HUGE Trouble with Windows XP and 3D games causing BSOD's . Need help...

[TeABaG88]

I have Windows XP Professional that i installed with a clean installation (no upgrade). I get a huge amount of BSOD ( Blue Screen of Death) crashes all the time. I get this screen when i play any 3d game ( nhl 2002 for example). All of the games will open up fine and play fine for roughly 15 seconds and then i get the BSOD. It is making me absolutely crazy and i am thinking about removing windows xp. My video card is a nvidia geforce 3. I have the latest drivers from nvidia (xp compatiable). I have also turn off the option for " Enable write combining " under my settings for my adapter. This was recommended in the windows help. I also turned the hardware acceleration down 2 notches and that never fixed it. I have absolutely no idea what to do. My computer constantly crashes under XP and the reason why i switched to XP was to avoid crashes!! It will always crash in games and it will only sometimes crash when surfing web or normal stuff. Sometimes in the BSOD the dll nv4_disp.dll is listed (this is a dll for the geforce 3). Im not sure if thats important but thought that i would mention it. Does anyone have any idea what i should do? If i cant fix this i am considering going to win2000 because i am out of options and at the end of my rope. Thanks for your time....

 

[RCmayor]

Try Win ME or Win 98 compatibility mode.

 

[bocamojo]

2 Things you need to do:

1. Write down the offending filename on any blue screen messages. As you have indicated nv4_disp.dll, I think you can clearly see that the nvidia display drivers are the cause of at least one of your system crashes. The fix for this, revert to a previous version of the drivers, or try to see if a patch or driver update has been released. Sometimes the "newest" drivers are the buggiest and least stable...

2. Many games are not designed for XP, or may not run well in XP native mode. As RC suggests, try to run your games in compatibility mode. I run NBA Live 2001 in win98 compatibility mode, and it runs like a champ. To run a game or program in compatibility mode, just right click on the executable for the program (after you've installed it, of course), and select properties, then find the compatibility mode settings, and tell it which mode to use (see your game or program to determine what OS it is written for).

Good luck.