Win7 x64 hangs on boot (last driver amdkmdfd.sys) or lags/BSOD

[Tjeef]

Hi everyone,
not sure if this should be in the BSOD section or here. But my PC started acting up a few days ago, lagging like hell and freezing shortly after boot. I had some occasional BSODs also - but I seldom get to that point before it hangs.

I have tried the Windows Repair several times to no avail. (Often that hangs too).

I used Acronis True Image to restore an old system image from Dec 2014 that has been running fine. This didn't help. Since the problem has only been there for less than a week, I'm guessing that rules out software problems.
The only hardware change I did, was to plug in a cabled USB mouse a few days before. (This has been removed again, before rolling back the system image).

But if it was a USB driver problem, the system image roll-back should have ruled that out, too.

(I have done the trick with unplugging EVERYTHING including power cord from the PC and holding down the power button for a long time, to "drain" any kind of "weird voltage" from it).

Also, I have the original XP installation still available as well. This had not been booted for a couple of months and also gave problems when starting. Some lagging and some BSOD.

It varies a lot whether I can boot Win7 at all. Ususally it hangs when I just start it normally. When I start it in safe mode, it stops at windows32\drivers\amdkmdfd.sys. NOTE THAT THIS FILE DOES NOT SEEM TO EXIST. (I've seen other threads suggesting to rename it - but that's not possible then).

My graphics adapter is NVIDIA GeForce (one of the cheap ones in the 200 or 300 series) so it wouldn't make sense anyway to load an AMD driver I guess.

It's an old Medion 8800 PC from 2006 with MSI mobo (7204 I think) and Intel CPU. Upgraded to 4GB RAM and the graphics adapter is also less than a year old.

Sometimes it just hangs there forever - other times it moves on after 1-2 minutes and boots into safe mode.
But it quicly starts to lag and behave weird in there. So I don't have much time to do any tests.
For example, when typing in the browser URL field, it sometimes seems like the strokes are not captured. UNTIL I move the mouse. Then the characters appear.
A few times I have managed to boot into safe mode with command prompt and that seemed to go fine without hanging.

My best guess from the erratic freezing and weird screen behaviour is that it would have to do with the graphics adapter.
Other threads ahve mentioned messed up graphics driver files.
But that doesn't make full sense when it fails on Win7 and XP simultaneously and also on a rolled-back Win7 image that have worked fine for at least a month.

Any takes on what I can do to diagnose further? I've seen some tools mentioned to check graphics adapter. Can it/they be run from command prompt? That seems to be the best bet for me to have time enough to perform tests before the system hangs.

Because of the erraticness I have not been able to use the tool to upload detailed system info. Please ask if there are more details I should find out somehow.
It is my only PC and I hope it will last me a bit still, with the upgrades I have made. But it sure doesn't look too promising at the moment

 

[Tjeef]

Oh, and I have also done full CHKDSK on the systemdrive without finding any issues.

There were a couple of power outages in the days upto the trouble. So I of course checked for this.

Those power outages are the only unusual things happening in the near past. That's also why I did the "power drainage" drill with all cords removed.

 

[Tjeef]

Not much life in here, it seems...

 

[UKMedia]

Hi

I'm also having a problem with booting on my PC. Somethings that I also have tried:

Have you tried re-seating your RAM?
Make sure that there is no dust on the Motherboard? (damp dust is great at conducting electricity )
If you have a on-board graphics card, remove your PCI cards and see if this makes any difference.

You could also reset your BIOS back to factory settings.

Regards
UKMedia