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#1
Random Black screens and freezing with nVIDIA GTX 460
My computer will randomly throw fits and either:
1. freeze, requiring a hard shut down
or
2. turn the screen black (no signal message), also requiring a hard shut down.
Often times after this happens, when i try to boot into windows 7, it will freeze/turn black at the welcome screen. Other times it will boot up and several minutes later freeze/turn black again. Yet, in other instances, it will be totally fine and i can continue as normal.
I'm also experiencing some really unusual things with my mouse on occasion. It will change cursors like it supposed to when I hover it over a particular object (for example a hyperlink should make the hand with finger cursor) except it will either be the wrong cursor, or a distorted and different colored cursor - usually cyan, magenta, or yellow. When this phenomenon is occuring, it usually will lag/jump around when I try to move it. It will sometimes just go away without any type of rebooting which I also find quite unusual.
The system works flawlessly when booted into SafeMode.
Things I've Tried: (not in any particular order)
1) Full system anti-virus scans with updated version of Avast! including a boot-time scan, full drive scan, and a memory scan.
2) Completely uninstalled all currently installed video drivers using the Driver Sweeper utility, then re-installing drivers.
Drivers tried(nVIDIA): 296.10, 285.62(rolled back), and 301.24(beta driver)
3) Windows Memory Diagnostics - result: no errors after 3 passes
4) memtest86 - result: no errors after 8 passes
5) Booted with only one stick of ram at a time - crashes still occurred when using each individually
6) Spyware scan with Spybot Search & Destroy (yes, updated..)
7) Registry cleaner with CCleaner
8) Updated all of my MOBO drivers and BIOS
9) Ran chkdsk /f
10) ran video stress test with FurMark - worked fine - temps maxed at about 66-67 deg. Celsius
11) The temps on my CPU are also low, averaging at about 35-40 deg. Celsius
12) possibly more, I'll edit or post if I remember any more things I tried.
So basically this is my last resort, I still cant fix this problem - hopefully someone else can.
My debugger shows nvlddmkm.sys to be the cause (nvidia driver) - but this doesn't make sense to me because I've uninstalled and reinstalled 3 different drivers and I continue to get the same symptoms.
This made me think it is possibly a physical hardware defect of my graphics card. However, 1) why would symptoms only appear now? - I've had this card for a couple years and it was fine. 2) It works perfect in Safe Mode. If it were hardware related, wouldn't it also have symptoms in safe mode?
I am attaching the dump files and system report.
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System Information
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Time of this report: 4/25/2012, 01:14:23
Machine name: DARRYL-PC
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.120305-1505)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: MSI
System Model: MS-7636
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 760 @ 2.80GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 4056MB RAM
Page File: 1750MB used, 6357MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460
Last edited by Pocket987; 25 Apr 2012 at 00:32. Reason: Attached Dumps