Random freezing/crashing with Nvidia GeForce GT 220

distribute said:

I bought a new Dell computer with windows 7 64-bit home premium and a Nvidia GeForce GT 220 graphics card in early January. Its main function is gaming.

About 2 or 3 weeks after I started using it, my computer would freeze up and display distorted colors, and if a game or music is playing, the sound would become a choppy monotone over the speakers. Alternately, the screen would turn black and the computer would simply restart, or sometimes I would get the blue screen of death before it restarted. This would occur at completely random times at a rate of about 5-20 times per day.

It might crash and restart/freeze up five times in three minutes, or it might crash and be fine for six hours. I have heard it crash while I'm lying awake in bed, and then would not surprisingly find that I would have to log back in the following morning. I have gone AFK for hours and then come back to find the desktop frozen up. After these such experiences and more I have concluded that there is not a specific program I am consciously running that is causing it to crash.

Less often the screen would shut off for a second and then come back completely fine, but with an accompanying error message "your display driver stopped responding and has successfully recovered" or something along those lines. In the memory dump on the blue screen of death, the file "nvlddmkm" would be mentioned, which is part of the Nvidia driver.

I tried calling Dell support. They had me reinstall my bios and graphics card driver, then do a system restore. None of these things worked, and Dell didn't have anything further for me other than that I should reinstall my operating system.

I also checked the core temperature and found it to be a bit high, so I cleaned it out, which took the temperature back down. Nothing changed.

The crashes/freezes still occur when not downloading anything and while not connected to the internet. The crashes do NOT occur, as far as I have observed, in safe mode, though tonight I will leave the computer on in safe mode just to be sure.

I have AVG virus protection software, and it does not detect any viruses. I doubt that viruses are the source of the problem.

I have looked on some other forums, including dell support and nvidia support, and from what I have gathered, nvidia has not created the appropriate graphics card driver for their card for windows 7.

I wanted to check here first with individuals more experienced than myself before trying the following solutions:
1) Since Dell is covering my computer with a warranty for awhile longer, I could talk the support team into sending me a new graphics card brand, since it is technically their responsibility to fix my problem until the warranty runs out.
2) Try reinstalling Windows 7 on my computer, which would wipe out everything I have installed and taking up a lot of time.

Neither of these options are very appealing to me, but I don't really see any other way. I would appreciate some input on this, if anyone has some other things I could try.

I can get the mini-dump thing (the data gotten on startup when the computer recently crashed) the next time this computer crashes, if needed.

Thanks for your time.

How did it go? Did u fix the problem you had with Geforce gt 220`? I have same ptoblem now.... Please help me, its very bad.

sire said:

How did it go? Did u fix the problem you had with Geforce gt 220`? I have same ptoblem now.... Please help me, its very bad.

I called Dell support and they replaced it with the exact same graphics card. Yes, you heard right. My geforce gt 220 was causing my computer to crash and then Dell replaced it with another geforce gt 220. And somehow that solved the problem; I have never had graphics card-related problems since.

Also, you should try installing the latest graphics card driver for it on the nvidia website.

I have updated it from nvidia but it didnt help. the older updste from october 2010 worked better but i really think the ge force 220 series is just not good enough for windows 7. I have had nothing but trouble with it since i bought this pc july2010. I have had every problem as the last person and then some. blue screen of death, crashes and freezing. desktop windows session manager session is one of the startup sevices that was causing freezing on startup but, that could be another prob. freezing when i open wmp or any program really. HP says its software and told me to update nvidia drivers and ram drivers but they didnt help. I lost my reciept for it ond now im kicking myself cos its still under warranty n its still got five months left. I never had half the problems on my hp laptop running XP.

I had the same problem with a dell xps 8000
same card etc.I tried it in another computer that
worked perfectly and it crashed.I have tried all
the drivers from nvidia without success.I took
the old card out of one of my old computers which
was a gigabyte geforce 8400 gs and have had no
problems since. If Del wont replace it in warranty
then you might be better off shopping around for
a replacement.Hope this helps you

the lizard

I've got similar problem its crashing and freezing in every 30 mins please help its very annoying I've got Palit 220GT 1GB ddr3 hdmi/dvi/vga.

Confirming the issue, my card failed as well. HP replaced it with another. However, that failed also. Turns out the replacement card is not compatible with Windows 7 64 bit. I replaced the replacement card with a PNY NVidia Quadro 600 1 GB at my expense. Works great! Am researching small claims court to see if I can recoup my out-of-pocket expenses from HP.

Jim

I am also confirming the issue, my card failed...twice. Recently bought two new gaming laptops, and allowed the kids in the house to inherit the two 'old' DELL XPS Desktops. We are a gaming family, so our vid cards take a good beating. From the very beginning when we bought these systems a few years ago, we had immediate problems with the NVIDIA 220's. First, my husband's went out, and shortly thereafter, mine followed suit. We were still under warranty (90 days from expiration!), and after a few hours of tech support, Dell denial, and screaming, a tech finally showed up and replaced the vid cards. Unfortunately, it was with the same exact type of card. A month later (60 days to go), Vid cards fried again, and this time, Dell finally admitted that they may have a problematic defect on their hands. Another tech came out, replaced the cards (AGAIN), and the Motherboards (the heatsinks burned this time around). They verified again that the power supplies were adequate, cooling shouldn't be an issue, but still they died. Another 30 days goes by... BAM. Again. All fried. So this time, we got an even nicer Dell Tech Manager who fully authorized a complete replacement and upgrade to the newer XPS series model, identical machines. No charge. We received them and set them up with 24 hours left on the Dell warranty.

Fast forward to this week, when we decided to expand our home network to allow the older kids to start gaming with us. I wanted the portability of a laptop, and so we set the kids up with our two identical Dell systems. Unfortunately, the familiar black outs and BSODs started happening on my machine. It only happens when playing WOW or other graphics intensive games. It shuts off the entire system to power down. I ran a bunch of diagnostic tests, and the source is not shocking; the NVIDIA 220 *.sys file is identified in the diagnostics. I have renamed, recopied, re-expanded and reverted drivers, etc. I did a full uninstall of the card itself, cleaned out the tower, checked the seatings, checked the power supply, and completed a clean install of all the drivers in stages, including the latest beta they offer to 'fix' similar issues with BF3. Within 5 to 6 minutes of playing, she shuts down. I have been at this all day long. My 7 year old is playing on it now without problems...I guess Build-a-Bearville doesn't tax the crappy, Win 7 64bit incompatible NVIDIA 220 like World of Warcrack does.

Heading out to buy a couple snappy new graphic cards that can run properly in Win 7 O/S. I know these are dated, but come on...this is not my idea of a nice vacation day.