BSODS at random, no obvious cause. hal.dll / ntoskrnl.exe / pci.sys

Just had a fresh crash. No other problems today.

Regarding potential sabotage: I keep my antivirus updated, and have it set to scan everything on access, reading or writing. Just started a full scan, and it quarantined a single instance of "heur:trojan.script.generic" in my programdata\{06EEC38D-8CAC-494B-0A6A-D70990285CC7} folder, a file named "fote.txt". I have no idea what this folder's associated program is. All the other files were last modified at 5:05 pm today and range from 1 to 634 KB in size. Should I delete the contents of this folder? Time for password changes, fraud alert, etc? Or is this something less harmful at play? Perhaps even a false positive? I'm running a full scan, regardless.

Update: After talking things through with Zonealarm, they have assured me on no uncertain that nothing was compromised.

Yeah no I was just maybe grasping.

And well it's again that darned nvlddmkm.sys that makes your computer go bananas.

Install this driver package, it's the latest available for your GPU from NVIDIA, if that fails then there might be some drivers from Dell that are like specifically made for your system:

Drivers | GeForce

In the installation there should be a part about how you want to install the drivers, express or custom, select custom and you should come to a screen where you have the option to select what components you want to install, under the list there should a small tick box with a yellow exclamation mark "Perform a clean installation". I want you to tick this box.

Cheers, Boris :)

starschwar said:

Sounds like a plan. Thank you, Boris. I'll keep you posted. I'm going to adopt a "do no harm" stance for the computer, as I need it tonight. It's a little unstable, but better than it has been. Tomorrow, I'll give it a good cleaning, and install those drivers with a clean installation. Hopefully, that will settle it.

Oh no problem, you are most welcome!

Thanks for the update.

Good luck! :)

starschwar said:

After a nice dusting on Tuesday, I've yet to experience another BSOD. I do believe the problem is solved, but I'm going to hold off a few days before marking this as such. Thanks again for everything, Boris. I will post again if things go awry.

Oh that's a relief.

And I'm just happy that I could help you!

Cheers, Boris :)

Hi,
Wondering if the machine looked like this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQS9Tb8Wsdw

ThrashZone said:

Hi,
Wondering if the machine looked like this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQS9Tb8Wsdw

Well I'm surprised I thought that was something you'd like, heh heh.

starschwar said:

Sorry for the delay - had a lot of stuff taking up my attention. I'm pleased to say that I've had not one BSOD since the last one! Thanks again for all your help. It wasn't that dusty, but I really had been putting it off for too long.

Double thumbs up!

Cheers, Boris :)