New
#1
Serious problems, apparently video-card related
Hello all!
Thanks in advance for any help you guys can give me. I'm more than a little worked up about all of this and can't wait to find a solution...
I've attached info. First, I'll give you more information on my system, then I'll briefly describe the problems I'm having.
- Windows 7 Professional x86
- Not the original installed OS on the system
- Retail, upgrade from XP
- My hardware is about two years old
- The OS is about two weeks old
- One possible complication, though I'm pretty sure it's not the issue: I'm running Windows 7 on a MacBook Pro via Bootcamp. For the past two years, I ran XP on the same machine without any problems whatsoever. Two weeks ago, I upgraded to Snow Leopard and Windows 7 and now the Windows side has gone all wonky. I have searched around online and have found no reason to believe that Windows 7 is any less compatible with Bootcamp than XP is.
Now, here's my problem...
First off, the problem seems to be video-card related. I have a nVidia GeForce 8600M GT. The problem manifests itself this way: I'll be tooling around on Windows 7, as I am now, and I'll either open some new program or screen, or I'll be in the middle of streaming video off Netflix, and the screen will go all pixelated and seize. If I'm running audio, the audio will go on for a few seconds then start skipping.
Sometimes the screen will stay frozen. Other times it will go black and hang there. Other times it will go black and then the computer will automatically restart. Most of the time, I have to force it to restart.
A further problem is that oftentimes after this happens, I cannot get the computer to restart properly: a black screen will come up... and then nothing. For one desperate hour, I could not get beyond this black screen. Then, for no apparent reason, it would decide that it was ready to restart.
Sometimes I'm brought to a screen where I'm asked if I want to "Start Windows Normally" (or in Safe Mode); other times, I'm brought to a screen where I'm asked if I want to run "Startup Recovery" (or something like that). One time I was forced to "Check the Disk for Consistency," which took about four hours, fixed two or three problems, but did nothing to get rid of the problem.
Sometimes I'll go days without any crashes. Other times I won't be able to use the computer for more than a few minutes without it crashing again. Today, I've gotten it to crash consistently simply by opening MediaMonkey, a music-server program: every time I open up the program -- bang -- the computer crashes. But I've used MediaMonkey before, many times, with no problems.
Also, I occasionally get the little bubble that says something like: "nVidia Kernel Mode driver stopped working, but has successfully recovered."
I've searched and searched online for a solution. All I've found are lots of people with similar problems. I've seen it suggested that you "upgrade your chipset" or "upgrade your bios" or any number of other potential fixes that are both way beyond my computer abilities and seem, from other things I've read, to be very risky even if you know exactly what you're doing, which I don't.
Please, please, please! Any help would be hugely appreciated.
(I have not yet attempted a fresh install of Windows 7. But I've come across numerous posts from people with similar problems who reinstalled the OS without it doing any good. One guy claimed to have reinstalled 4 times! So I'd like to keep that option as a last resort.)