. Obviously they don’t look at these forums because they would of known that I reported this issue here when 1903 was still in its development stage as I often will test Windows 10 pre release versions. 

[HHH003]

Just an update... I attempted to get Performance Advisor fixed thru the HP Support... but since their Z840 test rig works okay with it, it’s not likely to get addressed by them. Not enough people have complained about this issue and their test rig is working correctly. They had me reinstall Windows on a different drive, with one of my SSD’s and it did work as long as I didn’t install the Visual C++ 2015. Soon as that got installed, the program would crash the computer. So I went back to 1809 for now as it works correctly. I know this crash is being caused by a “side by side”error with that visual 2015 runtime. But as long as their test rig is working... I doubt it will get fixed. 

[HHH003]

The program finally generated an error message showing what is wrong with it before crashing.  I’m not an expert, but it does look like a “runtime” error as I expected. Here it is. Maybe someone with programming knowledge can figure it out. 

HP Performance Advisor (version 2.1.4130.0)

An unexpected problem occurred at 8:07 PM on 7/28/2019.

An item with the same key has already been added."

Diagnostic information will be written to the AdvisorError.txt file on the Windows desktop. If this problem persists, please send this file to ap-assist@hp.com.

An unhandled System.ArgumentException exception was caught at:

   at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentException(ExceptionResource resource)

   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.Insert(TKey key, TValue value, Boolean add)

   at Advisor.Engine.cDataSet.LoadDataSet(FileInfo dbFileInfo) in cDataSet.cs:line 207

   at Advisor.Engine.cEngine.Startup(iAdvisorUi ui) in cEngine.cs:line 180