Ongoing BSOD; dxgkrnl.sys, dxgmms1.sys, and nvlddmkm.sys

Ok quick update;

Turns out the loud noises was from the case fan in front of the hard drive.

However, as I said before, the hard drive seemed to be running slow, but not entirely sure it was going bad anymore.
I ordered a new one, slightly different model number, but otherwise all the specs are the same.

I hooked it up last night, and had to partition it for the computer to detect it as a separate drive. I set it as drive E:. Next I made a backup of Windows on it, not realizing that it didn't copy everything from the old drive.
Then I ran Acronis True Image WD Edition and cloned my old drive onto the new one. However, I noticed when it went to start the process, my computer restarted and locked up on the ASUS motherboard logo screen. I hit restart button and it immediately started the cloning process. I let it run over night, and it shut down after completing.

Upon starting up this morning everything seemed fine, looked like everything was copied onto new drive. I did some things on the internet for awhile, then put the computer to sleep.
When I went to wake it up, it froze up again, monitor had no signal. I hit restart and it locked up on the ASUS motherboard screen again; the mouse and keyboard light up, but when I hit a button on the keyboard, the Num lock light goes out and stays out. Computer will not respond. I hit restart several more times, but nothing worked, it kept locking up on ASUS screen.
Thinking maybe I was confusing the computer, since the drive are now basically the same, I unplugged the SATA cable from the old drive. The computer immediately started normally, and I was able to run some programs. I turned it off again (this is when I unplugged the noisy case fan), and restarted, and got the lock up on ASUS screen again several more times....

Not sure what is going on, the only thing I can think of is maybe the SATA cable I had the new hard drive plugged in with? Its a bit older, and says SATA II on it. Not sure what my other two SATA cables are (old hard drive and disc drive), assuming SATA IIIs since they says 6gbs on them, but not sure

I seem to be running ok at the moment, I unplugged the old drive completely and plugged in the new drive with the newer SATA cable, and its connected with the same power cable as before.

well issues still occurring in some form. Computer ran fine today until just now. Went to wake it up after a couple of hours to shut down for the night. Monitor says no input, mouse and keyboard light, but do not respond. Held the reset button and as it was booting up again it said "Resuming Windows" but then the screen went blank again and mouse and keyboard do nothing. Did not get BSOD.

Currently running scf/scannow.... Edit: Found nothing

Only thing I did different today was uninstall Arconis True Image because it seemed to be running processes in the background. Since I finished my drive cloning I figured I didn't need it, hoping it didn't mess something up by uninstalling it....

At this point the only thing I haven't replaced it motherboard and processor. Haven't tried a clean install of windows yet, will probably be my next step unless anyone has any other suggestions. Been avoiding it because I really don't want to start over, but I've spent way too much on upgrades way sooner then I was intending. Don't get me wrong, it needed to be done eventually, but I didn't really want to do it all at once.

ICIT2LOL said:

Ok Terrek now I know what you mean about the clean install the bit I am not fond of is the updates but somewhere recently I got a sort of update package link/s from another member that avoids the tedious and horrendous length of time it takes to do them - if I can search it out I will send you those links via a message.

Now if you do a clean install then personally I like to clean or wipe the drive to make sure every bit of the original install is gone as that avoids any issues caused by remnants left over and some who just format only are in my mind are taking a risk of that happening.
An alternative is to use a new drive preferably a SSD and use the free ISO from Microsoft Microsoft this is a better option than any original media you might have because it is the latest and freshest copy and will include the SP1 and most of the updates.
You will need to make a bootable drive source ie a DVD (I prefer this) or a stick and do make sure when you burn the bootable media do it at the slowest rate you can get - 4x is good less is better because it avoids files being copied badly or even corrupting them.
But it is your choice and budget to do whatever you think right.

The cloning software I linked in my last post I have used for years and with no problems like you have been experiencing with Acronis. It is also perfect for making regular back up images of your system too.
Imaging with free Macrium

Edit: these are the links for those updates
Four steps to reduce the pain of Windows 7 installations using cumulative updates - Tech Pro Research

my vendor told me, there are win 7 installation medium with sp2 already.
i just looked up his psu and found out that it got voltage drops on the 5v rail. also is his bios correctly configured?
sometimes a shitty bios causes problems or waste perfomance.

h1ght said:

my vendor told me, there are win 7 installation medium with sp2 already.
i just looked up his psu and found out that it got voltage drops on the 5v rail. also is his bios correctly configured?
sometimes a shitty bios causes problems or waste perfomance.

As far as I know, I have never change the BIOS on the computer, so it has whatever was installed by the manufacturer disc.


currently using new hard drive with cloned install from older hard drive, so I'm not going to buy another new one. Most likely wipe new drive and start from scratch, since the old drive still has everything on it.

As for the Arconis software, I don't know that it caused any problems, I just noticed that it seemed to have some kind of automatic backup process running in the background. I just figured that since I had already completed the cloning process a few days ago, I didn't need whatever other process it was running.

also check with cpu-z your bios, latest bios mostly fixes bugs and improve stability.
there are two bios updates of asus. one of them improving stability and other one fixes some issues, just install the newest one.i think
Version 3802
is the newest.

also check if your bios got right settings like hpet 64 bit etc.
dunno what that northbridge got for features, cauze im running and older system. i think the staff got more infos about that.

ok, I updated to bios version 3802 from old version, 3012 dated 1/20/2012.

First restart upon update resulted in Windows failing to start. I tried running windows startup recovery without doing system restore, but it wasn't able to fix anything. I unplugged the system from all power for several minutes (I forgot this step, outlined here: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Forum- EZ Flash 2 - the safest way to update BIOS ) and then restarted.
It seems ok at the moment, but I don't know for sure yet.

ICIT2LOL said:

Hmm was not aware of an SP2 the link I posted is purely a total number of updates in one package but I stand to be corrected.

its not a real sp2 like on xp, its those rollup updates. but getting of sp1 to those update takes a long time.
there is a tool like wsusoffline do to that faster.