Question Help for a PC noob

Oct 18, 2021
11
0
10
Hey,

Would really appreciate some help. I'm not a computer geek. Everything I've learned about PC troubleshooting was in the last year.
I've got a Windows 7 Home Premium SP1
AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 620 Processor, 2600 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor
BIOS American Megatrends Inc. 5.22 4/15/2010
6 GB of RAM
500 Watt PSU
Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 ti GPU

The old hard drive burned out a couple of years ago and I wanted to try restoring the PC, so I consulted a friend for advice.
I got a new 1000MB harddrive, put in the new 500 Watt PSU, and purchased that Nvidia GPU.
I installed all these new parts myself and booted up. Everything worked except for some random BSODs.
I did a bunch of reading in forums like this one and found a solution. I booted into safe mode and uninstalled/reinstalled the graphics drivers.
After trying that, the PC started running much better. That was this spring, and for a few months I had a good time with it, games running fine with only the rare crash after hours of playing. I thought everything was ok.
HOWEVER, last week, the random BSOD crashes began again with more frequency. I'd just installed a few old PC games, Hunting Unlimited 2, 18 Wheels of Steel American Long Haul, etc.

Anyway, I went back online and read articles and troubleshooting stuff.
I checked the crashdump file and it pointed to the nvlddmkm.sys file as the culprit.
So, I tried the nvlddmkm.sy_ nvlddmkm.sys input fix, but that didn't work.
I've reinstalled the graphics drivers multiple times with no change. I was using the 388.31 driver. I even reverted to the 314.22 driver but still am having crashes. I also changed the TdrDelay timer to 0, which stopped some of the BSOD crashes but if it doesn't crash, the screen just freezes until I restart via the power button on the tower.
I even installed Device Driver Uninstaller (DDU) and ran that tonight. I found that DDU was detecting two other previous drivers in the system, a Radeon one and another Nvidia 9100. So this evening I ran DDU, cleaned all three drivers out of the system, and restarted the PC.
I thought maybe things were fixed, but no, the same freezes are still happening. I'm so frustrated tonight because every avenue I try is failing.
What have I missed? Why can't I stop the freezing/crashing? It is doing it for every game I try now.
The PC boots up fine, everything looks ok, until I try running a game.
I would really appreciate some feedback. I'm sorry if this is rambling and/or incoherent. As I said, I'm not a computer geek. Everything I'm talking about in this post is the stuff I've learned in the last 10 months.

Is there anything else I can try? Please tell me, and thanks in advance!
 
Oct 18, 2021
11
0
10
What's the make and model of the PSU? A crappy SPU can cause lots of odd issues.

What's the make and model# of the motherboard? you didn't mention installing those drivers which might mean your running on Microsoft's default drivers instead.

Which OS are you running?

Hey, thanks for the response!

This is the PSU I purchased in May: https://www.newegg.com/evga-550-n1-...Notification-Responsive-USA-_-N82E16817438105

I don't know if it is a good one or not.

No, I didn't install any motherboard drivers. I didn't even know I could do that.
I think this is the motherboard info?
System Manufacturer: HP-Pavilion
System Model: NY545AA-ABA p6210y

OS: is Windows 7 SP1 64 bit.
 
Oct 18, 2021
11
0
10

Thank you for that info, I had no idea PSUs could be a hazard. Do you have a recommendation from that list that I should use for my system? I'd appreciate it.

Thanks also for the HP link. Sorry if this is a stupid question. I need to find my motherboard serial number and enter it in there?
Also, if I update the motherboard, is there any risk involved? Could I lose anything?
 
Oct 18, 2021
11
0
10


Ok, so I purchased the bottom one, the Corsair 650 watt one. I received it this afternoon and swapped it out for the 550 I have. It was a little longer, but I managed to still fit it in the tower.
I first turned on the PC and found it was working. So far so good. I then restarted in safe mode and uninstalled the Nvidia driver then restarted and clean installed the 388 Nvidia driver and restarted once again. I noticed the screen would flash when I got to the home screen, long enough to be noticeable, but there was no message about the driver stopping or anything.
I thought it might be ok, but when I tried to run the performance test to rate the PC, it BSOD'd and restarted. When it got back to the home screen, it immediately crashed again. On the third restart, things seemed ok again, so I tried the nvlddmkm.sy fix and restarted. Startup was fine, but when I tried to run a game, it froze AGAIN on the main screen of the program.
Did I get too powerful of a PSU? Is the GPU just going bad? I did buy it used after all. I was really hoping this would fix things but I'm stuck AGAIN.

Side note: it seems the startup is slower with the faster PSU in there. Is that weird?
Hate to bother you guys, but I need advice again. Please help if you've got any ideas!
 
Oct 18, 2021
11
0
10
Ok, the conclusion I finally discovered after taking the PC to a computer repair is that the motherboard was dying. :confused_old:
However, the guy replaced it with a gaming one at a very reasonable rate, upgraded it from 7 to Windows 10, and suffice it to say, I'm a happy customer. Thanks to all that offered advice!