Solved Ongoing BSOD; dxgkrnl.sys, dxgmms1.sys, and nvlddmkm.sys

[Terrek]

Ok quick update;

Turns out the loud noises was from the case fan in front of the hard drive.

However, as I said before, the hard drive seemed to be running slow, but not entirely sure it was going bad anymore.
I ordered a new one, slightly different model number, but otherwise all the specs are the same.

I hooked it up last night, and had to partition it for the computer to detect it as a separate drive. I set it as drive E:. Next I made a backup of Windows on it, not realizing that it didn't copy everything from the old drive.
Then I ran Acronis True Image WD Edition and cloned my old drive onto the new one. However, I noticed when it went to start the process, my computer restarted and locked up on the ASUS motherboard logo screen. I hit restart button and it immediately started the cloning process. I let it run over night, and it shut down after completing.

Upon starting up this morning everything seemed fine, looked like everything was copied onto new drive. I did some things on the internet for awhile, then put the computer to sleep.
When I went to wake it up, it froze up again, monitor had no signal. I hit restart and it locked up on the ASUS motherboard screen again; the mouse and keyboard light up, but when I hit a button on the keyboard, the Num lock light goes out and stays out. Computer will not respond. I hit restart several more times, but nothing worked, it kept locking up on ASUS screen.
Thinking maybe I was confusing the computer, since the drive are now basically the same, I unplugged the SATA cable from the old drive. The computer immediately started normally, and I was able to run some programs. I turned it off again (this is when I unplugged the noisy case fan), and restarted, and got the lock up on ASUS screen again several more times....

Not sure what is going on, the only thing I can think of is maybe the SATA cable I had the new hard drive plugged in with? Its a bit older, and says SATA II on it. Not sure what my other two SATA cables are (old hard drive and disc drive), assuming SATA IIIs since they says 6gbs on them, but not sure

I seem to be running ok at the moment, I unplugged the old drive completely and plugged in the new drive with the newer SATA cable, and its connected with the same power cable as before.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Yes Terrek mate I think the old drive was confusing the computer for want of a better term, because it probably saw the two drives as the boot?
What I do when I clone drives is to remove the original one an just install the cloned drive as the boot drive keeping the old drive fora spare in case the clone goes south pretty quick.

The cloning software I like is the Macrium Reflect if you are ever looking for another suite it is free and I use it for imaging too. Macrium Reflect Free But that is just a by the by.

The SATA cables well for what they cost are worth a complete changes and getting some really decent
SATA III ones plus I like to use different colours to easily distinguish what device is going to what SATA port only because my Ivy Bridge does have two SATA ports that are designated for the OS drives etc

The fan well it is just a matter of changing it while you are working inside the machine eh?

 

[Terrek]

well issues still occurring in some form. Computer ran fine today until just now. Went to wake it up after a couple of hours to shut down for the night. Monitor says no input, mouse and keyboard light, but do not respond. Held the reset button and as it was booting up again it said "Resuming Windows" but then the screen went blank again and mouse and keyboard do nothing. Did not get BSOD.

Currently running scf/scannow.... Edit: Found nothing

Only thing I did different today was uninstall Arconis True Image because it seemed to be running processes in the background. Since I finished my drive cloning I figured I didn't need it, hoping it didn't mess something up by uninstalling it....

At this point the only thing I haven't replaced it motherboard and processor. Haven't tried a clean install of windows yet, will probably be my next step unless anyone has any other suggestions. Been avoiding it because I really don't want to start over, but I've spent way too much on upgrades way sooner then I was intending. Don't get me wrong, it needed to be done eventually, but I didn't really want to do it all at once.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok Terrek now I know what you mean about the clean install the bit I am not fond of is the updates but somewhere recently I got a sort of update package link/s from another member that avoids the tedious and horrendous length of time it takes to do them - if I can search it out I will send you those links via a message.

Now if you do a clean install then personally I like to clean or wipe the drive to make sure every bit of the original install is gone as that avoids any issues caused by remnants left over and some who just format only are in my mind are taking a risk of that happening.
An alternative is to use a new drive preferably a SSD and use the free ISO from Microsoft Microsoft this is a better option than any original media you might have because it is the latest and freshest copy and will include the SP1 and most of the updates.
You will need to make a bootable drive source ie a DVD (I prefer this) or a stick and do make sure when you burn the bootable media do it at the slowest rate you can get - 4x is good less is better because it avoids files being copied badly or even corrupting them.
But it is your choice and budget to do whatever you think right.

The cloning software I linked in my last post I have used for years and with no problems like you have been experiencing with Acronis. It is also perfect for making regular back up images of your system too.
Imaging with free Macrium

Edit: these are the links for those updates
Four steps to reduce the pain of Windows 7 installations using cumulative updates - Tech Pro Research

 

[h1ght]

Ok Terrek now I know what you mean about the clean install the bit I am not fond of is the updates but somewhere recently I got a sort of update package link/s from another member that avoids the tedious and horrendous length of time it takes to do them - if I can search it out I will send you those links via a message.

Now if you do a clean install then personally I like to clean or wipe the drive to make sure every bit of the original install is gone as that avoids any issues caused by remnants left over and some who just format only are in my mind are taking a risk of that happening.
An alternative is to use a new drive preferably a SSD and use the free ISO from Microsoft Microsoft this is a better option than any original media you might have because it is the latest and freshest copy and will include the SP1 and most of the updates.
You will need to make a bootable drive source ie a DVD (I prefer this) or a stick and do make sure when you burn the bootable media do it at the slowest rate you can get - 4x is good less is better because it avoids files being copied badly or even corrupting them.
But it is your choice and budget to do whatever you think right.

The cloning software I linked in my last post I have used for years and with no problems like you have been experiencing with Acronis. It is also perfect for making regular back up images of your system too.
Imaging with free Macrium

Edit: these are the links for those updates
Four steps to reduce the pain of Windows 7 installations using cumulative updates - Tech Pro Research

my vendor told me, there are win 7 installation medium with sp2 already.
i just looked up his psu and found out that it got voltage drops on the 5v rail. also is his bios correctly configured?
sometimes a shitty bios causes problems or waste perfomance.

 

[Terrek]

my vendor told me, there are win 7 installation medium with sp2 already.
i just looked up his psu and found out that it got voltage drops on the 5v rail. also is his bios correctly configured?
sometimes a shitty bios causes problems or waste perfomance.

As far as I know, I have never change the BIOS on the computer, so it has whatever was installed by the manufacturer disc.


currently using new hard drive with cloned install from older hard drive, so I'm not going to buy another new one. Most likely wipe new drive and start from scratch, since the old drive still has everything on it.

As for the Arconis software, I don't know that it caused any problems, I just noticed that it seemed to have some kind of automatic backup process running in the background. I just figured that since I had already completed the cloning process a few days ago, I didn't need whatever other process it was running.

 

[h1ght]

also check with cpu-z your bios, latest bios mostly fixes bugs and improve stability.
there are two bios updates of asus. one of them improving stability and other one fixes some issues, just install the newest one.i think
Version 3802
is the newest.

also check if your bios got right settings like hpet 64 bit etc.
dunno what that northbridge got for features, cauze im running and older system. i think the staff got more infos about that.

 

[Terrek]

ok, I updated to bios version 3802 from old version, 3012 dated 1/20/2012.

First restart upon update resulted in Windows failing to start. I tried running windows startup recovery without doing system restore, but it wasn't able to fix anything. I unplugged the system from all power for several minutes (I forgot this step, outlined here: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Forum- EZ Flash 2 - the safest way to update BIOS ) and then restarted.
It seems ok at the moment, but I don't know for sure yet.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hmm was not aware of an SP2 the link I posted is purely a total number of updates in one package but I stand to be corrected.

 

[h1ght]

Hmm was not aware of an SP2 the link I posted is purely a total number of updates in one package but I stand to be corrected.

its not a real sp2 like on xp, its those rollup updates. but getting of sp1 to those update takes a long time.
there is a tool like wsusoffline do to that faster.

 

[Terrek]

Not sure what is going on, and didn't pay much attention when the older hard drive was installed. but now my system is using a lot of cpu and memory when it is essentially sitting idle. As I'm sitting here, the only thing open is Internet Explorer and its using nearly 3gb of memory and the cpu keeps going from around 1% to over 50% usage....

I haven't noticed any unusual processes running or anything, and I recently installed MalwareBytes and ran a scan, but didn't come up with anything. I also ran SuperAntiSpyware and Microsoft Security Essentials, but nothing came up other than some cookies.



Edit: As I finished typing, CPU went down to basically nothing, but system is now using 3.5gb for no apparent reason. I only had 8gb installed before and I don't remember it ever using this much memory sitting idle

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok Terrek now your pic shows something like 2.83GB RAM being used and I have just checked this machine I am on and it is very similar (8GB DDR3). My processes tab in the task manager is showing not much at all although I do have a fair number of Chrome processes going on so what is your Processes tab showing?

h1ght

its not a real sp2 like on xp, its those rollup updates. but getting of sp1 to those update takes a long time.
there is a tool like wsusoffline do to that faster.

Yes mate I know of another useful link to speed up the update downloads too following the install of the OS and SP1

 

[h1ght]

Not sure what is going on, and didn't pay much attention when the older hard drive was installed. but now my system is using a lot of cpu and memory when it is essentially sitting idle. As I'm sitting here, the only thing open is Internet Explorer and its using nearly 3gb of memory and the cpu keeps going from around 1% to over 50% usage....

I haven't noticed any unusual processes running or anything, and I recently installed MalwareBytes and ran a scan, but didn't come up with anything. I also ran SuperAntiSpyware and Microsoft Security Essentials, but nothing came up other than some cookies.



Edit: As I finished typing, CPU went down to basically nothing, but system is now using 3.5gb for no apparent reason. I only had 8gb installed before and I don't remember it ever using this much memory sitting idle

during windows update, it eats ram like chrome.
make a screenshot of your process manager, to guess what process is using that.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Yep agree with h1ght and if you open the Processes tab in the Task manager and then open show processes from all users you will see just what all the running processes are showing mine is quite a bit at 28% physical memory but I have the 8GB so I am not worried that much. From what you are saying you have less than 8GB??
In my pic you can see what h1ght means by Chrome chomping on the RAM although in truth it looks a lot but added up is not but compared to some processes it is - if that makes sense. The real eye waterer is the all users tab

 

[Terrek]

Ok, here is what was going on this morning.

first pic is within first 10-20 minutes after computer started up. cpu went over 50% usage and over 3gb of memory. granted I did have a few Internet Explorer pages open, but these websites did not have ads or pop-ups on them.


second is after that, probably after 30 minutes from start up. cpu usage dropped way down, basically 1-2%. memory usage is still 2.78gb. All Internet Explorer pages were now closed.

I have noticed FPS drops while playing games the last few days. Specifically Fallout 4. At first I thought it was do to the latest High Res texture update, which was over 50gb. But I uninstalled it yesterday and my fps is still lower than before I installed it. Game also takes longer to load up too.

I am going to run Memtest 86+ again tonight and see if something is wrong with the new cards....

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Sorry late reply mate had a bad night.

Now in the task manager did you try clicking the Show all processes? it will give you a longer listing of the processes that are in use. see pics.

Well the memtest would not go amiss either and if the sticks are new and you do get errors then it could possibly be that one or more of the slots is bad - very unusual but possible and that means finding a good stick and testing each slot in turn.

 

[Terrek]

ok here is what is running right now

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok well the report shows the machine is using 16% of the total memory (in processes) and the maths tells me that is 1.28GB so I am not sure where the other 1.40GB is being used??

Now I am not sure of where to go next and I might ask for some help from the others if that is ok with you.

 

[Terrek]

sure.

It's not causing a huge problem at the moment, it just kind of annoying, and some programs seem to run a bit slow because of it.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hmm just wondering what is the speed of the DDR3? am assuming it is 1333 Mhz. The only difference between yours an the machine I am on is mine has DDR3 1600Mhz.

Having said that on my Ivy Bridge desktop I can overclock the RAM to 2400 Mhz and even so I am hard pushed to see what difference it makes.