Blue Screen of Death!

[Nysrock]

I'm hoping somebody might have some idea of what I can do to fix my computer.

While waiting to start a Hound raid the other day I was playing around with my gear set up. When I went to turn back to the party I saw a bunch of red dashed lines across my screen and then my computer shut down. I rebooted and tried to restart DDO but at soon as it came up the picture went screwy and I got more red lines all over the screen.

Now I can't even start my computer without the red dashed lines followed by the blue screen saying that windows had to shut down.

So any ideas? I'm hoping it it something relatively simple like I need to replace my video cards but I have no idea. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Oh and I don't have all the specs with me (at work) but the computer is a lil over 3 years old running AMD dual core with dual Nvidia video cards and Windows Vista.

[Delt]

Usually a hardware problem for blue screens (especially as you describe it), but not always. Make a note of the actual error message in the blue screen and post it.

[Jybwee]

my first instinct is to say a video ram problem. I looked around and found -

http://www.playtool.com/pages/artifacts/artifacts.html

so you can kinda compare pictures with what your seeing... there's only a few but it might help.

side note - could also just be the cards overheating, make sure those fans are clean and working if you haven't done so already.

might wanna do some ram tests too - memtest is my fav.

[Nysrock]

Thanks for the answers. It looks mostly like the screen with all the red bars meaning the Video Ram could be bad.
So does that mean if I replaced my video cards it should work properly? I also have extra RAM that I could install to replace the RAM currently installed on my computer.

Thanks again for the help.

[Jybwee]

Thanks for the answers. It looks mostly like the screen with all the red bars meaning the Video Ram could be bad.
So does that mean if I replaced my video cards it should work properly? I also have extra RAM that I could install to replace the RAM currently installed on my computer.

Thanks again for the help.

it's not 100%, but a very good idea of where to start. The ram your video card uses (vram) and the ram sticks on your mother board are different. I was just saying it could be a ram (not vram) problem also.

but anywho - you can run memtest on your ram if your interested, but i would test your cards first. Now i think you said video card(s) in the original post - well i'd use only 1... see what happens.. then switch and use only the other. Seems like the best place to start.

oh and also if your not keeping an eye on your temps it could be that too. For Nvidia cards i'd suggest EVGA Precision.. which is also an overclocking program but it has a few graphs that will tell ya what your card did in the last maybe 2 min., temps and also how hard it was being pushed. You can also have an on-screen display in the corner of your screen so you know whats goin on real-time while you play. Idk what cards you got but if they're not crazy old they can probably get up to about 100c before bad things will start to happen (sometimes 110c), but for all my cards i keep em under 80c - I ain't cook'n omletes. Anywho if you see em spiking fast then it's possibly a fan that went out or just caked with dust... or you might haveta reseat the gpu with some new thermal paste.

- just my 2cents atleast.

[Dulcimerist]

That definitely sounds like a VRAM overheating issue. Do you happen to be overclocking?

This is an excellent free program that tells you the temperatures of everything in your system:
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

It would be a good idea to get some canned air, open up your case, and clean everything with the canned air. Perhaps a dust bunny got sucked into your computer and got stuck on the VRAM heat sinks.

[Nysrock]

That definitely sounds like a VRAM overheating issue. Do you happen to be overclocking?

This is an excellent free program that tells you the temperatures of everything in your system:
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

It would be a good idea to get some canned air, open up your case, and clean everything with the canned air. Perhaps a dust bunny got sucked into your computer and got stuck on the VRAM heat sinks.

I have a temp gauge on my PC so heat is definitely not the issue. And lately the only way I can boot it up without getting the blue screen is in safe mode. I will go home and copy what the blue screen says and post with my wife's laptop.

[Dulcimerist]

Did you recently install new hardware into your system? If so, there could be an IRQ conflict.

I assume you've run scans to check for viruses and spyware? (I don't know how spyware could cause artifacts like that, though.)

[Nysrock]

Well when I started my computer up I got the Blue screen with a Page_Fault_In_Nonpaged_Area. After that I went into safe mode and downloaded the graphics drivers. (NVidia GeForce 7900GS x2) After that the blue screen said that there was a problem updating the drivers and that windows closed due to a driver issue.

So if it is a VRAM issue would that be causing a driver issue too as it tries to compensate? I'm thinking of pulling both video cards out and trying a different card from my old computer to see if that helps. Anyone know if that would work or if I could screw things up worse? Thanks again for the help.

And no I haven't added any hardware or software recently.

[Delt]

Well when I started my computer up I got the Blue screen with a Page_Fault_In_Nonpaged_Area. After that I went into safe mode and downloaded the graphics drivers. (NVidia GeForce 7900GS x2) After that the blue screen said that there was a problem updating the drivers and that windows closed due to a driver issue.

So if it is a VRAM issue would that be causing a driver issue too as it tries to compensate? I'm thinking of pulling both video cards out and trying a different card from my old computer to see if that helps. Anyone know if that would work or if I could screw things up worse? Thanks again for the help.

And no I haven't added any hardware or software recently.

Because of your described symptoms (the graphic issues, the bsod), a failing graphics card is the most likely.

Been a while since I looked at Nvidia SLi stuff, but pretty sure you can't just mix & match any cards, so adding in a different older card may not work (double check the older video card part number).

If it were me, first I'd confirm everything is seated properly and test. Then I'd just disable the SLi stuff, pull out one card, test and then the other card. I'd also test the health of my my memory & HDD(s). There are various free software tools available for testing. Finally, I'd toast all Nvidia drivers and reinstall (actually, I might do this earlier, since you botched it mid install).

[Nysrock]

Because of your described symptoms (the graphic issues, the bsod), a failing graphics card is the most likely.

Been a while since I looked at Nvidia SLi stuff, but pretty sure you can't just mix & match any cards, so adding in a different older card may not work (double check the older video card part number).

If it were me, first I'd confirm everything is seated properly and test. Then I'd just disable the SLi stuff, pull out one card, test and then the other card. I'd also test the health of my my memory & HDD(s). There are various free software tools available for testing. Finally, I'd toast all Nvidia drivers and reinstall (actually, I might do this earlier, since you botched it mid install).

Well I found the problem. I was running in SLI mode with dual cards and after removing 1 then the other I found out that 1 card was bad. No more blue screen and no more lines.

Now I just need to replace that card or maybe upgrade. I was running the NVidia GeForce 7900GS 256MB. I was thinking of just replacing the 1 working card with a newer version. Any suggestions for a good card running Vista and that would be SLI compatible for a future purchase of a 2nd one?

[Jybwee]

Well I found the problem. I was running in SLI mode with dual cards and after removing 1 then the other I found out that 1 card was bad. No more blue screen and no more lines.

Now I just need to replace that card or maybe upgrade. I was running the NVidia GeForce 7900GS 256MB. I was thinking of just replacing the 1 working card with a newer version. Any suggestions for a good card running Vista and that would be SLI compatible for a future purchase of a 2nd one?

awesome that you figured it out! but now the question is which path to take.

- http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=172243

will help answer some questions about sli, but usually you'll need to match your card exactly for sli to work (without some 3rd party program which may cause extra problems). At the moment Nvidia is throw'n out some great cards for great prices. I have been an AMD man for quite some years now but i'm getting rdy to jump ship when ever i buy my next card if they don't catch up. Anyway if you can find another 7900gs 256mb i'm sure it will be crazy cheap but i would vote for just upgrading to 1 single card. Idk how much ya got to spend tho.

Idk how much money ya got to spend but you can get one of them great new 550's for around $150 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130625
Compare - http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards....=360&card2=647

then ya got dx11 support, 1gb a ram (nice upgrade from 256), and plenty more power. It's not top-o-the-line or anything but still a Great! card.

side note - remember to have enough power in your PSU when/if you upgrade.