Hi guys,
This is my first post to this group. This is sort of "software/OS" issue, so I figured this would be the appropriate place to post this...please forgive me if it should be somewhere else. This is going to be rather long-winded, so bare with me, but I need to "back up" a bit an explain a few things.
My wife and I bought Windows 7 32-bit the night after it hit the shelves. On our desk computer, have NEVER had any issues with it at all, still to this day; it's been rock-solid and an amazing "new" OS. Around the same time, I bought an Acer Aspire 5536 with Vista, which I (as most) didn't care for, and was entitled to the "free upgrade to 7", which I promptly took advantage of. Since having it installed on my Acer, again, absolutely solid. No issues at all.
This is now two "7" DVD's that I haven't had any issues with. We took advantage, the short time this was available for the 3-license version of 7. Bought the package. This came with a 32-bit DVD AND a 64-bit as well.
This is where things started to get a little "weird".
My wife's laptop is a Toshiba Satellite P205D-S8804, in which that got the FIRST of the three available installs from the 32-bit disc. About a week or so after I had installed it, (BTW; "fresh" install, not upgrade) it started to freeze on her occasionally. These freezes were completely random; not really consistent with any "one" program or event, and so on. I did some of the "usual" first troubleshoots, check the crash dumps (which surprisingly in the Windows Minidump folder there were no files at all...!), check driver compatibility, check RAM, etc.; everything checked out fine. Just on a "whim", I set her "Power Plan" for "high-performance", and her machine has not crashed once in the last month and a half since then.
Figuring this was an issue that was isolated, dealt with, and fixed to what SEEMS to be "permanently" on HER machine, I decided to put the SECOND of the three installs on my best friend's (next door neighbor's) tower.
This machine, to keep it "brief" is the following:
MoBo: ASUS M2N-SLI
CPU : AMD 64x (EXACT chip escapes me at the moment, this is all from memory
RAM : 4GB Kingston 2 x 2GB sticks
GPU : NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT
HDD1: Western Digital 500GB
HDD2: "" "" ""
Blah blah blah......you get the idea....this isn't an old/crap machine.
They had XP Pro SP2 installed on that same machine, running the same programs they're attempting to run now, with not one issue. Smooth as a baby's butt!
About 2 weeks after I installed 7, it started freezing up on them FIRST at "random" points, but now it seems to be consistent with whenever they're playing Hoyle Board Games 2007 (in particular, 8-ball Pool), watching a video in WMP, or playing a game with decent to heavy 3D rendering. This would make the machine totally freeze. No VISIBLE BSoD (even though that's what the errors said, which I believe), no self-reboot, just frozen, leaving you cold-booting the machine.
Now, I can't tell you how much I have exhausted almost, if not all the avenues I know how to deal with. Again, the FIRST thing I tried doing was going to the C:\Windows\Minidump folder............found absolutely nothing...literally. No dump files had been generated for some bizarre reason. Then, I started putting everything into consideration, and the "weakest link" (as some of you reading may be guessing as I did) it sounds like something with the GPU or its driver. They're running an NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT. So, I tried changing about 5,000 different settings that would make logical sense in "troubleshooting" or simply putting less load on the card.....didn't make a difference.
Then, I tried the "fix" of setting their power plan on "high performance".......zilch. Then I thought "If this is something further with the GPU, let's stress-test it." Downloaded the familiar Furmark 1.7.0, ran it through SEVERAL tests, could NOT get the machine to crash this way. I figured if it was something DirectX, or 3D rendering, this for SURE would cause hell to break loose.......nope. I got to the point where I was virtually "cooking" the card....and it still wouldn't crash. I then tried "downgrading" to a previous version of the 8600's driver set...still froze. Then downloaded the most current driver set....still froze.
A little prior to some of the GPU troubleshooting, they also said it would crash when on Firefox simply on a "dumb" site (I refer to "dumb" sites as Craig's List, Google, etc.....stuff with NO load on the GPU). This started making me think TWICE about video, now.
Then I downloaded "memtest x86"...the "old stand-by"....everything checked out 100% All four sticks are just fine. Ran it three times; still checked out perfect. BY THIS POINT, I start thinking to myself "okay....really? What the hell could this be?" Being an NVIDIA card, I then thought of disabling PhysX, which did absolutely nothing to help.
I started going to some Windows settings (ie, disabling the Aero theme, general graphics acceleration, virtual memory, paging file) and making "logical" "tweaks" and adjustments...still, no fix.
Nothing so far has been able to touch this. Sunday afternoon (1/24) I went next door, and just for the sheer hell of it, went into the C:\Windows\Minidump folder....and LO AND BEHOLD! THREE FILES! One from 1/15 and two from 1/19.
I don't get why NOW all of a sudden crash dumps are showing up! Anyway, I ran WinDbg, and all three files gave some sort of message to the effect of "unrecognizable symbols". However the CLOSEST thing I got was where it mentioned the most probable file linked in that crash.
There were three crash dumps. One of them said the file that probably caused the BSoD was "ntoskernel.exe".
The second one said the file for THAT crash was "cdd.dll"
The third and final one listed mentioned that the file responsible was "win32k.sys".
I tried doing some homework on this and found that at least the "cdd.dll" is a display DLL, which could be linked to the GPU, but the other two? I'm assuming they're common Windows files that I'm sure 40 different programs utilize but what I'm trying to narrow down is if the machine is still crashing, it's got to be one of these three files consistently causing the freezing.
Does this make any sense? Has anyone else had similar issues? I realize without posting a dump log, there are some details you may be missing, or would need. In that event, I could post them in a little bit once I go over there again.
I guess I'm just at a complete loss - just when I think I've fixed it and I can't get it to freeze for me for almost 4 hours of use - within an hour of my leaving - it freezes. Maybe it just doesn't like them...?! LOL
Another "take" on this I thought (why I mentioned above the 3-license DVD; both installs from the 32-bit DVD) is again, my Acer laptop and our desk tower have installs from two completely separate DVD's...both run fast and flawless. My wife's laptop and our friend's tower installs were from the same 32-bit DVD from the volume license purchase. COULD THIS BE possibly a defective DVD? Just seems a little coincidental, I guess.
Sorry for the long-winded post, but I couldn't think of anyway to condense any of this where it would make sense or wouldn't be losing any important info.
Feel free to ask any questions for things I may have left out.
Thanks in advance for ANY input or help!
This is my first post to this group. This is sort of "software/OS" issue, so I figured this would be the appropriate place to post this...please forgive me if it should be somewhere else. This is going to be rather long-winded, so bare with me, but I need to "back up" a bit an explain a few things.
My wife and I bought Windows 7 32-bit the night after it hit the shelves. On our desk computer, have NEVER had any issues with it at all, still to this day; it's been rock-solid and an amazing "new" OS. Around the same time, I bought an Acer Aspire 5536 with Vista, which I (as most) didn't care for, and was entitled to the "free upgrade to 7", which I promptly took advantage of. Since having it installed on my Acer, again, absolutely solid. No issues at all.
This is now two "7" DVD's that I haven't had any issues with. We took advantage, the short time this was available for the 3-license version of 7. Bought the package. This came with a 32-bit DVD AND a 64-bit as well.
This is where things started to get a little "weird".
My wife's laptop is a Toshiba Satellite P205D-S8804, in which that got the FIRST of the three available installs from the 32-bit disc. About a week or so after I had installed it, (BTW; "fresh" install, not upgrade) it started to freeze on her occasionally. These freezes were completely random; not really consistent with any "one" program or event, and so on. I did some of the "usual" first troubleshoots, check the crash dumps (which surprisingly in the Windows Minidump folder there were no files at all...!), check driver compatibility, check RAM, etc.; everything checked out fine. Just on a "whim", I set her "Power Plan" for "high-performance", and her machine has not crashed once in the last month and a half since then.
Figuring this was an issue that was isolated, dealt with, and fixed to what SEEMS to be "permanently" on HER machine, I decided to put the SECOND of the three installs on my best friend's (next door neighbor's) tower.
This machine, to keep it "brief" is the following:
MoBo: ASUS M2N-SLI
CPU : AMD 64x (EXACT chip escapes me at the moment, this is all from memory
RAM : 4GB Kingston 2 x 2GB sticks
GPU : NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT
HDD1: Western Digital 500GB
HDD2: "" "" ""
Blah blah blah......you get the idea....this isn't an old/crap machine.
They had XP Pro SP2 installed on that same machine, running the same programs they're attempting to run now, with not one issue. Smooth as a baby's butt!
About 2 weeks after I installed 7, it started freezing up on them FIRST at "random" points, but now it seems to be consistent with whenever they're playing Hoyle Board Games 2007 (in particular, 8-ball Pool), watching a video in WMP, or playing a game with decent to heavy 3D rendering. This would make the machine totally freeze. No VISIBLE BSoD (even though that's what the errors said, which I believe), no self-reboot, just frozen, leaving you cold-booting the machine.
Now, I can't tell you how much I have exhausted almost, if not all the avenues I know how to deal with. Again, the FIRST thing I tried doing was going to the C:\Windows\Minidump folder............found absolutely nothing...literally. No dump files had been generated for some bizarre reason. Then, I started putting everything into consideration, and the "weakest link" (as some of you reading may be guessing as I did) it sounds like something with the GPU or its driver. They're running an NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT. So, I tried changing about 5,000 different settings that would make logical sense in "troubleshooting" or simply putting less load on the card.....didn't make a difference.
Then, I tried the "fix" of setting their power plan on "high performance".......zilch. Then I thought "If this is something further with the GPU, let's stress-test it." Downloaded the familiar Furmark 1.7.0, ran it through SEVERAL tests, could NOT get the machine to crash this way. I figured if it was something DirectX, or 3D rendering, this for SURE would cause hell to break loose.......nope. I got to the point where I was virtually "cooking" the card....and it still wouldn't crash. I then tried "downgrading" to a previous version of the 8600's driver set...still froze. Then downloaded the most current driver set....still froze.
A little prior to some of the GPU troubleshooting, they also said it would crash when on Firefox simply on a "dumb" site (I refer to "dumb" sites as Craig's List, Google, etc.....stuff with NO load on the GPU). This started making me think TWICE about video, now.
Then I downloaded "memtest x86"...the "old stand-by"....everything checked out 100% All four sticks are just fine. Ran it three times; still checked out perfect. BY THIS POINT, I start thinking to myself "okay....really? What the hell could this be?" Being an NVIDIA card, I then thought of disabling PhysX, which did absolutely nothing to help.
I started going to some Windows settings (ie, disabling the Aero theme, general graphics acceleration, virtual memory, paging file) and making "logical" "tweaks" and adjustments...still, no fix.
Nothing so far has been able to touch this. Sunday afternoon (1/24) I went next door, and just for the sheer hell of it, went into the C:\Windows\Minidump folder....and LO AND BEHOLD! THREE FILES! One from 1/15 and two from 1/19.
I don't get why NOW all of a sudden crash dumps are showing up! Anyway, I ran WinDbg, and all three files gave some sort of message to the effect of "unrecognizable symbols". However the CLOSEST thing I got was where it mentioned the most probable file linked in that crash.
There were three crash dumps. One of them said the file that probably caused the BSoD was "ntoskernel.exe".
The second one said the file for THAT crash was "cdd.dll"
The third and final one listed mentioned that the file responsible was "win32k.sys".
I tried doing some homework on this and found that at least the "cdd.dll" is a display DLL, which could be linked to the GPU, but the other two? I'm assuming they're common Windows files that I'm sure 40 different programs utilize but what I'm trying to narrow down is if the machine is still crashing, it's got to be one of these three files consistently causing the freezing.
Does this make any sense? Has anyone else had similar issues? I realize without posting a dump log, there are some details you may be missing, or would need. In that event, I could post them in a little bit once I go over there again.
I guess I'm just at a complete loss - just when I think I've fixed it and I can't get it to freeze for me for almost 4 hours of use - within an hour of my leaving - it freezes. Maybe it just doesn't like them...?! LOL
Another "take" on this I thought (why I mentioned above the 3-license DVD; both installs from the 32-bit DVD) is again, my Acer laptop and our desk tower have installs from two completely separate DVD's...both run fast and flawless. My wife's laptop and our friend's tower installs were from the same 32-bit DVD from the volume license purchase. COULD THIS BE possibly a defective DVD? Just seems a little coincidental, I guess.
Sorry for the long-winded post, but I couldn't think of anyway to condense any of this where it would make sense or wouldn't be losing any important info.
Feel free to ask any questions for things I may have left out.
Thanks in advance for ANY input or help!
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