A8N SLI - nv4_disp infinite loop blue screen = hard drive corruption

[ahurtt]

This is the last issue with my system. Seems like whenever I leave the computer on and leave it for a while, I'll come back and there will be a blue screen about nV4_disp having got stuck in an infinite loop. This has happened with several different versions of nVidia ForceWare drivers. Right now I have the latest release 71.84 from nVidia and I got the problem just yesterday. Not such a big deal if it only required a reboot but most of the time when it happens, chkdsk has to run when I reboot for some reason and fixes stuff usually somewhere in the Windows System directory. Once it wiped so bad I had to reinstall windows. I ran the Maxtor PowerMax drive utilities and the drive is error-free. Here's my system:

A8N SLI Dlx
Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester @ 230x10 (only a 300MHz overclock)
2x BFG 6600GT OC
2x512 Corsair PC 3200
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA NCQ 16MB Cache
OCZ Modstream 450W PSU
Win XP Pro SP2

The last thing I tried to fix the problem was to get a firmware upgrade for my hard drive from Maxtor and apply it, but it still happened just yesterday. So then I set all my BIOS overclock settings back to stock. Haven't had long enough to see if that fixes it but that will suck if I can't even get a 300MHz overclock. Anybody else having this problem with the infinite loop in the nv4_disp? I know at least a couple people here had it. Find any solution?

[EDIT] I'm currently using BIOS version 1006 final but it's happened with prior versions as well.

 

[Big Bunny]

I had tons of trouble with that error. After much shuffling of BIOS settings and driver configurations, I am doubting that it is actually due to the video driver. Are you using the nVidia firewall and NAM? I haven't had this problem happen again since I removed them from my system.

I am using the nForce 6.38 drivers, minus the NAM/firewall, plus the Forceware 71.84 drivers.

 

[FastEddie]

Could also be a product of installing a new video driver while the NAM is installed and ACTIVE. Had the NAM completely hose my very first XP install on the board when Symantec tried one of those backround auto updates for Norton AV.

 

[ahurtt]

Nope, didn't install the nVidia firewall or network access manager. I have a Lynksys hardware firewall / router so I only installed the ethernet drivers. And the error message on the blue screen usually mentions nv4_disp specifically and says it got stuck in an infinite loop.
I turned my computer on this morning with all the overclock settings on normal (no-overclock, stock speeds) and left it on and then went to work. I'll see if it is sitting on a blue screen when I get home tonight. If not, then I'll strongly suspect the overclocking. . .which will really suck considering I was only trying to overclock 15%.

 

[ahurtt]

Well, no blue screen after coming home from work with no overclock. However, the problem did occur again shortly thereafter with all the bios timings set to defaults. No system overclock. Sometimes it will freeze the computer up in the middle of a game and then blue screen giving the "Infinite Loop" message. Other times, windows will pop up an alert when I boot saying "The system has recovered from a serious error" and when I view details of the error it is the same "infinite loop" error message caused by nv4_disp that I get when the blue screen occurs. So it seems like, if it happens at the time the system boots, it can recover. If it happens while playing a game, it will freeze and blue screen. I called BFG tech support about it but they said they can't really use the .dmp files I had collected. Anybody know a tool that I can use to analyze the dump files produced by this error?

[Edit] since I got a firmware update from Maxtor and turned the overclocking off, no more hard drive errors have occurred.