Question Failing graphics card after game/driver crash; Help please?

[Tr3xd4Arms3317]

PC type: Desktop
Operating System: Windows 7
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Pro4
PSU: Corsair CX750
GPU: Zotac Nvidia GTX 970
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K @ 3.50GHz
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Storage: Mechanical HDD/No SSD
Monitors (2): One is ViewSonic; the other is Samsung

Hello,

I'm having an issue with the graphics card in my machine - I suspect it may be dead at this point. I will do the best I can to describe what I was doing prior to the failure and what I've done since then to try and solve the issue.

On Wednesday (February 2nd) I was playing Guild Wars 2. Everything appeared to be running as usual - No apparent slowdown as far as I could tell. I played the game for a few hours, as I normally do. On Thursday (Feb 3rd) I played a variety of games, nothing particularly intense. I also streamed to Twitch. There were no issues then. Friday (Feb 4th), in the afternoon, I played Fire Pro Wrestling World, another game that isn't very intense on the system. Friday evening, I was chatting with friends in Discord, watching some YouTube videos and decided to boot up Skyrim (the old Legendary Edition, with ultra modded content, nothing too out of the ordinary for my setup).

When I loaded a previous save, textures turned solid black. This usually indicates that VRAM is low and the game can't render textures properly. The game didn't crash for me. Instead, it minimized to the Desktop and the video drivers had crashed. I got an error message to the effect of "This device has stopped working and has recovered". So I figured "Okay, I'll refresh the monitor settings and lessen the graphical mods", as I had installed a few more mods before booting up the game.

When I went to refresh the settings, Windows Explorer crashed completely. The PC was hanging on a white screen with the the taskbar still present, but I couldn't do anything at that point. I hard rebooted the PC. I was able to load in normally. While I was logging in, I noticed a lot of visual artifacts on the screen, but I could still use the PC. I thought maybe the drivers had become corrupted somehow.

(My anti-virus flagged my Network Drivers as a virus for some reason, which makes my situation a bit more confusing for me and may be part of the issue I'm having, but we'll come back to this.)

At this point, I updated the drivers. The artifacting seemed to have gone away temporarily. I tried launching Skyrim again, but the game crashed before getting to the menu. There was another white screen and the Explorer crashed again. I hard-rebooted a second time. I logged in and noticed the artifacting returned. Me, being painfully obtuse at the time, tried to launch another game - Crashed immediately, White Screen, etc.

When I rebooted the computer with the videocard still enabled a few more times, I saw full screens of solid colors including: Black, White, Green, Red, Cyan and Orange.

Occasionally I could control the mouse, but the screen would go completely blank shortly thereafter.

This is when I decided to really take a gander at what was going on.

I rebooted into Safe Mode with Networking. The PC BSOD'd shortly after loading in. The error I was given appears to be generic. I'm not super-duper familiar with error codes, but I assume it had to do with the failing graphics card and/or drivers.

Here is a photo of the BSOD error:

https://imgur.com/KJwduuK

View: https://i.imgur.com/KJwduuK.jpg


I rebooted into Safe Mode (without Networking). Things were stable. I disabled the videocard in the Device Manger. I was able to reboot back into Windows normally, albeit with everything in a low resolution.

I've spent the last two days (Saturday and Sunday) running various tests to make sure everything else is functioning correctly. I ran a Defrag on my harddrive to make sure nothing was fragmented. That came up clean. I ran a memory test - That also came up clean. I ran a CHKDSK scan and that came up clean as far as I could tell, but there's mention of "BITMAP", which was recovered.

I've been running my PC without the videocard and iGPU graphics seems to be okay. I'm concerned because I'm seeing streaks of blue and green in various images. I don't know if that's because it's not generating the colors correctly or if it can't render transparency - I see this on dark images, and translucent images, such as windows in Steam and in Discord. I'm also not 100% if it has to do with the PSU, which is as old as the rest of the computer parts.

I've not run any games since Friday night/early Saturday morning.

I've tested both monitors and they are functioning normally. The VGA and HDMI ports and cables appear to be okay also.

This is where I'll mention the anti-virus chewing up a Networking driver. When Skyrim/the the drivers crashed, I got an error message from AVG saying "Blocked by AVG Self Protection: C:\...\iqvw64e.sys". This file is specifically for the Intel Networking components of the PC. I was able to add the file to the whitelist and it seems to be running okay now. However, I'm not sure if that's related or not, but I don't think it is.

When I did a search for the file, I found that it may be a virus, but it's extremely unlikely and/or rare case. I'm pretty good about my browsing habits - I don't click on fishy links; I have anti-malware measures in place - ad-block, script-block, etc.

I don't believe the system is compromised. I've checked performance monitors and everything looks normal as far as I can tell. The computer has not overheated.

I'm a bit scatterbrained and stressed out by this, so my report might be a bit messy, but I've done the best I can, to my knowledge, to provide a step by step process I've undertaken to solve this issue.

I've done some general research. I found reports stating that disabling Razer Synapse may alleviate the problem, but I've yet to try that as the videocard remains disabled currently. I can do that once I've determined if it's safe to do so.

I'm hoping to discover if I need only to replace the videocard or if I should buy a new PC altogether given the aging parts of the current PC. I'm not giving up on it yet.

To recap:

Things that have happened:

-Videocard drivers crashed completely when Skyrim launched after the initial videocard crash.
-Videocard drivers updated and continue to crash - Drivers may still be corrupt.
-Crashes may or may not be related to a virus.
-Safe Mode is functional.
-Normal Windows usage appears functional (aside from the videocard).

Things I plan to do once I'm able to (I really should have done these things already, honestly):

-Physically clean the system of dust and reseat the videocard (though the machine has rested horizontally for many years, so it may not make a difference).
-Reinstall videocard drivers using DDU as suggested on the nVidia forums.
-Test the videocard again and report results.

I'll wait for advice before continuing at this point.

I appreciate any/all help ahead of time. Thank you.

 

[zero_l0gic]

Hidclass.sys is a Human Interface Device (joystick, gamepad, mouse, keyboard). I suspect there is something with AVG antivirus if he detects random things as threts… try to uninstall AV and test it then reupdate the drivers for everything (its probably windows update drivers that got flaged by AV and deleted important parts)

 

[Lutfij]

(I don't remember the exact model of Harddrive, Motherboard or PSU off-hand, but can be retrieved if necessary.)
We're going to need those information's as well as the age of the above listed specs. It could very well be an issue whereby your PSU is incapable of delivering power to your entire system when taxed.

 

[Tr3xd4Arms3317]

Hidclass.sys is a Human Interface Device (joystick, gamepad, mouse, keyboard). I suspect there is something with AVG antivirus if he detects random things as threts… try to uninstall AV and test it then reupdate the drivers for everything (its probably windows update drivers that got flaged by AV and deleted important parts)

I should have known that. AVG has been acting very weirdly the last few months now that I think about it. Things have ended up in quarantine or blocked from running for no apparent reason - Save files, miscellaneous scripts, drivers - quite literally anything. I will try this and see how things go.

(I don't remember the exact model of Harddrive, Motherboard or PSU off-hand, but can be retrieved if necessary.)
We're going to need those information's as well as the age of the above listed specs. It could very well be an issue whereby your PSU is incapable of delivering power to your entire system when taxed.

I remembered I had a backup DVI cable when I was troubleshooting an old monitor. I've connected it to my primary monitor and the artifacting from the low resolution seems to have gone away for now. I will continue to monitor this as an independent issue.

I should have the boxes all my current PC parts came with. They are currently in another box I used to hold the parts when I moved last year. It shouldn't be too long for me to report back.

I will return with those in my next post and report any new or different changes at that point. Thank you for your help and patience.

 

[Tr3xd4Arms3317]

I should have known that. AVG has been acting very weirdly the last few months now that I think about it. Things have ended up in quarantine or blocked from running for no apparent reason - Save files, miscellaneous scripts, drivers - quite literally anything. I will try this and see how things go.


I remembered I had a backup DVI cable when I was troubleshooting an old monitor. I've connected it to my primary monitor and the artifacting from the low resolution seems to have gone away for now. I will continue to monitor this as an independent issue.

I should have the boxes all my current PC parts came with. They are currently in another box I used to hold the parts when I moved last year. It shouldn't be too long for me to report back.

I will return with those in my next post and report any new or different changes at that point. Thank you for your help and patience.

Apologies for taking so long to get back to you both. I've had to deal with an emergency the last couple of days.

I've tested some cables and they don't seem to have made a difference after all. I've also got some screenshots/additional photos to demonstrate the issue(s) I've been having.

I was able to pull the makes of the motherboard and PSU this morning:

Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Pro4
PSU: Corsair CX750

The computer hardware and PSU are all roughly 8 years old. I built this PC sometime in the Summer or Fall of 2014 when the PC I had before it began to break down.

I have a backup PSU that is still factory-sealed in the case I ever needed to use it.

~~~~~

As far as I can tell, nothing has really improved. I've disabled the GTX 970 and I'm able to use the PC to browse the internet and things of that nature.

When I updated the drivers before returning to this post, I received the following error again (from AVG) after the GPU was re-enabled:

https://imgur.com/WygqI4A

View: https://i.imgur.com/WygqI4A.png


I had not seen that error at all the last few days since having the GPU completely disabled. I thought I had updated all of the drivers, but there's a chance that nothing has changed. I know for certain that I've updated to the most recent compatible driver available for my GPU.

I can try uninstalling AVG completely and seeing if I have any luck after that. It may still be an anti-virus issue for all I know. For what it's worth: I've restarted the PC daily.

When I restart the PC with the GPU re-enabled, this is how the monitors appear:

Samsung:

https://imgur.com/SsoBmrV

View: https://i.imgur.com/SsoBmrV.jpg


Viewsonic:

https://imgur.com/phzCf0z

View: https://i.imgur.com/phzCf0z.jpg


Both screens appear solid black with blue artifacts riddled throughout. The mouse appears for a brief few seconds before disappearing. I can (re)boot into Safemode and disable the GPU. When the PC is rebooted and the GPU is disabled, I can boot into Windows and use the PC normally. I've used the PC for several hours while troubleshooting and not experienced any serious malfunctions in that time.

I don't believe the cables I've used are faulty. It seems unlikely that both monitors are faulty. I haven't tried reseating the GPU yet. I have a third spare monitor that may not hurt to try.

I know for sure that I'm not overclocking anything - I don't like to push my PC harder than what it's meant to. I've checked the temperatures and everything looks normal.

Thank you again for your time and any advice offered.