- Sep 28, 2012
- 4
- 0
- 10,510
REALLY sorry for the long post, but I'm trying to be as detailed as possible!
Hey there everyone! Long time reader, first time poster. I have been working in the IT field for a little over 5 years and currently work for the VA at a National Service Desk. I have built and re-built a few computers in my time and I know my way around a computer (I have 2 degrees, 1 in Micro-computer support and 1 in computer networking) but have never had as much "fun" as I'm having with this new machine.
Here are the specs!
Case: NZXT Crafted Series Phantom Black / Green Trim Steel / Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case (With 4 fans ranging from 140mm to 200mm)
MOBO: ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Professional
Processor: AMD-FX 8150 Zambezi 8-core
RAM: x2 8GB DDR3-1866 G-Skill Sniper Series
Power Supply: Antec Earthwatts 650 Watt
Hard Drive: Samsung HD320KJ ATA
Graphics Card: (You Guessed it) EVGA Nvidea GeForce GTX 550 TI 2GB (Super clocked edition72 MHz GPU clock)
OS: Windows 7 Professional
So I pieced this bad boy together, updated (and re-updated) all of my drivers and windows updates over the course of the last month. I have been trying to play games (Guild Wars 2, Eve Online, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, etc.) and I keep running into the same problem on every game!
When the computer is idle, it works great and has absolutely no issues. However, when I attempt to play a game, it will work fine for a while (time fluctuates between 5 minutes to an hour once) and then 1 of 3 things happens.
1) The screen goes black for a few seconds, then comes back and displays a message that the drivers have stopped responding and have recovered and says something about the current version that I'm using and it being the kernel driver that crashed and then I can play for a minute longer and then get the same problem again, but usually I just turn it off to avoid problem number 2.
2) The screen completely freezes and I hear this strange, mechanical, techno sounding noise coming from my headset (it's hard to explain what it sounds like, but it's not the typical single tone, looping game music, etc. that people usually express they experience. It seriously sounds like a mechanical techno song) and then I have to restart the computer manually.
3) I get a BSOD (most recent one I saw was something like 0x00000161 or something like that, but it goes by so quick that I usually don't see the error code number) and then the computer restarts.
I checked the event log and I find "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered." in the Administrative Events. I have changed the drivers 4 times (full uninstall and re-install using "Driver Sweeper" and "Ccleaner", but no change in behavior other than in the error message in number 1, the number of the driver changes. I have also used OCCT to run tests on the CPU, Power Supply, and Graphics card, but the only one that fails is the Graphics Card which will either show the "driver crashed and recovered" message, freeze the computer and I have to restart, or finishes and says that it experienced over 200000 errors but will not tell me what the errors are. There hasn't been any heat issues (nothing has gone over 60 Celsius
Something else that is strange is that I can watch movies on Netflix and TV on Hulu and Youtube without ANY issues and, as long as I don't play a game, the computer runs without ANY problems.
Now, there have been a few times, when I restarted the computer, I would get an error that states "Reboot and select proper boot device" and I would have to restart again to have it find the hard drive, so I decided to start testing all of my hardware. I ran a self-test with Disk Checkup on the hard drive and I get an error that the says "The last self-test routinely completed with a failure of the read element". But it would appear to me that if the read element was broken, how would I be writing to you right now with the machine or using the HD at all?
So, here are some of the things I have tried to do to fix it:
Update Drivers (with multiple versions both Beta and Certified)
Turned off vertical sync (Read that would help somewhere)
Update Bios
change SATA ports
Change PCI Express ports
Banging my head on the table
Change power connectors
Changing case fan directions to adjust air-flow
Uninstalling and re-installing Windows and software
Slapping the case and calling it bad names (but then apologizing and kissing it till it feels better)
Double checked all connectors and cables
Ok, so I will stop there... ANY help that you can provide would be GREATLY appreciated. I'm thinking about getting a new hard drive and seeing if that helps... Thoughts?
Thank you and, once again, sorry for the long post!
~Storm Plooper~
Hey there everyone! Long time reader, first time poster. I have been working in the IT field for a little over 5 years and currently work for the VA at a National Service Desk. I have built and re-built a few computers in my time and I know my way around a computer (I have 2 degrees, 1 in Micro-computer support and 1 in computer networking) but have never had as much "fun" as I'm having with this new machine.
Here are the specs!
Case: NZXT Crafted Series Phantom Black / Green Trim Steel / Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case (With 4 fans ranging from 140mm to 200mm)
MOBO: ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Professional
Processor: AMD-FX 8150 Zambezi 8-core
RAM: x2 8GB DDR3-1866 G-Skill Sniper Series
Power Supply: Antec Earthwatts 650 Watt
Hard Drive: Samsung HD320KJ ATA
Graphics Card: (You Guessed it) EVGA Nvidea GeForce GTX 550 TI 2GB (Super clocked edition72 MHz GPU clock)
OS: Windows 7 Professional
So I pieced this bad boy together, updated (and re-updated) all of my drivers and windows updates over the course of the last month. I have been trying to play games (Guild Wars 2, Eve Online, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, etc.) and I keep running into the same problem on every game!
When the computer is idle, it works great and has absolutely no issues. However, when I attempt to play a game, it will work fine for a while (time fluctuates between 5 minutes to an hour once) and then 1 of 3 things happens.
1) The screen goes black for a few seconds, then comes back and displays a message that the drivers have stopped responding and have recovered and says something about the current version that I'm using and it being the kernel driver that crashed and then I can play for a minute longer and then get the same problem again, but usually I just turn it off to avoid problem number 2.
2) The screen completely freezes and I hear this strange, mechanical, techno sounding noise coming from my headset (it's hard to explain what it sounds like, but it's not the typical single tone, looping game music, etc. that people usually express they experience. It seriously sounds like a mechanical techno song) and then I have to restart the computer manually.
3) I get a BSOD (most recent one I saw was something like 0x00000161 or something like that, but it goes by so quick that I usually don't see the error code number) and then the computer restarts.
I checked the event log and I find "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered." in the Administrative Events. I have changed the drivers 4 times (full uninstall and re-install using "Driver Sweeper" and "Ccleaner", but no change in behavior other than in the error message in number 1, the number of the driver changes. I have also used OCCT to run tests on the CPU, Power Supply, and Graphics card, but the only one that fails is the Graphics Card which will either show the "driver crashed and recovered" message, freeze the computer and I have to restart, or finishes and says that it experienced over 200000 errors but will not tell me what the errors are. There hasn't been any heat issues (nothing has gone over 60 Celsius
Something else that is strange is that I can watch movies on Netflix and TV on Hulu and Youtube without ANY issues and, as long as I don't play a game, the computer runs without ANY problems.
Now, there have been a few times, when I restarted the computer, I would get an error that states "Reboot and select proper boot device" and I would have to restart again to have it find the hard drive, so I decided to start testing all of my hardware. I ran a self-test with Disk Checkup on the hard drive and I get an error that the says "The last self-test routinely completed with a failure of the read element". But it would appear to me that if the read element was broken, how would I be writing to you right now with the machine or using the HD at all?
So, here are some of the things I have tried to do to fix it:
Update Drivers (with multiple versions both Beta and Certified)
Turned off vertical sync (Read that would help somewhere)
Update Bios
change SATA ports
Change PCI Express ports
Banging my head on the table
Change power connectors
Changing case fan directions to adjust air-flow
Uninstalling and re-installing Windows and software
Slapping the case and calling it bad names (but then apologizing and kissing it till it feels better)
Double checked all connectors and cables
Ok, so I will stop there... ANY help that you can provide would be GREATLY appreciated. I'm thinking about getting a new hard drive and seeing if that helps... Thoughts?
Thank you and, once again, sorry for the long post!
~Storm Plooper~
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