Invisible BSOD on computer wake after long periods - Hard reset needed

stevieb2163 · 22 Oct 2014

Hi there,

So in April I decided to go all in on an Alienware 18 which I use for business and pleasure. After a couple weeks I started noticing the computer would not wake from sleep during extended times such as over night. I would simply close the lid at night and open it in the morning where the HDD light would come on and then the computer would be frozen in a state with a black screen before bootup where I am forced to hold the power button down to reset. It would then tell me that the computer was shut down incorrectly etc.

I finally had Dell tech support work on it who were absolutely fantastic at the time. They went through all kinds of system setting changes including how the computer sleeps, updated video and MANY other drivers including a reinstall of windows. Problem persisted.

Next they sent a tech out to replace the Video cards... problem persisted.

Next they replaced the HDD's, motherboard, and video cards again... problem persisted.

They were completely stumped so they sent me a brand new system which is even better than the last one I had!

After a few days I noticed this system is doing the exact same thing. I called tech support and the original guy is now in another department so I'm dealing with a new guy now who is starting from scratch again with this system. I spoke with their manager as this guy wanted to reset the computer to factory again and he also suggested that they are 99% sure that a reinstall of windows (or an alien respawn they call it) would solve my issue. I tried to explain to them that this would be the third run of windows 7 and I can't logically see why it is going to solve the issue now.

This is why I am now reaching out to this community. This is a business computer as well so I don't really find it optimal to keep wiping it clean as I'm sure you can understand.

The strange thing is that 6 times out of 10 when I wake the computer in the morning it will be completely locked up and I have to hard reset so it doesn't do it all the time. Even stranger is the fact that I have only managed to capture 3 dump files that seem to be triggered from this event. So for some reason it is not always creating a dump file but each and every time it says the computer was shut down incorrectly.

I look forward to anyone being able to shed some light on this as the entire team at Dell seems to be stumped.

Stevieb2163

Boozad · 22 Oct 2014

Welcome to 7F.

Your dumps ared indicating a device driver as being the problem but none are showing.

Driver Verifier will stress your drivers and cause BSODs if any fail and will flag them up in the dump files. Follow this tutorial to enable/disable it. Driver Verifier - Enable and Disable

Information

Enable Driver Verifier but only enable these options:
Standard settings and IRP logging step 3.
Don't enable Force Pending I/O Requests

Warning

Make a System Restore point before enabling Driver Verifier.

Note

Your system will act very sluggishly while DV is enabled, this is normal as your drivers will be being subjected to heavy testing in order to make them crash.

stevieb2163 · 22 Oct 2014

thanks for the quick response! I have done as you suggested and will wait 24 hours to see what happens. I followed JK's instructions but when it went to reboot nothing happened. I rebooted manually and hope it's running in the background?

If nothing happens with this what steps would be next? It's a tough one as it only happens intermittently after the computer is asleep for 7 or 8 hours.

thanks again for the quick response and I look forward to solving this finally!!!

Boozad · 22 Oct 2014

We'll see how it goes with DV enabled and take it from there.

stevieb2163 · 23 Oct 2014

OK, so I ran DV for approx 24 hours, did the same closing of the lid procedure last night and this morning opened it just as I normally do and same problem happened but slightly different this time. This time when I hit the power button, the only lights that came on were 6 buttons of the left hand side of the keyboard...no power light, no HDD light and it was frozen. I had to hard reset with power button held for 5 seconds. When it booted up it didn't say "windows did not shut down properly" this time nor did it create a dump file.

I've now disabled DV as it didn't appear to do anything.

Any further suggestions?

Thanks in advance for any insight!!!

Stevieb2163

Boozad · 23 Oct 2014

Right, I don't know how I missed this first time round and I can only apologise for that.

Your nVidia driver has been flagged once in your dumps, checking the timestamp it could do with updating.

Code:

fffff880`035a87e8  fffff880`0f451bcfUnable to load image nvlddmkm.sys, Win32 error 0n2
*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for nvlddmkm.sys
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for nvlddmkm.sys
 nvlddmkm+0x1edbcf

7: kd> lmvm nvlddmkm
start             end                 module name
fffff880`0f264000 fffff880`0feb0000   nvlddmkm T (no symbols)           
    Loaded symbol image file: nvlddmkm.sys
    Image path: nvlddmkm.sys
    Image name: nvlddmkm.sys
    Timestamp:        Sun Feb 23 23:10:53 2014 (530A7FFD)
    CheckSum:         00C15250
    ImageSize:        00C4C000
    Translations:     0000.04b0 0000.04e4 0409.04b0 0409.04e4

Go here and look for the latest driver. Follow NVIDIA Drivers - Avoid Problems for the cleanest possible install.

stevieb2163 · 23 Oct 2014

OK, I will try this but I recall doing this with the last computer before they replaced it. Again, I sincerely appreciate the help you have been offering... I just can't see reinstalling windows again making the difference.

stevieb2163 · 26 Oct 2014

Well updating the nvidia drivers AND a few others from the dell site unfortunately didn't make a difference. Still have to power down when I open the lid after it sits for a number of hours. A couple times I did not have to hold the button down for a hard reset though instead just touching the power button shut the computer off.

No other dumps either for some reason. It's been difficult to get it to spit out dumps...have still only captured the three that I supplied.

stevieb2163 · 02 Nov 2014

OK, so I FINALLY managed to capture another dump file this evening even though EVERY day it happens!!!

Please tell me there is some good info in this file to describe what is happening!!

Thanks in advance!

Boozad · 03 Nov 2014

Right that one doesn't really help, it's a STOP 0x124 which indicates a hardware error. The dump doesn't give any clue as to what's piece of hardware is causing the issue either which is typical for a 0x124. Are you comfortable running some system stress tests? As the machine is still under warranty (I presume) you may want to consider contacting Dell support instead? I'll leave that decision up to you mate.