11 replies to this topic

[white-k]

Laptop, Dell Precision M70. (Intel Pentium M 2.00GHz)
2.00 GB RAM
Windows XP - Service Pack 3 (latest drivers)
Nvidia GO 1400

Here is my story:

I've had this laptop for apx 3 years and it has been very nice and stable...
Back in April my system was running fine except that for some reason the Hibernate-function (something I use often) stopped functioning.
After several days of trying to fix this, I eventually decided to re-install.

I did the re-install very meticulously, taking great care in searching for the right and latest drivers. Also I followed advice according to the great info on:
http://www.tweakhoun...upertweaks1.htm
(Only minor stuff, and only stuff I'd done on my previous install without errors.)

After the re-install hibernate now works fine again. But something else started happening:

When I close the lid of my laptop, about 20% of the times I will get a bluescreen and the system reboots before I even get a chance to properly read the blusecreen.

The frequency of the bluescreens seems to vary according to how "heavily" the computer has been used.
For example if I've only booted up, they are less likely (However - sometimes it happens also when I close the lid right after a fresh restart).
But after watching movies and stuff, it seems to be more prone to happen.

Here is what I have tried this far:
-Restored my computer to earlier states (using 'Acronis true Image')
-Done a comprehensive malware-scanning/cleansing.
-Tried about four different drivers for my video-card.

The tricky thing is that the Blusecreen is so inconsistent which makes it hard for me to do testing and know if its resolved or not.
Sometimes I can close the lid and not have a problem for a couple of days. Often I have thought I was rid of it only to see the bluescreen suddenly appear again.

This is of course very frustrating to never know what will happen when I close my lid. So I'd greatly appreciate your help guys !!

[Ztruker]

The first thing you need to do is turn of Automatic Restart so you can see what information is displayed on the BSOD error screen. Right click on My Computer. Click Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery Settings. Uncheck box for "Automatically restart". Post the info from the screen and we'll try to help figure out what is causing it.

[white-k]

Thanks for the tip. However, the 'Automatic restart' is already uncheked. I don't know why it restarts upon blusecreen. Maybe it has something to do with the lid being closed? Just a guess. Does the computer save the bluescreen info to a log? I noice under 'System failure' that these are checked: -'Write an event to the system log' and... -'Send an administrative alert'. Anyway, you are the gurus and I am just making guesses, so I'll await your next move,

[Ztruker]

Look in Event Viewer and see if any errors are being logged (they will be in RED)

Click Start then Run, type eventvwr.msc and press Enter or click OK

Look in all three categories listed on the left. Double click on any error to look at the details. Use the arrows to move up and down in the events listed.

If there are quite a few, copy them to a notepad window then save the file and post it here using the Browse and Upload buttons below the message input area.

[white-k]

Ok, so I browsed through the red ones in event viewer and here is what came up.

The 1x, 2x, 3x etc... at the top shows how many times the event was listed.

---APPLICATION:---

1x
Faulting application photoshop.exe, version 10.0.0.0, faulting module msvcr80.dll, version 8.0.50727.163, fault address 0x000046b6.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft....link/events.asp.
--

4x
Avira AntiVir - The engine file has been modified or destroyed! Returned error code: 9
--

Faulting application rundll32.exe, version 5.1.2600.5512, faulting module hotplug.dll, version 5.1.2600.5512, fault address 0x000048be.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft....link/events.asp.
--

4x
The COM+ Event System detected a bad return code during its internal processing. HRESULT was 8007043C from line 44 of d:\qxp_slp\com\com1x\src\events\tier1\eventsystemobj.cpp. Please contact Microsoft Product Support Services to report this error.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft....link/events.asp.
--

2x
PerfNet
Unable to open the Redirector service. Redirector performance data will not be returned. Error code returned is in data DWORD 0.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft....link/events.asp.
--



---SYSTEM:---

5X
The Infrared Monitor service depends on the Terminal Services service which failed to start because of the following error:
The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft....link/events.asp.
--

There was nothing listed within 'Security' and 'Internet explorer'.

I'll stay tuned for further instructions.

[Ztruker]

Can you associate any of these with when you close the lid?

Try uninstalling then reinstalling Avira AV, see if that gets rid of those errors.

Also, you said you reinstalled. Did you do a Clean Install, formatting the hard drive during install or a Repair Install over the existing XP installation?

Hibernation problems are often caused by the video driver and even occasionally by a corrupted hiberfile.sys. Try a different Nvidia Quadro FX 1400 driver from here: http://www.nvidia.co...aspx?lang=en-us

The Dell site has this one which is probably what you are using, right? http://support.dell..../...-1&impid=-1

To delete the existing hiberfile.sys, disable Hibernation:

• Right click on the Desktop and select Properties
• Click on the Screen Saver tab
• Under Monitor Power, click the Power button
• In Power Options Properties, click on the Hibernation tab
• Uncheck Enable hibernation
• Click Apply then OK as needed

This will delete the existing file.

Shutdown and reboot then go back in and enable Hibernation.

A Google search on the COM+ error you are getting points to either of the above so this is a good place to start.

[white-k]

I'm not sure if any of those can be related to closing the lid. Next time I get a BSOD I will look immediately in the log, now that I know how to. Out of those I would guess on the "COM+" thingie, but I'm not certain. I got the bluescreen-error before installing Avira, so that's why I don't think Avira is a likely candidate. Yes it was a very proper and clean install where everything was formatted. Yes, I am also expecting it may have to do with the graphics-driver. I have been using the exact version you linked to, and that gives me bluescreens sometimes. But the odd thing is that I was using that same version before my reinstall without any bluescreens (I used it ever since it's release). Anyway, I decided to try other drivers, in spite of that this mentioned driver used to be fine. So I have tried a couple "forceware drivers" from guru3d.com but I got bluescreens with those as well. However... The one I am using right now, since two days, is actually the earliest version: A00 (which has been known to be very stable). It has been running fine now for two days without bluescreens. But then again, sometimes, at rare occations, it takes 2-3 days before a BSOD appears... So I thought I'd try this over the weekend and report back here on Monday. Until then, thanks for the help this far, and have a good weekend!

[Ztruker]

You are persistent (that's a good thing )

Please post back in a few days if all continues to be well. If the older video driver works then it would be nice to figure out why that one works now while the other used to work. This may be a case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" but I hate mysteries where computers are concerned.

[white-k]

Yes, like you I'm not too keen about mysteries either. Anyway I was away most of the weekend so let's stay tuned for a couple more days to make sure this ol' driver works solid. I'll post again shortly.

[white-k]

Ok. So Now I have been using the A00 -Video driver for 10 days and I haven't had any bluescreen at all. On one hand I am happy with this, but at the same time it would be nice to be able to run the more recent drivers ( I don't know how big influence driver-versions have on performance? ). If we were to venture into finding out why the later ones don't work, what actions would be needed for this?

[Ztruker]

Sorry for the late response, just got back from vacation. Prior to your doing the reinstall of XP, did your system have all the latest MS updates? You are at SP3 now, so were you at SP2 plus all updates before? If so, that is one thing that is different. It would be very painful to uninstall SP3, install SP2 then try the newer video driver from Dell but that is where you would have to begin I think. Have you tried contacting Nvidia via their web site to see if they have any known problems with SP3?

[white-k]

No worries. Hope you had a good vacation! Well, after the reinstall I ran on SP2 for a while and I got the bluescreens with that as well. I was hoping SP3 would improve things, but it made no difference. Well... although I would like to track down the source of this error, time won't really allow me to. So I think I will settle with the A00-driver which has been running smooth since I installed it. Anyway, much lover to this place for having benevolent people like you helping out at dire times. Many many thanks for your support and good advice! Cheers!