Freezes with GIGABYTE Geforce GTS 450

[riimeik]

Hi.

So one day, while playing Portal, my system froze (no reactin to neither mouse nor keyboard). I reinstalled Windows, disabled services, installed drivers and many other things for many times and I still got the following problem: I can boot Windows normally only without the graphics driver. Otherwise, it freezes at the Welcome screen (sometimes, the screen switches itself on and off for a few times too) and I have no other choice but to manually restart the computer.
Everything works fine in safe mode. I have already moved my RAM sticks, ran chkdsk, reinstalled Windows (3 tmes), tried 4 different drivers and ran system repair - but without any success. There are a few suspicions I have:

1) Graphics driver failure
2) Corrupted hard-drive
3) Corrupted memory

The first one seems the most realistic problem to me, but I've read about similar/identical cases about system freezes that have been fixed with changing memory/hdd, so the others are possible too. Also I don't think there's something wrong with the graphics card as without any drivers there are no problems. Hope here are some smart guys who could help me with my problem.

System:
Windows 7 Ultimate, x64 operating system
GIGABYTE Nvidia Geforce GTS 450, 1GB graphics card
2 x 2GB memory
AMD Athlon x2 260, 3200 Mhz processor
MSI 770-C45 motherboard
500GB hard disc

 

[Maguscreed]

Let's see if it created any dump files to be viewed, Click on yoda below and use the BSOD posting instructions to see if you find anything.

 

[riimeik]

http://files.riimeik.eu/Windows_NT6_BSOD_jcgriff2.rar

OS is 64bit, is not the original installed OS on the system (original was Home Premium), full retail version. Computer with everything in it is approx. 3.5 months old and the OS is.. a few days old as I did the last reinstall a few days ago.

 

[Maguscreed]

The dump there is 2 days old, but does point to the video card/ driver.

VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE (116)
Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed.
Arguments:
Arg1: fffffa8006ab9130, Optional pointer to internal TDR recovery context (TDR_RECOVERY_CONTEXT).
Arg2: fffff88014014354, The pointer into responsible device driver module (e.g. owner tag).
Arg3: 0000000000000000, Optional error code (NTSTATUS) of the last failed operation.
Arg4: 000000000000000d, Optional internal context dependent data.

FAULTING_MODULE: fffff80002c5b000 nt

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP:  4d27c6da

FAULTING_IP: 
nvlddmkm+156354
fffff880`14014354 4883ec28        sub     rsp,28h

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  GRAPHICS_DRIVER_TDR_FAULT

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT:  1

BUGCHECK_STR:  0x116

CURRENT_IRQL:  0

STACK_TEXT:  
fffff880`03fda9c8 fffff880`03b59000 : 00000000`00000116 fffffa80`06ab9130 fffff880`14014354 00000000`00000000 : nt+0x70740
fffff880`03fda9d0 00000000`00000116 : fffffa80`06ab9130 fffff880`14014354 00000000`00000000 00000000`0000000d : dxgkrnl+0x5d000
fffff880`03fda9d8 fffffa80`06ab9130 : fffff880`14014354 00000000`00000000 00000000`0000000d 00000000`00000000 : 0x116
fffff880`03fda9e0 fffff880`14014354 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`0000000d 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : 0xfffffa80`06ab9130
fffff880`03fda9e8 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`0000000d 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 fffff880`03b58d87 : nvlddmkm+0x156354


STACK_COMMAND:  kb

FOLLOWUP_IP: 
nvlddmkm+156354
fffff880`14014354 4883ec28        sub     rsp,28h

SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX:  4

SYMBOL_NAME:  nvlddmkm+156354

FOLLOWUP_NAME:  MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: nvlddmkm

IMAGE_NAME:  nvlddmkm.sys

BUCKET_ID:  WRONG_SYMBOLS

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

I actually recall a thread with this exact same problem on a nvidia system within the last couple of days, before I type out a bunch of info and do a driver dump. Let me see if I can dig it up.

http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/144443-nvidia-driver-bsod-mainly-cold-boot.html

His problem was directly related to his overclock on his system.
My first suggestion given the amount of work spent on that problem. Is that if you are using any level of overclock to remove it and see if the problem resolves.

 

[riimeik]

Haven't overclocked anything, even though the GIGABYTE card is an overclocked version of the original Geforce GTS 450. Gonna take a look at that thread tomorrow, thanks for quick replies.

 

[riimeik]

I'd suggest re-setting your drivers.
Download and install Driver Sweeper.
Boot to Safe Mode
Uninstall current Graphics Drivers set up.
Run Driver Sweeper to clean up any left overs from nVidia and ATI.
Reboot to Normal Mode.
Install your new Graphics Drivers.

Followed the steps and installed the driver from the CD that came alongside with the card, rebooted and now Windows doesn't seem to recognize the card.. interesting. It's listed under "Other devices" in Device Manager. Gonna reboot once again and download required drivers from Nvidia website if it is still not recognizing it.

EDIT: Nothing, still freezes.

 

[riimeik]

Wow, progress. Windows made it to the desktop 2 times with full support to Aero effects, but freezed as soon as I opened Firefox or Live Messenger. This makes this issue even more random and makes me wonder how can it work (almost) flawlessly sometimes while crashing the system on the other times.

 

[Ginmill]

Check your bios and make sure its up to date. I had a similar issue but with a totally different mobo.

 

[riimeik]

I was told from the warranty that the graphics card had been broken and would be replaced. Thanks for trying to help though.

 

[GeneO]

Use the latest nvidia drivers for the GTS 450 at nvidia.com. they are version 267.59:

NVIDIA DRIVERS 267.59 WHQL

 

[NINi]

hey riimeik, i also have a gts 450 that is less than 3 months old and is suffering from the exact same problems you described. I also tried to reinstall win 7 and all system drivers to no avail. Were nvidia hard to deal with to get your replacement as that seems to be the only way to get my comp running again?