Freezing issue after bsod

[Eternal255]

Edit:

I wanted to come back and update this on things ive tried that may help other people:

I discovered that my issue is most likely a hardware issue. Not sure why but my graphics card on my laptop may have gone bad. Essentially, i am having an issue with the TDR (a thing where the graphics driver resets itself for whatever reason, i forget why). There is a way to disable this that i have not tried yet but i doubt it will help.

I have tried several things since posting here including:

-reinstalling older drivers (301.42 as mentioned in the first post following this. this simply made it so that instead of BSOD, the entire computer would freeze)

-disabling unnecessary windows graphics settings (such as windows areo)

-reinstalling newest graphics drivers under safe mode [to ensure full, proper installation to prevent TDR]

All of these 'solutions' merely delayed the initial blue screen. I was able to get about 5 hours of gameplay in each time with my nividia card on my laptop before i would blue screen. Shortly after the first blue screen, i would get multiple blue screens in a row, to the point where i cant play (BSOD's every 5-10minutes or quicker, even as quick as immediately after logging on)

Anyway, there was one other option which i have not tried yet, which was taking a blowtorch to the GPU (sounds extreme, but apparently it could work. someone said the soldering may have been damaged becuz of my previous overheating issues and the GPU might not be sitting right, so heating it up with a torch and ensuring it is in place may help). but we'll see if i decide to go through with that... if I do ill edit this post.

So yeah, im just running the game on simple textures with my integrated graphics card. it looks like absolute shit, and i hate the living fuck out of it, but at least i can play the game : /


Original Post:



So i was having a bluescreen issue related to nvlddmkm.sys

I've tried a number of different solutions including a clean install of the most recent drivers for my laptop. Reinstalling the drivers simply made it go from a BSOD to just freezing randomly. I don't know why it is doing this all of a sudden. The game was running just fine less than 12 hours ago, and then all of a sudden I can't play more than 10 minutes without a crash of some sort. This is on PSO2 during gameplay, or even just as long as the game is running.

Any ideas or possible fixes would be appreciated.

Specs:

Acer Aspire 5750g Laptop
i7 2630m Processor
Nvidia GT 540m graphics
Windows 7, 64 bit

[Chik'Tikka]

i know that nvidia drivers past 301.42 caused issues for me with the 540m+^_^+

[Eternal255]

i know that nvidia drivers past 301.42 caused issues for me with the 540m+^_^+

so downgrade, you say?

[Aeris]

I have a Nvidia Geforce GTX260M and on driver version 301.42 with no issues lately unless you're on a beta version which might not be stable for some games, are you on that driver version atm?

[Eternal255]

Yup 301.42, maybe its not a graphics issue then? Cuz my computer randomly decides to overheat sometimes too. But random as hell. For example, this morning I played for 20 mins and it shut off cuz it got too hot. But last night I played for 4 hours straight with no issues, not even bsod or freeze.

The freezing only happened twice it seems, if it continues to happen I'll post up, but whatever the issue is, it tends to only want to happen sometimes.

[Ana-Chan]

Yup 301.42, maybe its not a graphics issue then? Cuz my computer randomly decides to overheat sometimes too. But random as hell. For example, this morning I played for 20 mins and it shut off cuz it got too hot. But last night I played for 4 hours straight with no issues, not even bsod or freeze.

The freezing only happened twice it seems, if it continues to happen I'll post up, but whatever the issue is, it tends to only want to happen sometimes.

Are you sure that it shut down because of it getting too hot? How did you figure out that it got too hot? Graphics drivers are known to be unstable by nature and other components of your system can cause blue screens and freezes.

[Chik'Tikka]

Are you sure that it shut down because of it getting too hot? How did you figure out that it got too hot? Graphics drivers are known to be unstable by nature and other components of your system can cause blue screens and freezes.

true, and he said he's using a 540m, which means laptop which means components very very close together, one might be able to handle heat generated just fine, but others might not+^_^+ before i changed out my laptop's fan, PCSX2 would get it to pop 90°C (read by coretemp) and my machine would down-clock CPU to 700 MHZ until it cooled off, even as it is, i hit the upper 60s playing my emulators and PSO2+^_^+ while the CPU (and likely the GPU) can handle 90°C plenty of other things in a laptop surely cannot+^_^+ anyway, i just asked because I'm using a 540m as well with the 301.42 drivers without issues, i know that the 304.48, 304.79, and the 306.02 drivers didn't like PSO2 on my computer at all and would just cause crashes+^_^+ although, now i wanna get a fancy 600 series Kepler GPU to test out that new TXAA thing Nvidia is doing

[Eternal255]

When the pc randomly shuts off, 9 times out of 10 its a heat issue. unless somehow the battery and power cable slipped out.

Plus i know the difference between how hot my laptop is supposed to run, how the graphics react when it gets too hot, and so forth. The graphics card gets really hot at times, and it over heats the CPU as they're connected to the same heat sink and fan. The fan is no bigger than 40mm. right now while running the game, the fan is blowing out warm air, the bottom of the laptop isnt too hot. when it shuts off, its nearly burning up.

And i keep getting the freezing issue, now that i took care of the BSOD. Happened twice today in less than 5 hours of gameplay total. The freezing issue is not related to heat, i know for a fact. The BSOD issue WAS related to graphics drivers, which i reinstalled and now no more of that, just the freezing. I cant think of what else to do to help. I even upgraded bios as i read it helped some people.

[Ana-Chan]

The freezing could also be graphics related or it could be something else.

There are actually subtle differences in the way a system freezes that can tell you where the problem is.

For example, one of the older versions of my graphics drivers always froze when you tried to use some Direct3D accelerated application while a video is playing using DXVA. Once it froze, the system actually was responsive. Sound still worked, hitting the power button would get it to shut down normally and stuff like that, video output just stopped.

On the other, one time where I ended up with a dying PSU. The system would freeze because of that, and it would freeze regularly. If it froze, anything in the sound buffer would repeat over and over, the system wouldn't take any input and it wouldn't shut down normally if you pressed the power button.

One time I even got an interesting freeze and there seemed to have been no good cause for it. After trying a fresh install of Windows the problem had gone away. So it was one of the drivers or settings had gotten damaged on disk. Since it also froze in safe mode, it was one of the required drivers.

So freezing can be a problem to figure out.

[Eternal255]

My freezing is the entire PC, i cant do anything. The screen stays still, but i havent paid attention to the audio. If it happens again i'll let you know.

But i did just get the BSOD again all randomly, after about a week of none happening. Again the error was related to the same .sys file mentioned in OP, which a google search said it was related to nvidia drivers.... : /

perhaps i should just build a desktop lol

[Gama]

I had manny issues with the 301 driver. currently using the latest beta driver wich works perfectly.

[Eternal255]

Update, and i have to bump this-

Ok so i updated my drivers to the most recent 306.23.

Prior to this I was CONSTANTLY shutting down. My entire laptop would simply shut off. The air vent would be blowing out really hot air prior and the heat sync is SCORCHING hot. To the point where I touch my laptop case and nearly burn my finger.

Now, again as previously mentioned, this did not happen ALL the time. It only happened 90% of the time, but it eventually starts to settle down and run smooth. Framerate picks up and i can play the game for hours or even leave it on the whole day and not have a problem. And running temperature of the CPU/GPU are significantly lower (based on previous mentioned, feeling the vent/case method)

Except for today. Today I wasnt able to stay on for more than say 10-15minutes. My laptop must have shut off maybe 15 times before I decided to try and upgrade the drivers. So I upgraded the drivers, removed some old software I didnt need (games, steam, etc) and I only have my audio production and school related software now.

Anyway, so i do all this and log on, and everything seems *ok*. I was still getting framerate lag whenever a force would cast a spell which when the game was running stable wouldnt do this, however, average framerate was noticeably higher. So i keep playing and BAM! Shuts off again. Since previously it tended to stabilize itself after 2-3 poweroffs and allow me to play for hours, i decided to turn it back on and try again.

Turned it on, logged on. On for about 5 minutes and powers off again. (Keep in mind all of these times im checking the heat emitting from the case, each time extremely hot). I tried actually checking temperatures but CPUID wont let me change graphics card choices becuz nvidia optimus is a stupid piece of shit idea.

Anyway, it kept doing this all day. Yesterday it at least got to the point of stability and i was able to play, today i couldnt do jack. I know its heat thats causing it to shutoff, but WHY my video card is getting so hot is the question. I have 3 external fans blowing air onto and into the vents/laptop. The heat sync is connected to both GPU and CPU so when the GPU overheats, it heats up the CPU and powers off.

I'm going to try reformatting tuesday, leaving tomorrow open for any other ideas i could try out. This HAS to be some sort of software incompatibility because a player in my team has almost exactly the same spec laptop as i have (He has a i7 2640m, mine is 2630m, and his graphics card is a GT 525m, mine is a GT540m), and he runs higher graphics settings than i do (which my settings are almost all set to low, minus the simple textures being set to normal) and has no issues what so ever. And another player with a 6 year old alienware running an 8700 graphics card has more framerate than i do.

So yeah, any ideas please post. Keep in mind, i probably tried it so look at previous posts to make sure i havent. Only thing i can think of left is reformatting in hopes that it gets rid of software i dont realize may be effecting the game.

Side question: can i back up the patch/game to an external drive somewhere so when i reformat i wont have to download the 4.3+ gig patches?

[Chik'Tikka]

Turned it on, logged on. On for about 5 minutes and powers off again. (Keep in mind all of these times im checking the heat emitting from the case, each time extremely hot). I tried actually checking temperatures but CPUID wont let me change graphics card choices becuz nvidia optimus is a stupid piece of shit idea.





Side question: can i back up the patch/game to an external drive somewhere so when i reformat i wont have to download the 4.3+ gig patches?


for temp of the 540m, use Nvidia Inspector (http://downloads.guru3d.com/NVIDIA-Inspector-1.9.6.6-download-2612.html) it's a good program that checks everything from temp to clock rates, you can also use this program to adjust settings with more options then Nvidia control panel and make PSO2 have better AA or have ambient occlusion and such (though these would kill frame rate) i myself used it to force FXAA on PSO2 and turned off PSO2s in game AA which gave me more frames+^_^+ i believe you can use it to make optimus know which programs to use the 540m on or not+^_^+

as for your other question, yes you can back up your files, you'll still need to reinstall PSO2, but after the initial install, just copy all the files in your C:\Program Files (x86)\SEGA\PHANTASYSTARONLINE2\pso2_bin\data\win32 folder to the same place in the new install+^_^+ you'll have to run the file check again, but it cuts time down to 15 minutes after the files are copied+^_^+ i don't know how well a reformat and instal of windows is gonna help you, if it does good, if not, well, backup backup backup+^_^+ mine is a i5-2410m @ 2.9 GHz with a gt 540m @750MHz core, 950Mhz memory, 1500MHz shader clock (this is as high as i could OC my 540 before it starts acting up) and 6 gb DDR3 1333 MHz RAM+^_^+

[Eternal255]

mine is a i5-2410m @ 2.9 GHz with a gt 540m @750MHz core, 950Mhz memory, 1500MHz shader clock (this is as high as i could OC my 540 before it starts acting up) and 6 gb DDR3 1333 MHz RAM+^_^+

ah so you got the same card then, what operating system are you using and how much other stuff do you have on your pc? im running a laptop though, im assuming your on desktop since you OC'd

And yeah, i think maybe ill hold off on reformatting, i really dont care to re-install everything ill need for school and what not. worse come worse, ill build a new desktop : /

[Aeris]

I hope your laptop is free of dust on that heatsink and components, pretty much you need to open it up and clean it out and have your gpu and cpu thermal pads and/or paste redone if its a bad cooling issue.

[Eternal255]

I hope your laptop is free of dust on that heatsink and components, pretty much you need to open it up and clean it out and have your gpu and cpu thermal pads and/or paste redone if its a bad cooling issue.

already have. even applied some $20 thermal paste in hopes that more expensive meant better cooling -.-

its clean as the day i bought it

also, @chik-tikka do you know how much power your GPU is getting? I know that on a previous desktop i built the video card would get rather hot due to not getting enough power from my power supply. so maybe that could be an issue too, the laptop somehow not feeding enough power.

I should also mention that I run some extremely heavy CPU demanding software such as Cubase 5 for music production on this same laptop, and even though the CPU is running at near max performance I have no trouble with the thing at all. Only seems to be happening during gameplay with this game. I dont have any other games on my laptop anymore so i cant test others, but prior to playing this i played skyrim as well as some other steam games and had no issues with those (skyrim would cause it to get a bit hot but never power off)

[Aeris]

Yeah, i get overheating issues as well as taking off the undercover just to keep it cool while playing a game.

[Eternal255]

Ok so i just got home from work and tested out speed fan. JUST logged into the game and the GPU shoots up to 95 degrees C.

the CPU readings seem to be wrong, at -27 degrees C on all 4 cores. Im downloading nvidia inspector right now

edit: according to the nvidia tool, the GPU temperature is correct. Still not sure what CPU temperature is at.

[Chik'Tikka]

ah so you got the same card then, what operating system are you using and how much other stuff do you have on your pc? im running a laptop though, im assuming your on desktop since you OC'd

And yeah, i think maybe ill hold off on reformatting, i really dont care to re-install everything ill need for school and what not. worse come worse, ill build a new desktop : /

well when i got mine i formatted it to get rid of bloatware (dumb useless stuff manufacturers like putting in computers they sell, like demo programs and tools and such) and installed Win 7 pro, i have Super Anti Spyware and Norton 360 (which i has for free+^_^+) i have way too many programs installed for me to list all of them, of note is M$ Office 2010, Visual Studio 2010, VMware, Skype, PSO2, Firefox, etc. i have CoreTemp and All Cpu Meter running in my sidebar, and about 68 total processes from all users according to Task Manager+^_^+ i don't like things running in the background except my antivirus and temp meters and such (so no Outlook, IMs, or Skype unless I want to talk to someone) MSConfig is good for reducing starting apps with bootup+^_^+

also, i'm on a laptop, the 540m is only for laptop, the CPU is turbo enabled to go up to 2.9 GHz, (i just found a way to force it to stay in turbo even while idle, but can't get it higher, SB is a pain that way) and GPUs don't really care if they're in laptops or desktops, you can usually OC them, though the 540m didn't like it's memory touched which is why it's only like a 10% OC+^_^+ also, i only hit around 75°C (60° on the GPU) with PSO2 in lobby, i don't see temps past 80°C unless I'm running PCSX2 or something+^_^+



also, @chik-tikka do you know how much power your GPU is getting? I know that on a previous desktop i built the video card would get rather hot due to not getting enough power from my power supply. so maybe that could be an issue too, the laptop somehow not feeding enough power.



0.830 V
[SPOILER-BOX]http://i47.tinypic.com/25ari4z.png[/SPOILER-BOX]


Ok so i just got home from work and tested out speed fan. JUST logged into the game and the GPU shoots up to 95 degrees C.

the CPU readings seem to be wrong, at -27 degrees C on all 4 cores. Im downloading nvidia inspector right now

edit: according to the nvidia tool, the GPU temperature is correct. Still not sure what CPU temperature is at.

the CPU should down-clock to 700 MHz (if it's a SB mobile i core Intel) when it hits that temp and Nvidia chips should just power off at those temps (95°) which would explain the BSOD+^_^+
also, at those temps, while the CPU and GPU may be fine, other components in a cramped laptop might not, be careful of heat damage to your caps and other chips+^_^+
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ +^_^+

anyway, after some research, it may be that you need to re-seat your GPU heat-sink with some fresh thermal compound, it may have come loose or there's a gap+^_^+ if there is a gap and you can't fix it, you can do the DV6000 GPU laptop mobo fix and stick a penny between the heat-sink and GPU with compound on both sides of the coin (Google how this is done, i won't be responsible if you kill your PC)+^_^+

[Kirschwasser]

I'm suffering from the same problem.

Can play the game fine for a good 10-15 mins before it freezes. The image halts, cursor locks, and the audio comes to a near sudden stop, like someone put their hand on a vinyl record as it was playing. Three short ticks of the last sound bit. (all channels. Does not distinguish between action noises and music)

And it was playing perfectly fine before the second to last game guard update.

Also running a GTX 260M in a laptop.

[AutoTranslator]

I'm suffering from the same problem.

Can play the game fine for a good 10-15 mins before it freezes. The image halts, cursor locks, and the audio comes to a near sudden stop, like someone put their hand on a vinyl record as it was playing. Three short ticks of the last sound bit. (all channels. Does not distinguish between action noises and music)

And it was playing perfectly fine before the second to last game guard update.

Also running a GTX 260M in a laptop.
Is it a complete freeze for the computer, or just the game freezing? If it's the latter, try hitting Ctrl+Alt+Del to see if a memory out of bound error pops up for you after you get the crash.

SEGA had mentioned that some people might experience such problems since the major patch on the 12th. Since the download server was congested, it could have caused a partial download (missing out some parts), so SEGA advised everyone who have such and similar problems to do a File Check just in case.

[Eternal255]

Update: I noticed that my CPU/GPU fan decides not to work. I thought I had fixed this issue but I guess the fan is just bad. I ordered a replacement fan, when it gets to me ill replace it and update this post.

In the mean time, I'm going to take off the laptop keyboard & top case part so the internals have room to breathe, and maybe toss a couple fans around it to keep it cool while i wait (part is being shipped from one of those, im Californian so i dont really know/care wtf state that is states)

[Kirschwasser]

Is it a complete freeze for the computer, or just the game freezing? If it's the latter, try hitting Ctrl+Alt+Del to see if a memory out of bound error pops up for you after you get the crash.

SEGA had mentioned that some people might experience such problems since the major patch on the 12th. Since the download server was congested, it could have caused a partial download (missing out some parts), so SEGA advised everyone who have such and similar problems to do a File Check just in case.

It's the computer. Everything is still "running" but nothing responds.

I seem to have fixed the problem by uninstalling my anti-virus software. Apparently the issue with legitimate rootkit programs was not resolved. As a humorous side-note, both free anti-virus programs that nProtect suggests using creates the problem.

[Eternal255]

I wanted to post another update. I have my computer ghetto rigged til the new fan i ordered is received (well, i received one but they sent me the WRONG FAN)

anyway the ghetto rig keeps the cpu/gpu nice and cool, but im still getting BSOD's related to the same .sys file mentioned in OP. No clue why. Drivers are up to date and such, but i keep having em almost every hour or so.

[Eternal255]

Bumping this. I changed the first post, please see that.

An admin may lock this thread if desired. Testing and what not led to it not being a PSO issue.