BSOD when playing games, faulting on nvd3dum.dll

[sprouler]

My laptop (Dell XPS L702X) is about two years old and has been running great up until about a month ago when my video drivers starts crashing, while playing games, causing my screen to go black for a moment and then recover. Once this starts happening, it happens every few seconds until I get a blue screen saying nvd3dum.dll faulted. I tried to do some uninstalls/reinstalls/repair installs but the error kept on so I just went ahead and restored to the factory image. Unfortunately the error is still happening, which makes me think it is a hardware issue. I went to the Dell site and grabbed the drivers from there with no luck so I tried installing the latest driver directly from the NVidia site and trying to install those gave me a BSOD. The dmp files date stamp shows as being last modified days ago the latest blue screen happened just minutes before I grabbed the file so I hope things have been logging correctly. I've attached the zip file with all of the log goodies (taken today). If anyone can have a look and give some suggestion that would be great!

 

[Northernsoul55]

Hi,

Your logs show quite a few issues, Nvidia drivers, Anti-Virus and drivers:

*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
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Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.
BugCheck 9F, {3, fffffa80078f1a10, fffff80000ba2748, fffffa800c950010}
Unable to load image \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\nvlddmkm.sys, Win32 error 0n2
*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for nvlddmkm.sys
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for nvlddmkm.sys
Probably caused by : [COLOR=red]nvlddmkm.sys[/COLOR]
Followup: MachineOwner
---------
0: kd> !analyze -v
*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************
DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE (9f)
A driver is causing an inconsistent power state.

As you have tried the latest and rolling back your Nvidia drivers without success
please try this known stable version:

1. Download and install :ar: Driver Fusion.
2. Reboot the computer in :ar: Advanced Boot Options, safe mode.
3. Search Driver Fusion in your start menu, and remove all components of your nVidia display driver.
4. If it says the free version of Driver Fusion cannot remove all the elements, stop there and follow:
:ar: Drivers - Clean Left over Files after Uninstalling
5. Boot normally now. Go to :ar: Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers, Drivers > Beta and Legacy;
6. Search there with your cards particulars for :ar: GeForce 306.23 Driver, dated 13.9.2012 and install it.

Stress test the Graphics Card using Furmark:

:ar: Video Card - Stress Test with Furmark

Anti-Virus:
Mcafee is also causing issues, please remove: :ar: McAfee Removal Tool - McAfee Uninstaller

As an alternative please install:

:ar: Microsoft Security Essentials.
Recommended from a strict BSOD perspective, compatibility & stability
compared to other antiviruses/internet security software.

   Note

Once downloaded, update and run a full system scan

Drivers:
Update these drivers as they are causing issues:

Driver: [COLOR=red]SynTP.sys[/COLOR]
Refers to: Synaptic Touch Pad Driver

Try OEM: :ar: Product Support for XPS 17 (L702x) | Dell US
Or: :ar: Drivers | Synaptics

Driver:[COLOR=red] igdkmd64.sys[/COLOR]
Refers to: Intel Graphics driver

Try OEM: :ar: Product Support for XPS 17 (L702x) | Dell US
Or: :ar: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Default.aspx

Post back any results/observations

Cheers

Dave

 

[sprouler]

Thank you for the very detailed reply. I've gone through all of your suggestions and so far so good. It didn't crash every time before so I will have to wait a while to tell for sure if this is gone. One problem this may have caused though is determining which video card the computer will use to play a game. With the other drivers I was able to get into the NVidia control panel to say what application used which graphics processor. The laptop has both the integrated intel graphics and the NVidia chip. Now I can not open the control panel and the games I've tried since have felt sluggish which makes me think they aren't using the NVidia card. I will have to see if there is a way around that. Just for the sake of mentioning it, when I try and open the NVidia control panel I get this error:

Nvidia Display settings are not available. You are not currently using a display attached to an NVidia gpu.

 

[Northernsoul55]

Hi,

Reinstalling the driver again may help?

Did you test the card using Furmark, what was the outcome?

cheers

Dave

 

[sprouler]

I hadn't tested using Furmark so I went ahead and downloaded it. It couldn't detect my NVidia card either so I tried to do a restart. Windows couldn't load again. I could get into safe mode and there were a bunch of profile errors in the event log. I ended up doing a restore to a point yesterday. I've run into the control panel error before and it seems to happen when you use a driver directly from NVidia instead of one off of the Dell site. Seems silly.

I'll have to try and download Furmark again in hopes and assumption it was something else that blew up my profile / Windows.

 

[Northernsoul55]

Ok, thanks for the feedback.

Can it detect your GPU after restore?

cheers

Dave

 

[sprouler]

Unfortunately not. I can get Windows to detect it if I install a driver from Dell but then everything becomes really unstable. I have the NVidia card disabled in device manager at the moment and get a lot more stability out of that. Kind of seems more and more like some part of the physical NVidia card has gone faulty. I tried furmark after installed a Dell supported driver and it was only able to run for 15 seconds or so before it crashed with another NVidia dll error.

 

[Northernsoul55]

As you have carried out a System Restore, I will need a new crash dump once you BSOD again.

It certainly is pointing towards Nividia card fault.

I would suggest running Driver Verifier, see if it catches any misbehaving drivers, if not
then that will confirm that a hardware condition may exist.

As your logs are not showing anything definitive:

Run Driver Verifier to scan for any corrupted drivers which may be causing problems, this program works by running various stress tests on drivers, in order to produce a BSOD which will locate the driver; run for least 24 hours:

:ar: Driver Verifier - Enable and Disable

Before enabling DV, make it sure that you have earlier System restore points made in your computer.

If you fail to get on the Desktop because of DV, Boot into Advanced Boot Options > Safe mode. Disable DV there. Now boot normally again, and try following the instruction of enabling DV again.
If you cannot boot in Safe mode too, do a System Restore to a point you made earlier.


Cheers

Dave