BCCode 117 while playing Battlefield 3 (Hard lock, no BSOD)

It's fairly predictable, in that it will occur. However, viewing error logs (Event Viewer, Reliability Monitor, looking in minidump folder), actually getting an error report is very hit and miss. Most often, I actually don't get anything - but there are a few BCCode 117s of note. I know this is a TDR Crash...

It all started shortly after the patch and latest DLC download in June. I had about four days of good gaming, and then this became a regular event.

I have went through a list of troubleshooting and "fixes" that at this point I can hardly remember the majority of what I have tried - and none of it has made a lick of difference... except possibly delaying how long it takes.

An important note: this is something I get in both the Single Player [Campaign] and Multiplayer modes.

Originally, I ran with a 4.8GHz (48x100) overclock, and used Afterburner to OC the GPUs. This was all fine and dandy from BF3's launch in October, through mid-June.
Since then, I have disabled most background processes, stopped a few services, uninstalled various drivers, switched from onboard Realtek audio to a Creative X-Fi (PCI card from 2005 that I had sitting unused in my old PC build), updated and downgraded drivers, uninstalled a few applications, upgraded to BIOS 3203 for my Asus P8Z68-Deluxe motherboard, eventually dropped all overclocks (which allows me to play longer now, I might add... but the system still hard-locks).

I had conducted stress tests (LinX, Prime 95) with overclocks following the BIOS upgrade, tested GPUs, ran MemTest86+ overnight (had 5 or 6 passes), tried running memory at DDR3-1333 (Corsair 2x4GB 9-9-9-24-2T 1.5V, XMP DDR3-1600), changed voltages (until I reset to "Optimized Defaults" in BIOS, though I am currently set to DDR3-1600 along with changing what I did or didn't need in BIOS, like RAID vs AHCI and disabling a few onboard things), etc.

I installed Debug Tools to see if I could make any sense from the few recent minidumps (in the zip are some older minidumps, anything before June 15th is irrelevant and unrelated)... but they just confirmed the standard Nvidia driver is responsible, blah blah blah.
I know TDR crashes like this can be more complex than that, and I assume some driver is likely causing conflicts.
I'd like to blame the latest additions to the BF3 codebase - but that also means I admit defeat and must wait until the next patch, with it unlikely being solved. I assume the latest patch did change something that, when it was fine before, now causes a few things to no longer play nice together.

As far as Nvidia drivers, I had been running 301.24 Beta for the longest while, and they ran quite well for my purposes. After the BF3 issues began, I switched to 301.42 WHQL, then to 304.48 Beta, and then 296.10 WHQL, then to the most recent 304.79 Beta, and now I've settled back to 301.42 WHQL. Not one had any impact on this particular problem.
And I used Driver Sweeper (recently have been using Driver Fusion, it's successor), and have used CCleaner to clear up tracks (with strong reservations - I've learned many lessons in regards to the Registry - and I haven't made anything worse... just not any better either, though I did fix an audio driver issue I was having).

Anyway... hope you can make some sense of it all and, hopefully, something jumps out at you when looking at the drivers and minidumps.

Bump, just in case this got buried too far back and before anyone had a chance to take a good look.

Any ideas? I've already tried a lot, so go ahead and ask if I've tried something.

Would updating the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver be a good route? I've been avoiding that, because I don't want to flash another BIOS update (which is only to cooperate with the latest IRST driver) and disable the RAID array in order to upgrade that driverset... that, and neither the OS, BF3, or anything related are on the drives/volumes in that RAID array, so I don't suspect that is an issue.
It is the only thing that comes up as out of date when I scan with the Intel Driver Update Utility online.

It looks more graphics driver related.

Driver Reference Table - watchdog.sys
Driver Reference Table - nvlddmkm.sys

I'd update to the latest nvidia driver and see how you go.

That's an avenue I have already tried. In the OP, I list which drivers I have tried recently. 304.79 beta is the most recent.

The one I settled on is the most recent signed WHQL version. Neither have behaved differently with BF3, but the signed version doesn't have Surround/NVCP quirks.
I'd say most recent GPU driver doesn't solve this problem, at least, not by itself.

Considering "most recent" driver isn't a solution in this situation (at least, when combined with no other "solutions"), any other drivers stand out?

I'll be willing to try different Nvidia drivers if it may be the case that other drivers won't play nice with either Nvidia driver version; i.e. Old Driver X caused conflicts if Nvidia driver version 301.42 or 304.79 is installed, but New Driver X will work fine with 304.79 but conflict if 301.42 is installed. I can imagine this is possible, in fact, it would be preferable to a few other "out there" possibilities, such as failing hardware (considering evidence of such has not been found elsewhere).


For reference: I also got through 3 (and a half, or thereabouts) passes of Windows Memory Diagnostic (set to Extended test, infinite pass), when I had it run while I was at work. That, in addition to 5 passes of MemTest86+, along with other more general "tests", has me convinced my memory is still fine (it is less than a year old, and I'm only running it on the stock XMP settings - I'd be annoyed if THAT was the part to go, not something drastically overvolted and OC'd :P).


I hope this isn't a case where I have everyone stumped and without a clue on what to suggest.

Don't tell me EVERYONE is as stumped as I am.

Bump. Still looking for ideas.

Seeing as all 300-series drivers were not resolving the issue, I'll be trying 285.62 WHQL.
In a way, I almost hope this isn't the fix I'm looking for - 300-series drivers made a lot of improvements for a few games I play, and the fixed performance loss with center-screen (single-monitor) gaming in surround mode (otherwise I have to disable monitors to load up a game I won't play in surround).
If it works - I'll be trying a few other things to see if I can keep the magic rolling with recent drivers. I'll update - but I'm expecting issues lie elsewhere.