Windows 7 Suddenly Lag then BSOD/WSOD

[WestSideWarrior]

System specs listed in my profile.

During the last couple months, I have had a problem with my PC. The symptom is that the system randomly (and suddenly) went very laggy (extremely slow mouse cursor response, sound starting to stutter), and ultimately, the system crashed with a Blue Screen or White Screen, and the only remedy is to do a force reboot (holding power button till the PC goes off and turn it on once again.)

However, this symptom does not occur during intense gaming or multimedia. (GTA IV, Mafia II, StarCraft II, etc, etc...)

I used to have display driver related error (nvlddmkm.sys, if I remember correctly) which was solved by updating the latest driver from NVIDIA website.

I have attached some crash dumps to this post as well. Actually there were a lot more but I was unable to salvage all of it.

I have searched and referred to this link (http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...sod-windows-7-p5q-deluxe-geforce-260-gtx.html) but since my PC is a laptop, I was unable to modify any advanced BIOS-related parameters. NVFlash also does not work, since a supported EEPROM was not found.

 

[zigzag3143]

System specs listed in my profile.

During the last couple months, I have had a problem with my PC. The symptom is that the system randomly (and suddenly) went very laggy (extremely slow mouse cursor response, sound starting to stutter), and ultimately, the system crashed with a Blue Screen or White Screen, and the only remedy is to do a force reboot (holding power button till the PC goes off and turn it on once again.)

However, this symptom does not occur during intense gaming or multimedia. (GTA IV, Mafia II, StarCraft II, etc, etc...)

I used to have display driver related error (nvlddmkm.sys, if I remember correctly) which was solved by updating the latest driver from NVIDIA website.

I have attached some crash dumps to this post as well. Actually there were a lot more but I was unable to salvage all of it.

I have searched and referred to this link (http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...sod-windows-7-p5q-deluxe-geforce-260-gtx.html) but since my PC is a laptop, I was unable to modify any advanced BIOS-related parameters. NVFlash also does not work, since a supported EEPROM was not found.

These were caused by your video driver. Please re-install them as suggested below. Also please up date the old drivers listed as well.

When upgrading your graphic driver you MUST remove all traces of the current driver. In order to do that we recommend using Guru3D - Driver Sweeper

When it is removed then download and install the fresh copy.


How To Find Drivers:

- search Google for the name of the driver
- compare the Google results with what's installed on your system to figure out which device/program it belongs to
- visit the web site of the manufacturer of the hardware/program to get the latest drivers (DON'T use Windows Update or the Update driver function of Device Manager).
- if there are difficulties in locating them, post back with questions and someone will try and help you locate the appropriate program.

- - The most common drivers are listed on this page: Driver Reference
- - Driver manufacturer links are on this page: http://www.carrona.org/drvrdown.html




old drivers

Lycosa.sys        fffff880`093a2000    fffff880`093a6980    0x00004980    0x4790689e    1/18/2008 04:51:42                        
000.fcl        fffff880`03931000    fffff880`0395c000    0x0002b000    0x48dcdf7a    9/26/2008 09:11:22                        
btwl2cap.sys        fffff880`07f24000    fffff880`07f30000    0x0000c000    0x49d6a9bd    4/3/2009 20:28:45                        
spldr.sys        fffff880`017e6000    fffff880`017ee000    0x00008000    0x4a0858bb    5/11/2009 12:56:27                        
netw5v64.sys        fffff880`04897000    fffff880`04dd2000    0x0053b000    0x4a0c3e06    5/14/2009 11:51:34                        
jmcr.sys        fffff880`0483e000    fffff880`04864000    0x00026000    0x4a10fded    5/18/2009 02:19:25                        
GEARAspiWDM.sys        fffff880`04586000    fffff880`04593000    0x0000d000    0x4a1151c0    5/18/2009 08:17:04                        
amdxata.sys        fffff880`010ce000    fffff880`010d9000    0x0000b000    0x4a12f2eb    5/19/2009 13:56:59                        
BisonC07.sys        fffff880`05092000    fffff880`051acb00    0x0011ab00    0x4a3b793c    6/19/2009 07:40:44                        
btwavdt.sys        fffff880`07e23000    fffff880`07e9e000    0x0007b000    0x4a431015    6/25/2009 01:50:13                        
btwrchid.sys        fffff880`07f30000    fffff880`07f33880    0x00003880    0x4a431069    6/25/2009 01:51:37                        
btwaudio.sys        fffff880`07e9e000    fffff880`07f24000    0x00086000    0x4a4b6ab0    7/1/2009 09:54:56

 

[WestSideWarrior]

I've removed and eliminated traces of the existing driver and installed the latest driver available from NVIDIA (258.96) which is also the official build and WHQL'ed.

I've been using the system for about 3 hours straight now since the driver update. Gaming is still as usual, but I'm not sure about light activities (such as browsing the web and music) will cause the crash or not. As previously mentioned, this issue never happens during intense fullscreen gaming or applications.

As for the outdated drivers, I haven't manage to find the latest for all of the peripherals, especially the Bluetooth module and the webcam drivers which is supplied only by the manufacturer, and it hasn't been updated (on their website) for quite a while already.

 

[WestSideWarrior]

Update: The system just crashed again.

After couple days of normal usage (email, web browsing and regular gaming). The system just crashed today without any cause. The screen simply froze and the sound just went buzzing in a continuous matter. Mouse cursor movement and keyboard input is futile. The only way to use the PC again is to hard shutdown (hold down the power button until it turns off).

I've checked the System Event log and found no Bugcheck error, the only log indicating is the "Unexpected Shutdown" error and "Kernel-Power" Critical error.

I have several programs running during the crash, listed as follows.
- Google Chrome
- HWMonitor (all the temperature parameters were normal though)
- Windows Live Messenger
- Media Player Classic

And some background programs, listed as follows.
- Steam
- Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010

I have performed Chkdsk to scan for bad sectors, but none were found. I also ran Memtest86+ to check whether the RAM is bad or not, but after several passes, no errors were found.

EDIT: Also tried Long Drive Self Test on SeaTools, no errors as well.

Any useful suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[WestSideWarrior]

After weeks of testing and experimenting, I no longer get any BSOD from the system, but the crash still persists. However, I think I have narrowed down the scope of this symptom.

The crash would randomly occur when a Flash-based content is running, regardless of web browser (In this case, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome) this includes, but not limited to, YouTube videos, SWF movie files and games on Facebook.

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Flash plugins, but it doesn't seem to help.

I've searched the web and found others with almost identical issue as well, but without the useful remedy.

I'm starting to wonder if the graphics driver has a serious issue with Flash GPU acceleration...Any ideas, please?

 

[WestSideWarrior]

Update: No luck with disabling Flash GPU acceleration. The system still crashes (No BSOD, just simply went freeze). I'm going to start backing up data and do a clean Windows 7 installation.

If it continues to crash EVEN after the format. There's an awfully high probability that my laptop is defective...

 

[WestSideWarrior]

Finally I've formatted the system and reinstalled Windows 7, with all the latest driver I could find. Unfortunately, despite idle activity, the system still continues to crash! This time without any programs running except for Windows Explorer.

The screen simply went black and the system is completely unresponsive. Hard reset as usual.

I'm strongly convinced that the GPU might be malfunctioning, but since I could run 3D games and other graphic-based applications without any problems, I'm still highly doubtful.

I've decided to check on other forums regarding the Forceware 258.96 graphics driver and found loads of other similar cases, including crashes and instabilities, despite idle or strenuous activity.

Finally, I managed to retrieve the original graphics driver that I've installed the first time I installed Windows, the Forceware 197.16. Though gaming performance is slightly lower than 258.96, I'm pretty sure that this driver is a lot more stable...well, at least if my GPU is still intact.

 

[WestSideWarrior]

After a week of evaluation, it is indeed confirmed that 197.16 is the probably the most stable driver. No crashes, hangs or freezes had occurred during the evaluation period.

I wonder if NVIDIA is going to fix the problem for Forceware 2xx.xx drivers. They actually yield slightly better gaming performance, but stability is a complete wreck.

Thanks for the help.