Artifacts and BSODS!

Mosharino said:

Hello all,

Hoping someone can help/confirm a few things.

This morning i go to my desktop computer (which was in sleep mode as always) click the mouse to bring it back to life and then i notice it's taking a bit longer than normal. Screen flashes black, i see the desktop then BANG BSOD managed to catch a glimsp of the BSOD. It refers to nvldkkm.sys. It's a Nvidia GF8300 GS. Had it running for about 2 years now and no issues.

The thing is... i've removed the drivers, and defaulted to windows generic. All done via safemode. So i know the drivers that MAY have caused the BSOD are no longer there.

The problem persists... so i enter Widows via safemode again.

All over the screen during safemode were artifacts, sometimes alot, they come, they go etc.

So i reboot and select normal windows startup, it gets, just, to desktop then artifacts return and BAM, either the PC reboots or it hangs seeminly dead.

I decide (to rule out of course) to do a Memory test. In fact it is running now. The thing is i'm still getting a whole bunch of artifacts and now, occasionally the entire screen flickers too. The memory test it still running without any interference.

So my question....... Does windows invoke the drivers (be them generic ones) of the graphic card while conducting the Mem Test? My head says no as the Mem Test starts before the drivers are loaded, and that my GC is probably about to bottom out.

On the plus side this is the first ever BSOD with Windows 7 after having used it since Beta!

Thanks for any help provided.

Tom

Tom Hi and welcome

Win 7 doesnt (or shouldnt) install drivers in safe mode. Artifacts can be driver, the video card (perhaps reseating it will help, if possible or power.

How did you remove the old Nvidia drivers? you should use their own uninstaller for it or something like When upgrading your graphic driver you MUST remove all traces of the current driver. In order to do that we recommend using Guru3D - Driver Sweeper

When it is removed then download and install the fresh copy.

Ken J

Hey all,

I'm not to sure what caused it, could have been a small surge in the electricity that slightly fried a chip or something.

It is strange though just how hot the graphics card heatsink was, i know that they can run hot when running a graphic intensive game but this thing was scolding and that was even before windows booted. So very little load on the card itself.

Thanks for all the help.

I might take the heatsink off and see if there is any visable burning or something.

But that will not be happening today, bit to much wine last night!

Hey Zigzag,

I removed the drivers while in safemode and used driver sweeper to remove traces of them, however upon reboot, windows refused to start prefering instead to BSOD me. I had to restore to an earlier time. Tried again and the same thing happened. Thing is i couldn't get ot regular desktop as the BSOD would occur before i could. So couldn't install the drivers!

I really to think that the problem was done to the failing GC. I'd made absolutely no changes to my system and had been running smoothly for months.

Thanks