Graphics Card Causing BSOD on Startup

[Achika]

I decided to log in for a bit of WoWing before going to sleep early today (Mostly because I need to do Brewfest stuff.).

Having just recently transferred from Horde to Alliance, I went to the barber Ironforge to get my right hairstyle back. I only note this because of the proximity to the crash. I've used this game system many times in the past, so don't think that's an issue.

So as I said, running through Ironforge to Brewfest, and suddenly, my screen shows what I can only describe as those old rainbow colored "this TV station is offline" like you'd see in the olden days of like PBS, though the colors were everywhere. It goes away after about 20 seconds, and a minute or so later, I got a BSOD.

I restarted the computer, just to get another BSOD when it tried to go into Windows.

I tried going into safe mode and deleting and reinstalling the drivers, but that didn't help at all. I also attempted to revert to an earlier image on the computer, and that didn't help either.

Right now, it's looking like I'm going to have to format the computer. I don't really want to do this because there's certain items on the computer that are near-unreplaceable (Bought some really old games, don't think I can re-get them again.

The BSOD refers to a file called nvlddmkm, which I googled and found that it's part of the Nvidia drivers.

Anyone got any idea what I could try before taking the step to format my computer?

For Reference:

Graphics Card: nVidia GeForce 8500 GT
OS-Windows Vista Home 32-bit

[Kryssan]

Did you use a cleaning program to remove the drivers after you uninstalled them? If not, I would recommend doing so. DH is good for that.


Also, when did you install these drivers? Have you been using the same ones for a while or did you recently update them? If you haven't made any changes to the drivers, the problem might not be software related. I've had memory on videocards go bad and end up with these results.


I also recall a water leak in one of my old watercooling systems doing the same thing after the graphics card was wetted - though I hope you don't have to worry about that at least.

[Achika]

I'm not familiar with DH, I looked it up from what info I had on Google and it seems they want money out of me for it. =( I'm just a bit broke right now for that.

I might open the case later and see if there's anything physically wrong with it. Right now, I'm going to try switching to the onboard graphics card until I can figure something out.

I haven't updated the drivers for a year or so I believe, until now trying to fix this.

[Solefald]

graphics card overheated maybe, or a capacitor failed. the damage may or may not be permanent, but it's not looking good. open up the case and blow the dust out and make sure all cables are firmly connected.

[Achika]

Opened it up, dusted it out, checked the physical card, nothing seems wrong. I wouldn't think I'd get anything on the monitor at all if the card was completely bad, would I? I mean, it goes up through the bar that says Windows is loading, and then gives the BSOD error message:

"Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed."

[Achika]

I did some reading up on this, apparantly it's some issue with nVidia drivers recently and it's affecting a lot of people. Only thing I can think of is that Windows Update automatically updated those drivers. I swear I turned that off. >_>

[Kryssan]

Driver Sweeper


I forgot about DH going to shareware vice freeware. DS does the same thing though.



You could check Windows Update, but I've never had it download and install new video drivers for me, and mine is setup for auto updates. Drivers for video/audio/lan/chipset always appear as 'optional' and don't download via Windows unless I explicitly request them to do so.


Still personally leaning towards hardware fault, but good luck otherwise. And yes, a physical fault with the card does not necessarily mean it would fail at bootup, it depends where the fault is and what type of fault it is.

[Achika]

Sorry for bumping this, still having this issue but haven't had a computer with internet access since Thursday.

Here's all I've found out about the issue:

The driver causing the issue is for my Nvidia card. Specifically, nvlddmkm. I've discovered that this is actually fairly common in Vista (As well as 7) due to a system called Timeout Detection and Recovery, and a number of fixes for it were added into SP1. My computer was updated with SP1, I know that. I verified it whilst working in safe mode.

The computer works just fine in safe mode, as well as regular Windows if the drivers are not installed. Once the drivers are reinstalled, it once again gives me the BSOD between the Windows loading screen and Windows itself. I've used the Driver Cleaner recommended to clean all the Nvidia drivers off, did an install of the newest drivers from Nvidia's website, from Windows Update, and even used older drivers that I know worked, and continued to get BSOD.

I've also attempted to increase the time, and also tried to disable TDR, to no avail.

I'm going to save my important files tonight to my portable hard drive, and revert to the original load of the computer to see if that will help. If it doesn't, I'll be running memtest to check my RAM. Past that, I think my only option is to take it to a repair shop and see if they can diagnose it (Which I'd like to avoid if all possible. Them things is expensive.). This is all assuming I get my computer set back up from my move (Issue started before the move, so I'm certain that nothing got knocked out of place during the trip to cause it.).

Just posting an update to see if anyone has experienced this and might have any more suggestions about it.