Solved Computer Freezes, reboots, reports Windows has Recovered - Fatal Error

[djones1972]

I have a Dell Inspiron 580 that randomly freezes and reboots and reports that windows has recovered from a fatal error. I can not seem to find the cause. I have tried reinstalling the Video Driver, thinking this was the issue because sometimes when it crashes, the screen will freeze, sometimes it will flash blue and white then crash and reboot. One specific error I see when opening Windows Live Mail, upon a hang, display flashes and notification window pops up says Video driver as stopped working.

I have also tried cleaning all heat syncs, and reapplyng thermal compound to rule out a heat problem. All fans work fine. I have run memtest86 testing memory, and burn in software testing the Video card and I get no error during these test.

At a loss. Figured I would ask for help.

 

[Maguscreed]

I'm not absolutely certain here as things aren't very clear cut in your logs there, but at this point the biggest possible culprit seems to be your antivirus application.
Whether something has gone wrong or it's just mistakenly blocking a needed system component I can't say.

If you aren't completely opposed to the idea I would like you to remove it temporarily to see if things stabilize.

 

[djones1972]

I will give it a shot and report back. Thanks for the reply.

 

[djones1972]

Uninstalled and replaced with Microsoft Security Essentials, just to test. I get the same error message when I open Windows Live Mail. Video Driver has stopped...

 

[Maguscreed]

Something I did notice (I'm on my phone right now) when I looked over your info was that your graphics card is using a very strange hardware irq. It will be a few hours before I get back in front of a computer where I can run your dump files through the debugger.

Two obvious things I have for you in the meantime are wipe / reinstall graphics drivers.
and if you are familiar with how to do so reset the bios to try and fix the weird irq issue.

 

[djones1972]

I do know how to do the driver but I am not sure I know the proper steps on the Bios. When you get a chance if you could post the proper steps I would appreciate it. Thanks again for your help!

 

[Maguscreed]

it's not really all that complicated.
Documentation
under clearing the cmos.

 

[djones1972]

OK, sorry for the delay. Life gets in the way and before yo uknow iteek is gone by. So I started looking more at my Video card and as it turns out it was indeed the problem. I have installed a new card and life is good. Thanks for pointing me in that direction. Sometimes it is hard to see the forest for the trees.

Thank you for your help!

 

[Maguscreed]

Glad you got it fixed