Alienware 13 - BSOD DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE(9f) - ntoskrnl.exe

9ine · 14 Mar 2015

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this. :)

I bought an refurbed Alienware 13. Windows 7 pro. It arrived on 3/12. After about 3 hours of general use, it BSOD'd in the middle of a youtube video: DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE.

When I went to look for the dmp file, I found that there was already one in there from 2/20, aka from before I owned it. Uh oh.

Bluescreenviewer says ntoskrnl.exe is the culprit, crash address: ntoskrnl.exe+75b80

After this happened the first time, I rebooted and applied all the windows updates until it told me it didn't have any more updates for me.

It has BSOD'd with the same error on shutdown since then, but not every shutdown. Sometimes it gets hung up during shutdown and BSOD's, other times it shuts down normally. I've had 2 other instances of it blue screening randomly and for seemingly no reason at all.

The BSOD error is the same, but the crash address is different since I applied all the updates: ntoskrnl.exe+74ec0

(Also: After the last crash, I went to System and noticed that my Windows 7 installation wasn't activated. When I tried to activate it using the code that was already entered, it said it wasn't a valid code. I entered the code from the label on the bottom of the laptop and that worked. I'm wondering if this refurb got half-assed.)

I don't know how to fix this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. :) Attaching zip file.

Golden · 14 Mar 2015

Code:

*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck 9F, {3, fffffa80079e3a10, fffff80000b9a3d8, fffffa800b0f7c60}

Unable to load image \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\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
Probably caused by : pci.sys

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

0: kd> !irp fffffa800b0f7c60
Irp is active with 4 stacks 2 is current (= 0xfffffa800b0f7d78)
 No Mdl: No System Buffer: Thread 00000000:  Irp stack trace.  
     cmd  flg cl Device   File     Completion-Context
 [  0, 0]   0  0 00000000 00000000 00000000-00000000    

			Args: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
>[ 16, 2]   0 e1 fffffa80079e4e40 00000000 fffff880067911d4-fffffa800c797650 Success Error Cancel pending
	       \Driver\ACPI	nvlddmkm
			Args: 00000000 00000001 00000001 00000000
 [ 16, 2]   0 e1 fffffa800a73a480 00000000 00000000-00000000    pending
	       \Driver\nvlddmkm
			Args: 00000000 00000001 00000001 00000000
 [  0, 0]   0  0 00000000 00000000 00000000-fffffa800cb5e630    

			Args: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
0: kd> lmvm nvlddmkm
start             end                 module name
fffff880`06659000 fffff880`07067000   nvlddmkm T (no symbols)           
    Loaded symbol image file: nvlddmkm.sys
    Image path: \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\nvlddmkm.sys
    Image name: nvlddmkm.sys
    Timestamp:        Sat Jan 10 08:52:06 2015 (54B0548E)
    CheckSum:         009D73FA
    ImageSize:        00A0E000
    Translations:     0000.04b0 0000.04e4 0409.04b0 0409.04e4

is Windows 7 completely updated?

9ine · 14 Mar 2015

Hi Golden,

When I manually check for updates, Windows Update says there are no updates available, and Windows is up to date.

When I check the update history, there are some updates that have failed. Please see attached.

Golden · 15 Mar 2015

OK. Try reinstalling the NVidia driver, but follow the directions here:
NVIDIA Drivers - Avoid Problems

9ine · 15 Mar 2015

The only Nvidia driver I can find is a system driver. How do I get rid of that? I don't have a Nvidia folder with graphics drivers in it. I do have a Nvidia Corp folder under Program Files. Please see screenshots.

9ine · 15 Mar 2015

Hi Golden, please don't leave.

I have the Nvidia control panel but it won't open except on a right click from Control Panel. It's not showing me any display drivers but it is detecting a GeForce GTX 860M which isn't being detected by device manager, display or anything else. When I try autodetecting drivers from Nvidia it doesn't detect the geforce either. I'll try to manually find the 860M driver from Nvidia and see if I can get it installed. Thank you for your help. :)

9ine · 15 Mar 2015

Hi Golden,

I installed the display driver for the 860M from the Dell / Alienware website. I got another BSOD during shutdown (same error msg), where shutdown lagged for about 10 min, then blue screened. I attached the zip file that documents this crash.

I just downloaded and installed the display driver from the Nvidia website. The Nvidia driver and the Dell driver have the same version # 347.52, but the Nvidia driver installed in the C:\Nvidia folder with the version number in a folder, the Dell didn't (if that makes any difference). I did a clean install. I'll see if that helped anything, or if it's still crash city.

Thank you for your help. :)

9ine · 15 Mar 2015

Survey says: crash city.

It BSOD'd randomly this time, not during shutdown. Please see attached for the zip.

I really don't know what's going on with this thing. Help is greatly appreciated.