Random boots. Lived with it for a year, now it's time for change.

[Caapi]

Hello all and thank you for taking the time to at least read this,

For a year now, I have been getting randoms boots and BSOD's throughout the day. Mostly it happens 1-3 times in a row and then no problems for the rest of the day. It can happen mid game (high end and low end games), mid text editing, mid nothing and anything really. Or my computer just freezes and reboots, or it instantly reboots or I get a BSOD usually referring to atikmdag.sys or atikmpag.sys. These reboots are all accompanied by a clicking sound in my pc.

What is also very interesting is that I used to be able to bypass my problems by switching my S-ATA HDD into a different S-ATA port on my motherboard and I would be crash free for weeks (maybe days but atleast it felt longer). That solutions no longer sustains me and therefore I come to you to grasp at your knowledge. I have witnessed alot of successes on this very forum and now I wish to be part of that aswell.

I hope I can inform you on whatever I can and I humbly thank you in advance.

 

[Arc]

It appears to be a display/graphics related issue, apparently.

Before we start troubleshooting the primary graphics, I would want to see how it goes with RealVNC uninstalled. It is having a driver that should not be compatible with windows 7.

    Image path: \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\vncmirror.sys
    Image name: vncmirror.sys
[COLOR=Red]    Timestamp:        Fri Mar 14 23:13:05 2008[/COLOR] (47DAB929)

Let us see a further BSOD after uinistalling it.

 

[Caapi]

@Arc

Done and waiting for crashes/reboots to happen (or rather not happen).


Thank you

 

[Caapi]

Today I first encountered a 'Display driver stopped working', this happens sometimes instead of a crash. Then some 15 minutes later everything froze up (including the mouse) and then the audio repeated in like 4Hz intervals, then a crash.

The problem is still here.

What do I do next?

 

[Arc]

Today I first encountered a 'Display driver stopped working', this happens sometimes instead of a crash. Then some 15 minutes later everything froze up (including the mouse) and then the audio repeated in like 4Hz intervals, then a crash.

The problem is still here.

What do I do next?

Something like this?

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Uninstall the installed display driver using Display Driver Uninstaller. Then install any other version of the display driver.

If the display issue continues, it is a hardware issue, not a driver.

There are lots of fixes, solutions etc for this issue over the internet; but if the display issue/display BSODs continues irrespective of the driver version installed, then it is nothing but a failing display hardware.

 

[Caapi]

Yes, that was exactly the error I was getting.

I have followed your instruction and uninstalled with DDU in safemode. Upon rebooting I saw that Windows automatically installed a VGA driver and I followed up with installing the newest driver for my GPU. Now I am waiting for stuff to happen.

Can you see a direct link between this problem and the S-ATA problems I am having? Or is that something different? I failed to tell you that whenever I wait too long with switching the HDD into a different S-ATA port the problem worsens/my computer slows down even more until after a while it doesn't even boot anymore and just says 'a disk read error occurred. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart' upon booting. This problem is then fixed by switching the HDD to a different S-ATA port in my motherboard.


Again, thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.

EDIT: 2 minutes after doing everything my computer froze up and crashed. And I should add that after the crash it doesn't really boot into anything but just stays on with some fan inside blowing very hard and I have to press reset in order for it to function. This is also common and usual (for me).

The funny thing about it all is that after a few hours into the day, no problems occur at all until I go to bed. It's always in the first few hours of the day that the problems arise.

 

[Caapi]

So basically everything went completely downhill after installing the latest drivers for my HD5870. I was playing one of the most low end games I know and suddenly there were white flashes/stripes in my screen before completely crashing. I am now going to install an older driver version to see if it helps a bit. I feel as if the end is near for my pc and I do not know what to do.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Caapi if Arc doesn't mind me asking 1. have you access to another cardperhaps just an old one to try in the machine 2. put that one in anothermachine and see what happens 3. have you tried itwithout any card in at all? ie the onboard graphics??

One last thing have you tried another monitor??

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hello again I just checked out the msinfo and this is what I see in the problem devices (pic)

 

[Pauly]

Don't think a first gen i7 (X58 ?) will have onboard gfx
If the gfx card does fail you can simply replace it, it does not mean the end of the machine

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Don't think a first gen i7 (X58 ?) will have onboard gfx
If the gfx card does fail you can simply replace it, it does not mean the end of the machine

Well it is above me Pauly I thought most boards came with an on board graphics chip - well at least the ones that come with the VGA, DVI, and HDMI sockets on them - I stand to e corrected of course.

PS My apologies just checked out another site and see it has not graphical outputs.

 

[essenbe]

Caapi, please do me a favor. Please add your PSU, Manufacturer and Model to 'My System Specs' at the bottom left of your last post. Also please go into BIOS and give me the values of your +12V, +5V and +3.3V. Please download and install a good CPU and GPU monitoring program and keep close watch on Temps at all times. I would like to know how hot they Get.

When you do that, please run Furmark Video card stress test http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/100356-video-card-stress-test-furmark.html, just in this case, do not enable Post FX. Please watch the temps very closely. The temps will rise very high and very quick. If temps get too high, stop the test. Otherwise, please post a screenshot of the test just before stopping the test. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/100356-video-card-stress-test-furmark.html. Watch for artifacts during the test also. Run the test, if it does not get too hot, until the temps level out and stop increasing. It should be just a few minutes.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

In addition to essenbes post mate do this as I am now interested in that PSU given it's possible age

UsingHW Info

PART A:

You can test the volts on the PSU with HW Info HWiNFO, HWiNFO32/64 -Download < download the right bit version andclose the right hand window select Sensors and scroll down to the power sectionwhere you will see what the volts are doing see my pic. In my pic the section (Nuvoton) with VBATT is a dead give awayyou are in the section for the rail voltages. There are other section titlesand one that pops up often is ITE

Now the voltage on the different rails have to be within 5% =+/-of what is required or the machine will not work properly if at all.

See this for the rail voltage info

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-specifications-atx-reference,3061.html (Section 2.)

The original right hand window shows the machine running and ishandy for that but for looking at the components in some detail close it anduse the main left hand side panel

FOR OTHERCOMPONENTS

PART B:

Open each small square with + in it on the section thecomponents are in and then click on the individual component/s (it will highlight in blue) - in the righthand side will appear all sorts of details including brands speeds and otheressential info that particular device. See pic for example.

 

[Caapi]

After buying some new RAM last week all my problems seemed to be gone. My computer became extreeemely slow and I saw that only 2gb was recognized in my system. After buying new RAM it was a-okay and no crashes occured. Until today, that's why I remembered I made this thread. So here I am with some results/screenshots from the Furmark test and some info from HWiNFO.

Basically the Furmark test only ran for a few seconds before giving a 'Display driver has stopped responding and has recovered' error. The Furmark screen went black and every (error) window in the black screen gave artifacts when moving it around. I did this multiple times and it always happened around 70 degrees Celcius. Everytime I tried to restart a Furmark test after crashing it gave me a 'Could not create a renderwindow. FurMark startup failed.' and 'Furmark has stopped working...'.


I also attached a picture of the voltages of the PSU and edited my system specs info to include the PSU.


Thank you all very very very much.


PS: I couldn't find any relevant logs from Furmark even though I enabled the setting.

 

[essenbe]

The temps shown in HWinfo, look OH, to me. I believe your Max temp is 100°C, but that is the point where thermal throttling begins, so you don't want to go near there. I would think your Max Safe Temp is around 80 - maybe 85. The temps shown in BIOS show something different. They show a CPU temp of 63°C, and that is at Idle. BIOS is the most accurate tem reading. At that temp, you don't have far to go to the max safe temp anytime your CPU is put under stress. I can't say that is what is causing your instability, but it doesn't help much in any case.

I would consider your airflow situation as well as consider re applying Thermal paste and reseating your CPU Cooler.

 

[Caapi]

Thank you for the quick reply.
I just made some screenshots of my temps and voltages during gaming (low end game, in which it also crashed 30 minutes ago and wouldn't go beyond POST).

I also have to add to the previous post I made, that the crashes got fewer not after I installed new RAM, but after I completely wiped my hardware of dust with a compressor.

I have lived with this problem for over a year and went through crash after crash. Does my cpu have perma-damage now? Could the Furmark issue also be related to my CPU?

 

[essenbe]

Unfortunately, we can't answer that right now. I think your first objective would be to bring those temps down:
Re paste your CPU and CPU cooler. Clean the old thermal paste and apply new paste. Make sure your cooler is situated properly.

Make sure all of the dust is completely cleaned out of the case components and especially the CPU Cooler and it's radiator and fans.

Your case (Cooler Master: CM 690 II Advanced (USB 3)) supports quite a few fans. Use them. If you have to buy more, do so. You can get decent fans relatively cheap. Make all fans intake fans except the rear fan. Make that one exhaust.

Clean up cable wiring inside the case. Do not have cables that obstruct airflow. Air should flow from front to the rear. Your CPU cooler fans should blow air through the radiator from front to rear and exhaust out the back of the case.

Your case supports a fan behind the motherboard. Use it. It will help pull hot air from behind the motherboard or push cooler air from outside behind the motherboard thus pushing hot air out.

There is no reason in the world your CPU should get anywhere near that hot. It appears you are suffering from thermal shutdown. That is at least the first problem you can easily solve.

If you have the room, all of your cables should go out the back of the case and back in where they have to go. The rest can stay behind the motherboard. This will show you, even though it is a water cooled rig. You will not have the tubing here, but the wiring is exactly the same. Look at the cables. I know this was done by a professional and you can't do exactly this. But it gives you an idea of what I am talking about. It will not only look cleaner, but more importantly, it will run cooler as there is no obstruction to the airflow.

View attachment 367912

 

[essenbe]

If you need to know how to apply thermal paste, this will show you. You are using a different cooler, but the process and amount of paste is exactly the same. There are a lot of brands of good quality thermal paste. Any top quality thermal paste will work. Artic silver is good. I use Noctua NT-H1. I can give you several to choose from if you need it. But a small amount is good. Just a thin coat. When you think I need a little bit more, don't do it. You have the right amount.

​

 

[Caapi]

Master Obi, you're awesome. I appreciate the time you took to tell me this. I will be gone for a week on holiday but when I am back I will try to do exactly this.

Thank you.

 

[essenbe]

If you have any problems or questions, feel free to ask. If I don't answer within 24 hours, feel free to send me a message. I get busy sometimes and miss the notifications.