It's 3:20am here and I'm exhausted, so I apologize if this doesn't make a whole lot of sense:
First my specs:
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (@ stock speeds/volts)
ASUS Striker Extreme (680i SLI) motherboard
4GB PC8500 RAM @ stock SPD speeds/volts)
eVGA GeForce 8800 Ultra
Windows Vista Ultimate, 32-bit
Corsair 620W PSU
I built this system in early June and I've not had any problems like this before with it. But I left it on last night to download some files. When I came to the computer in the morning, the computer was still powered on but the IDE activity light did not flicker (which is strange for something supposedly downloading), and wiggling the mouse or pressing the keyboard would not shake the computer out of powersaving mode. I manually turned the computer off (pressed the button for 10 seconds), then on again.
It appears as though the display driver crashes every 10 seconds or so. The screen will go black for 3-4 seconds (but the mouse cursor is still visible and moves...), then when Windows restores itself there's a little yellow triangle with a '!' mark in it, but there's no tooltip or any mouseover information for it. Disabling Aero and using Windows Classic did not fix this either.
What follows was a comedy of errors in trying to fix the problem. I updated my Nvidia drivers to the latest WHQL versions from www.nvidia.com (162.xx). This didn't solve anything, and actually at the same time I got a plethora of other errors. Many BSODs with different errors: nvmfdx32.dll crashes (Nvidia MCP networking driver?), BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER BSOD (I presume this is also motherboard related?), and lots of IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL for unnamed drivers. And total system freezes, also.
I opened up the system and found out the 120mm case fan I have to circulate air to the powersupply was not working (I have an Antec P182 case, the PSU is at the bottom of the unit in its own thermal compartment). I had another 120mm fan, so I swapped it out and the new one works. I booted up the computer and, for 20 minutes, all was well. I thought I found my problem: the PSU overheated which caused system instability.
But that was a red herring. The thing is barely warm to the touch after those 20 minutes and the errors occured again. In fact, the entire system is reporting normal, quite low temperatures...so nothing is overheating.
Within a day, it went from being functional to the constant display driver crashes to perpetual system instability due to BSODs and system freezes. I've tried every combination of driver uninstalls/reinstalls with all kinds of versions from latest versions to older versions, and nothing is solving this. It's progressively getting worse, now not only does the display driver die, but I see some screen corruption as well. Portions of the screen remain black first, while others are not, then the whole thing is black, then it's an extremely zoomed in pixelated version of my desktop.
I've no idea what to do next. How can I find out what's causing the system to die a death of a thousand cuts?
Tomorrow I will try reinstalling Vista, but is there anything else anyone can suggest? I appreciate any and all help...thanks,
Dave
First my specs:
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (@ stock speeds/volts)
ASUS Striker Extreme (680i SLI) motherboard
4GB PC8500 RAM @ stock SPD speeds/volts)
eVGA GeForce 8800 Ultra
Windows Vista Ultimate, 32-bit
Corsair 620W PSU
I built this system in early June and I've not had any problems like this before with it. But I left it on last night to download some files. When I came to the computer in the morning, the computer was still powered on but the IDE activity light did not flicker (which is strange for something supposedly downloading), and wiggling the mouse or pressing the keyboard would not shake the computer out of powersaving mode. I manually turned the computer off (pressed the button for 10 seconds), then on again.
It appears as though the display driver crashes every 10 seconds or so. The screen will go black for 3-4 seconds (but the mouse cursor is still visible and moves...), then when Windows restores itself there's a little yellow triangle with a '!' mark in it, but there's no tooltip or any mouseover information for it. Disabling Aero and using Windows Classic did not fix this either.
What follows was a comedy of errors in trying to fix the problem. I updated my Nvidia drivers to the latest WHQL versions from www.nvidia.com (162.xx). This didn't solve anything, and actually at the same time I got a plethora of other errors. Many BSODs with different errors: nvmfdx32.dll crashes (Nvidia MCP networking driver?), BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER BSOD (I presume this is also motherboard related?), and lots of IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL for unnamed drivers. And total system freezes, also.
I opened up the system and found out the 120mm case fan I have to circulate air to the powersupply was not working (I have an Antec P182 case, the PSU is at the bottom of the unit in its own thermal compartment). I had another 120mm fan, so I swapped it out and the new one works. I booted up the computer and, for 20 minutes, all was well. I thought I found my problem: the PSU overheated which caused system instability.
But that was a red herring. The thing is barely warm to the touch after those 20 minutes and the errors occured again. In fact, the entire system is reporting normal, quite low temperatures...so nothing is overheating.
Within a day, it went from being functional to the constant display driver crashes to perpetual system instability due to BSODs and system freezes. I've tried every combination of driver uninstalls/reinstalls with all kinds of versions from latest versions to older versions, and nothing is solving this. It's progressively getting worse, now not only does the display driver die, but I see some screen corruption as well. Portions of the screen remain black first, while others are not, then the whole thing is black, then it's an extremely zoomed in pixelated version of my desktop.
I've no idea what to do next. How can I find out what's causing the system to die a death of a thousand cuts?
Tomorrow I will try reinstalling Vista, but is there anything else anyone can suggest? I appreciate any and all help...thanks,
Dave
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