16 replies to this topic

[toyotomi]

I've been trying to troubleshoot the cause of a recent bout of frequent BSOD's (not malware related as far as I can tell, it really feels like a hardware issue). I had already updated the drivers fro my MOBO's chipset from the MOBO manufacturer webiste (ASUS), but after still getting crashes though slightly improved performance, I decided to download the latest chipset drivers from the chipset manufacturer website (Nvidia). While installing the Nvidia nForce drivers, it said it would have to first uninstall the Ethernet drivers, and would afterward require a reboot before finishing the chipset installation. When it rebooted it took a longer time to start up, having hung on the windows splash screen for a minute or so. After that screen went away.... it was just blackness. I could hear the drives spinning, and other sounds indicating that the startup was continuing in at least some regard, but nothing on the screen. Just to be on the safe side I let the computer sit that way for over an hour on the off chance that it was just hanging and would complete the installation. I tried rebooting and got the same result a few times, then tried Safe Mode. Safemode will in fact start and I even get the little notification that you are in fact in safe mode, and behind that notification pops up the New Hardware wizard. But, for either window, I can't click to continue, nor can I use my keyboard to make a selection. Neither of them work after windows starts up. The keyboard works fine in BIOS and boot options, even in the advanced Windows boot options... just not after the OS takes over proper. I tried using the start with command prompt, which does start up like safemode, getting frozen and actually getting the new hardware wizard window there as well. Restore Last Known Good Configuration had no effect whatsoever. Now, I'd really like to avoid having to do a repair installation of windows if possible. I have on the desktop a working driver. Is there any way to get that to install without actually being in windows, or maybe roll back the drivers to a different version? If not is there any way to copy the missing files with say DOS or a bootable CD (like a bootable linux distro)? I also have the ASUS driver cd, and while it is bootable to freeDOS, that's purely for installing SATA RAID drivers as far as I can tell. I'm assuming that using the recovery console would probably fix the problem, but that is just an assumption and I'd like to call it a second-to-last resort next to reformatting C:. Any help would be greatly appreciated. This thing is frustrating the hell out of me. I can also say that after this I am even more unwilling to attempt flashing the BIOS.

[Ztruker]

Try Last known good configuration that worked from the Windows Advanced Boot Options menu, see if that fixes the problem.

[toyotomi]

Try Last known good configuration that worked from the Windows Advanced Boot Options menu, see if that fixes the problem.

Already did that. It didn't work.

[Ztruker]

Can you get to Safe Mode with Command Prompt? If so: How to start the System Restore tool by using the safe mode option with the Command prompt in Windows XP. Basically:

Boot into safe mode and choose Command Prompt only. Then type

%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

and this will launch the System Restore wizard.

If not, which I suspect you can't get to, you could try doing a manual restore of the registry from the Recovery Console but if that doesn't help then your only alternative is a Repair Install since there is no way to work with drivers without XP being booted.

From the Recovery Console follow these instructions. (It would be good to print them)

• Type c: and press Enter
• Type cd \ then press Enter
• Type cd system~1\_resto~1 then press Enter
• Type dir then press Enter
  
  When you hit enter it will list all the restore point folders like rp1, rp2 …….. If the restore points have more than one page then keep hitting the Enter key to view the last restore point folder. Normally you would choose the second to last folder but you may have to go back farther to get a good registry file.
  
• Type cd rp# (# is the second to the last restore point. Example: cd rp9, if rp9 is the second to the last restore point where the last restore point no. is 10) and press Enter
• Then type cd snapshot and press Enter
  
  Now the command prompt will look like this: c:\system~1\_resto~1\rp9\snapshot
  
  
• Type copy _registry_machine_system c:\windows\system32\config\system and press Enter
• Type copy _registry_machine_software C:\windows\system32\config\software and press Enter
• Then type exit and press Enter

If you get an Access Denied error when doing the above, then do the following at the recovery console:

• Type cd \ then press Enter
• Type cd windows\system32\config then press Enter
• Type ren system system.bak then press Enter
• Type exit and press Enter

Your PC will reboot, go back into the Recovery Console and then you have access

If this works and you can boot, immediately do a full System Restore to the same date (Restore Point) used above.

[toyotomi]

Ok so I finally got to backing up all of my info off my C: and D: drives (E: and F: I just pulled the power on (IDE) since there's nothing installed on those ones.) I used a Slax Linux Live CD to copy the files onto a 2TB external drive and with only a few exceptions it worked well. (apparently it won't copy files that have special characters in the file name. e.g. ©, ë). They're uncompressed and it took a long time over USB 2.0, but they're backed up.

Then things just went really downhill. I went to try to restore as suggested in the above post, and apparently there are no restore points at all on my computer. The directory system~1\_resto~1 doesn't exist. So, very reluctantly, I started a repair install of Windows XP with my Windows XP SP2 slipstream disc (I've used the disc many times before so I know it's a good disc). The setup took a while but it finally finished "saving configuration" and rebooted automatically to resume setup from within the windows environment.....

That's when right after the Windows splash screen disappeared, I got a BSOD citing NV4_mini.sys as the cause. From what I can find out, that is the basic Nvidia driver used by Windows upon installation. I have an Nvidia GTS 250. If windows can't work with this card, then I'm kinda at a loss here. I also did clean the disc and checked it for any serious scratches or pits. I think my old vid card was defective, and though I thought my MOBO had onboard video, it only has a serial (DE-9) port instead of a VGA. I can get into Safemode now, and the mouse and keyboard even work... but a message pops up saying that Setup can't continue in Safemode and must reboot.

So now I'm frustrated and have no idea what to do. I really can't afford to rebuild this system right now, and I'm still not sure if upgrading to Win7 would be a good idea (I freaking love XP still). I don't even know how my games will run in Win7 since some are rather old e.g EverQuest. If you have any ideas for what I can do I'd really appreciate it. I really don't know what to do now. If doing a repair install of Windows results in BSODs, using the drivers from the disc, then I'd have to believe doing a clean install would result in the same errors. Same hardware, same drivers.

Edited by toyotomi, 13 March 2011 - 01:16 AM.

[Lee]

Hi toyotomi, There are plenty of people who run a Nvidia GTS 250 with XP, which means the XP OS must have a generic driver that works with that card. As your card is a new one, it could be a dud card. It might be worthwhile reinstalling your old card to see if you can get up and running. Even though you thought it was faulty, it might not be. If you can get XP to work with your old card, your new 250 probably needs replacing. Cheers, Lee

[toyotomi]

Hi toyotomi,

There are plenty of people who run a Nvidia GTS 250 with XP, which means the XP OS must have a generic driver that works with that card.

As your card is a new one, it could be a dud card. It might be worthwhile reinstalling your old card to see if you can get up and running. Even though you thought it was faulty, it might not be.

If you can get XP to work with your old card, your new 250 probably needs replacing.

Cheers,
Lee

That's the thing though. It's not new. Well I mean it's newish, but I've been using it for months. It ran fine with XP and I didn't have any issues with installing it the first time around. But I was going from one nvidia card to another, and windows was working fine at the time. Also, the video card has no problems in the live Linux distro's I've tested. (Fairly certain it uses the video card, but I'll double check.) It doesn't make sense to me for it to suddenly be bad.

One thing to note, is that this was preceded by a long string of BSODs. Most of the messages were generic. Some were for sound drivers so I pulled the sound card and swapped to onboard sound. Still got BSODs. I ran a 13-14hr memtest, and the RAM checked out fine. Then I tried to test the CPU with prime95. It would report fatal errors in less than 10 minutes. I tried it three different times with different settings to use more or less RAM. It also locked the machine up after it reached the error. So it seemed to me that either the CPU was going bad (it has had a bout of overheating where it would reach around 70°C), or the chipset/mobo was.

Before installing the Nvidia chipset driver that ended up locking me out of windows, I had upgraded my chipset Asus drivers, and my Nvidia graphics driver. After that I was running my games at their highest settings and it took far longer to cause a crash, and seemingly only in certain conditions (in EQ2 it would only crash in group settings. Even if I was in very graphics intensive areas solo, it wouldn't crash) that put it under especially heavy load. (Though before the driver changes, it would crash on lowest settings, solo, and staring at a wall.) This also made me lean toward CPU or chipset trouble. In retrospect, I wish I'd done the chipset and gfx drivers separately to see which one it was that seemed to help.

Regardless, in a little bit here I'll try an old video card. Worst that can happen is it doesn't work.

[Lee]

Have you been doing some overclocking?

[toyotomi]

Have you been doing some overclocking?

Never. I've always been too paranoid to get into Overclocking. I couldn't bring myself to risk frying a chip. Hell, I won't even seat the chip on the Mobo myself. I generally buy my CPU and MOBO together and have my computer shop of choice seat it for me.



I just tried the old Video Card. It's a GTX 7600. The mobo isn't even recognizing that it's plugged in. When I try to boot up, I get the BIOS beep code for no video device present. It's the same message you get when you forget to plug in the 6pin power cord into the newer cards (like my GTS 250). However the GTX 7600 needs no more power than is provided by the PCI-E slot. In fact the only place to plug anything into the card is a jumper for SLI mode. I also tried plugging it into the other PCI-E slot, and get no BIOS beep at all. Just fans running.

Not sure where to go from here.

[Ztruker]

Can you boot to Safe Mode (Advanced Boot Options Menu)? If so, select

Enable low resolution video (640 × 480)

Starts Windows using your current video driver and using low resolution and refresh rate settings.
You can use this mode to reset your display settings.
For more information, see Change screen resolution and Correct monitor flicker (refresh rate).

If that works, then install the latest driver for your Nvidia card.

[toyotomi]

Can you boot to Safe Mode (Advanced Boot Options Menu)? If so, select

Enable low resolution video (640 × 480)

Starts Windows using your current video driver and using low resolution and refresh rate settings.
You can use this mode to reset your display settings.
For more information, see Change screen resolution and Correct monitor flicker (refresh rate).

If that works, then install the latest driver for your Nvidia card.

Nope. If I boot to safe mode with the GTS 250, it says Setup can't complete in Safe Mode and it forces you to reboot. Booting normally gives a BSOD right after the Windows splash screen. I can't get into windows at all right now, and as I said with my old vid card it simply won't boot period.

[Lee]

OK, you can't get to your desktop and you can't boot to safe mode so a XP reinstall might be the best way to go. A fresh start as long as you do not have a hardware issue causing your problems. What are your reinstall options for your PC? If you have important personal data on your PC, that can probably be recovered to disk or USB hard drive with Puppy Linux. Cheers, Lee

[toyotomi]

OK, you can't get to your desktop and you can't boot to safe mode so a XP reinstall might be the best way to go. A fresh start as long as you do not have a hardware issue causing your problems.

What are your reinstall options for your PC?

If you have important personal data on your PC, that can probably be recovered to disk or USB hard drive with Puppy Linux.

Cheers,
Lee

Well I already did the repair install of windows and the basic driver that the Windows XP Pro SP2 disc uses is causing a BSOD. My video card will try to use that driver on a clean install as well. The computer won't even recognize my old Video Card, and it wasn't faulty (I remembered we upgraded because some new games wouldn't run with it) It's currently stuck mid-setup. I've also retried the setup with the same result. I've also backed up most of my HDD data onto an external HDD with Slax (a live Linux distro). A few files wouldn't copy because they contained special characters in the file name like "©".

Is there any way to figure out definitively if there's a hardware issue and specifically what bit of hardware is borked... especially before trashing the data on my C: drive? Memtest86+ said the RAM was ok. Prime95 found fatal errors, but that's not necessarily definitive as a MOBO problem could cause a false-positive for CPU problems. I can't really diagnose or rule out my Video card, since I can't swap it out for an older one to eliminate it. I have no idea if there's any way to really diagnose a MOBO fault.

I don't want to sound snippy or ungrateful but I am having to repeat myself in every post.

The help is appreciated.

[Lee]

Yes you can test out all your hardware. 1. Disconnect your hard drive, optical drive, remove your RAM and your video card. Just leave the motherboard and PSU connected. 2. Boot up. You should be receiving a ram and hard drive missing beep code. (that's good, as your CPU and Mobo are good). 3..Install your ram. If your PC boots to a Bios screen, your ram is OK (set boot priority to CD as first boot while in the bios). 4. Add the Hard Drive and optical drive. 5. Do a Windows XP install. 6. Finally, install your Video card. Video cards and their driver often create hardware conflicts. If there is a compatibility problem with your new video card, you could be "blind" without any video at all as you have no onboard video. This will make fixing the problem very difficult, to say the least, but you will at least know for sure that it is a Video card problem and not any other hardware. Cheers, Lee

[toyotomi]

Yes you can test out all your hardware.

1. Disconnect your hard drive, optical drive, remove your RAM and your video card. Just leave the motherboard and PSU connected.

2. Boot up. You should be receiving a ram and hard drive missing beep code. (that's good, as your CPU and Mobo are good).

3..Install your ram. If your PC boots to a Bios screen, your ram is OK (set boot priority to CD as first boot while in the bios).

4. Add the Hard Drive and optical drive.

5. Do a Windows XP install.

6. Finally, install your Video card.
Video cards and their driver often create hardware conflicts. If there is a compatibility problem with your new video card, you could be "blind" without any video at all as you have no onboard video. This will make fixing the problem very difficult, to say the least, but you will at least know for sure that it is a Video card problem and not any other hardware.

Cheers,
Lee

The snag with that plan is that since I don't have onboard video, and I have no way of hooking up a monitor without a video card, I can't see my BIOS let alone change BIOS settings or do a windows install. In fact that's why I'm stuck right now. I can't just unplug my vid card to complete the half-finished install I'm currently stuck at.

I can't eliminate the video card as the problem because I can't go without it. I can't even use my old card, which should still be a good card, because my mobo just doesn't see it, as I've pointed out in previous posts.

Here's the kicker though. That old GTX 7600 was on this very system with no other hardware changes, just a few months ago. It worked fine, but it was getting dated. It's been sitting in a static free bag (the one that the new card came in) all this time. Now my mobo won't recognize that it's even plugged in. In order for me to do a fresh install, I'd have to use the new (GTS 250) video card, which for some reason is causing a conflict with the driver windows uses by default. And it's been working otherwise well for months. It feels like a real catch 22 situation. And it was all catalyzed by trying to install Chipset drivers from the company that made the chipset in the first place (Nvidia).

I'll still do what parts I can of what you suggested.

Edited by toyotomi, 14 March 2011 - 03:38 AM.