Several ongoing problems, very frustrating

memory

memory

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As some of you may know, I have been having problems with my desktop for several months now. Here is what is happening. I am thinking all these problems are connected somehow. While gaming or running a graphic intensive program I receive the nvlddmkm error. I have reinstalled the video drivers, tried older drivers, the newest drivers and did not help. I also RMA'd the card and the same thing happens with the replacement. So that pretty much rules out the video card.

Another problem, I bought 2 new WD 500gb hard drives and both fail the WD diagnostic test. I receive the cable test: write sector error on both drives. The transfer speeds are really slow between the two drives as well. So I figured the hard drives were screwed up so I RMA'd them through Newegg and both replacements do the same thing. So I am almost certain it is not the hard drives. Though I guess it is still possible that the replacements are messed up too but I think that would be pretty rare to receive four bad hard drives.

I have also replaced the PSU with a Corsair 850HX and did not help. Now I just got done RMA'ing the motherboard through Gigabyte and they said the only thing wrong with it was a corrupted bios so they sent the same one back to me. I thought for sure that was my problem was. The only thing I haven't replaced is the CPU and the memory. I tested the memory and no errors came up. And I just don't see it being the CPU.

Now I am starting to think maybe it is Windows. Maybe a bad copy? I have the retail version of Windows 7 Pro so I may try and install the 32 bit version. Maybe it is a 64 bit issue although I doubt it.

I want to get this thing fixed. I really want to get back into gaming. Was looking forward to BF: BC2. I am really getting fed up with this. I thought about building a Core i7 build and giving this one to a family member. It does fine as a office machine, browsing internet, watching movies, music, etc. Just no heavy gaming or transferring large files.

Sorry for such a long thread. I appreciate it if you take time to read it.
 
Update: I installed Windows 7 32 bit and did not help. In the BIOS, I enabled the SATA port0-1 Native Mode and did not help. What about the SATA AHCI mode, should I enable that? In the motherboard manual, it says that only Windows Vista supports this feature but when I bought this board, Windows 7 was not out yet. So it should work with Windows 7, right?

If that does not work, I am at a loss for what to do. I might just say screw it and build a whole new system although I would like to get this problem sorted out. I am still thinking this is a hardware problem.

Could bad sata cables be causing the problems for the hard drives? I may buy some new cables and see if that helps.

But then I am still stuck with the nvlddmkm error. I think I done just about everything I could do. I reinstalled drivers, installed older drivers, RMA'd the card. What else is there to do?
 
I just did a Google on "nvlddmkm" all kinds of good suggestions come up. I have no experience with this though. Do you have any other PCI cards? Did you try removing them as many suggest?
 
Yes I did remove the PCI cards. I have googled nvlddmkm and I have tried several suggestions and nothing worked.
 
i recently put a brand new wd caviar black drive into my build and the wd diagnostic software reports a cable error everytime.i googled it and it turns out the wd software is rubbish so more than likely your drives are fine.
is it possible a stick of your ram maybe faulty?
 
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driverdj2000 said:
i recently put a brand new wd caviar black drive into my build and the wd diagnostic software reports a cable error everytime.i googled it and it turns out the wd software is rubbish so more than likely your drives are fine.
is it possible a stick of your ram maybe faulty?
Click to expand...

I think I read that too but how do you explain the slow transfer speeds between the two drives? The two drives I have now is my second set of drives, RMA'd the first two. Slow transfer speeds happened on the first set also. The speeds start out fine but then slowly keeps going down.
 
my drive does the same.starts off about 80 MB/s and drops and levels off at 30 MB/s.
is this what happens with yours?
 
Yes, similar to that. It will start around 100, stay there for a second or two then slowly drop. Mine will get down to almost nothing.
 
Go to your IT teacher and resolve all your porblems, wait........ google is your best teacher, as google any question about your problem and resolve from there.
 
Hi,
As you are having problems with your desktop for several months. I would suggest you to turn it on and build a whole new system if you would like to get this problem sorted.

Thanks
Alex
 
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I have already reinstalled Windows several times and did not help. I think I got a few things figured out.

Now I can run 3dmark06 sucessfully without receiving the nvlddmkm error. What I did was lower the clocks all the way down to the lowest they can go. I am going to slowly raise them and see how high I can get them without receiving the error.

As far as the hard drives not passing the WD Diagnostics tool, I think it is a problem with the software. I have read several other places that it is a problem with the software. I ran Seagate Seatools and both drives passed. But I still can not explain the transfer speeds. I bought some new SATA cables and hopefully that will help.

Hopefully now I can start playing BF: BC2:D
 
Have your overclocked any of your components? How long did you run Memtest86+ for to test your memory? I would run Memtest86+ for at least 7 hours to make sure there are no problems with the RAM.
 
Gabe63 said:
Based on what you said about lowering the speed on your card I wonder if you have this issue?

http://www.computerforum.com/171871-best-graphics-card.html

1st page second to last post.
Click to expand...


I manually set the fan speed to 90% so heat is not a problem.

@2048Megabytes, I have overclocked my cpu in the past but it is not right now. I have not overclocked anything else. I ran memtest for several hours, maybe not 7 hours but around 5 hours.

It seems for now that the nvlddmkm error has disappeared. I even have the clocks back to what they originally were.

The only thing else I changed is I have enabled the SATA AHCI setting in the bios.

The hard drives still fail the WD Diagnostics test but I think that is a problem with the program so I am going to ignore that for now. I ran Seagate Seatools and both drives passed.

I am still having slow transfer speeds between the two drives. I just bought some new sata cables, maybe the old ones are bad. I have not received the new cables yet.
 
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One other thing I forgot to mention, sometimes it will not boot up and it gives me a disk boot failure message, insert system disk. To get it to boot up, sometimes I can only have the OS drive hooked up and other times I have to have all three drives(1 dvd drive and 2 HDD's) hooked up. Sometimes times it will go for several weeks without doing this and other times it will do it several times a day. Why is it so intermittent? That is what really drives me crazy.

I just installed the new SATA cables and did not make a bit of difference.
 
Try different Serial ATA ports with the hard drives if you can. If that doesn't solve the error problems I would then try a Windows Vista or Windows XP Operating System.

If you are still running into problems after you try another operating system I think the problem would be with the motherboard. Gigabyte may have just run a quick test on it and found no errors thereby thinking there was nothing wrong with the board.
 
I have tried different SATA ports and it has dones this with Vista too.

Instead of trying to RMA the board again and be without a computer for another 2 weeks, I thought about trying to find the same motherboard used on ebay.
 
Have you also tried a different working power supply in your system? I would hate for you to buy another motherboard if the power supply was giving you issues. I don't think this is a power supply issue but when troubleshooting you should assume nothing.
 
Yes I have replaced the power supply with a new one. Does the same exact thing. New one is in my sig, old one was a OCZ 700watt gamexstream.
 
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