BSOD after buying new HDD (ntoskrnl.exe & nvlddmkm.sys)

[MrDismal]

First of all I really do apologize if I've created a similar thread to other users, I'll be browsing the forum tomorrow at work.

The last few days have been extremely annoying, I've had weird crashes and BSOD's. One crash was so bad it resulted in my (old) HDD (OCZ SSD) being unable to see itself in Windows setup when I tried to reformat it.

I put it down to being a bad HDD so today I bought a new one (sandisk SSD).

Installed it, fine, installed windows fine, drivers etc. and after installing a few such as Video and soundcard it gave me a BSOD which was: ntoskrnl.exe+80640.
Didn't think too much of it, driver conflict or whatever... started playing a game.
20 mins into the game the BOOM another one: nvlddmkm.sys+1da976.

I don't think it's my HDD this time, as it's brand new and bluescreenview is pointing me towards a driver issue, probably video.

This is what I have tested so far WITHOUT any issues reported:

Memtest x86 over night
updated DirectX
running latest Nvidia drivers
I haven't had a chance to complete the video card test (OCCT) just the RAM option and reported no errors.

If anyone has had same issue please point me in the right direction as this is really annoying!!

I have uploaded the 2 crash dumps reported by windows.

 

[Dsprague]

Please follow the http://www.sevenforums.com/bsod-help-support/96879-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html

 

[MrDismal]

I'm on it, cheers, will edit once done

 

[Dsprague]

OK had a look through your files, noticed a few things, go ahead and prform the stress test with OCCT and let us know the results. But on top of that please ensure that the firmware for your SSD is up to date, and your BIOS as well. Next please run the system file checker:

SFC.EXE /SCANNOW
Go to Start and type in "cmd.exe" (without the quotes)
At the top of the search box, right click on the cmd.exe and select "Run as adminstrator"
In the black window that opens, type "SFC.EXE /SCANNOW" (without the quotes) and press Enter.
Let the program run and post back what it says when it's done.

let us know how things go

 

[MrDismal]

Thanks for the reply, I'll try these things after work tonight! Will post results, cheers mate.

 

[Dsprague]

I look forward to your results.

 

[MrDismal]

So, I ran the SFC /SCANNOW and after it completed it posted the below:
Windows resource protection did not find any integrity violations.

I'm guessing that's a good thing hehe.

Checking BIOS and firmware now....

 

[VistaKing]

Hi MrDismal

What is your bios version ?


Open up command prompt by clicking on rb: type CMD inside Search programs and files . Press [ENTER]

In command prompt enter the following

systeminfo | find "BIOS Version:"

Press <ENTER>

   Note

The | pipe symbol can be found using SHIFT + \ (just above the [ENTER] key)

 

[MrDismal]

Hey Vista, I tried that command and it returned a message saying something like "processing information" but then disappeared without reporting anything.

However, before seeing your post I updated my BIOS through windows to FH.
Had no issues updating everything went smoothly (thank God!).

Is it still worth updating firmware for my SSD?

Also, another question and more info that might help you is that I recently saw that in my BIOS "IDE" was set instead of "ACHI".
Is there really much change in performance using ACHI? I changed to ACHI before installing Windows on the new drive.

Another thing is that default display is set to PCI, instead of PCI-e. Could this have been playing up with my video card and causing issues?

thanks for your help.

 

[VistaKing]

Hi MrDismal

You would want to Change the setting from IDE to ACHI in the bios . IDE is an old hard drive connection . Also SSD run a lot better under ACHI .

New graphic card interface is PCI-e . Old graphic card did come with PCI . Now a days PCI are either for sound cards or other devices like USB cards .

Your graphic card is a PCI-e 2.0 card . Set the graphic card to PCI-e .

:ADDED:

NAME|VERSION|SIZE|DOWNLOAD
SSD TOOLKIT|1.0.0.1|19MB|
Download

   Note

Will need SSD TOOLKIT to update to current firmware

 

[MrDismal]

Awesome thanks for the info, I'll go ahead and update the firmware and post results

 

[MrDismal]

Yep I've done everything mentioned above. Also the SSD firmware updater says I have the latest firmware installed so no need to update.
Alos in that utility I didn't see any errors reported with the drive which is good news.

I haven't experienced any BSOD's since yesterday, but only because I haven't ran any system stress related events like games.
I'm going to try and run a game for at least 40 mins and see if I see any issues.

 

[VistaKing]

If you get a BSOD upload the dmp file again .

Click on GRAB ALL

 

[MrDismal]

Will do, Got through the 45 mins of gameplay and no blue screens.
I have a feeling it was BIOS settings, but can never be too sure. If it happens again I'll upload the dumps.

But for now, thanks so much for your help!

 

[VistaKing]

You're welcome.

 

[MrDismal]

So I was just playing a game and the display kept freezing and returning to the main menu as if I had paused it. I was able to click resume and then play again but for only 5 mins at a time.

Windows kept reporting my Display driver had stopped working.

I took a look in Event Viewer and saw that a bunch of warnings saying "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered."

Is this just a driver issue or could it be a hardware issue?
I downloaded GPU-Z and monitored out of the game and during the game...
Playing the game it sits from 61c to 70c and hovers around 49c when not in the game. This all seems ok to me.

At least the Blue screens have stopped. I'm guessing the video card is what is was giving me the BSOD's before.

 

[Dsprague]

It sounds like it may be the GPU try running Firmark to stress test the GPU and report your results:

FurMark: VGA Stress Test, Graphics Card and GPU Stability Test, Burn-in Test, OpenGL Benchmark and GPU Temperature | oZone3D.Net

FurMark Setup:
- If you have more than one GPU, select Multi-GPU during setup
- In the Run mode box, select "Stability Test" and "Log GPU Temperature" (BurnIn test in newer versions).
Click "Go" to start the test
- Run the test until the GPU temperature maxes out - or until you start having problems (whichever comes first).
- Click "Quit" to exit

 

[MrDismal]

Before I run that app, I did a quick Google search and found a bloke with the same issue, same card and same drivers.
He mentions "I fixed it by using “Prefer Max performance” instead of “Adaptive” in NVIDIA Control Panel" which I'll try and see if that actually improves my problem.

Display driver stopped responding and has recovered, here’s a simple fix that worked on Windows 7 gaming system with NVIDIA 560 Ti, and Windows 8 ThinkPad W520 with NVIDIA 1000M | TinkerTry IT @ home

 

[Dsprague]

Give it a shot and let us know how things go.

 

[MrDismal]

Hey guys I was playing the game again this morning and got a blue screen and auto-restart.
I'm attaching the Dump in a zip.

Going to run that GPU strees test now....