ATTENTION! 8000 series cards- blue/black screen errors-ANY SETUP

[Guest wild willy]

HI ALL-

My last and final thread to you- sorry to invade the place lately.

FOR ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE BLUE/BLACK SCREEN ERRORS, TDS ERRORS ON VISTA, OR SIMILIAR PROBLEMS PLEASE READ-

I am no computer expert, so take this with a grain of salt- don't jump off a cliff just on my opinion- but I do feel that it is an educated one at this point. I may not be a computer expert, but I am a smart guy, run very large construction projects and I make a living sorting out who's to blame on a jobsite when something goes wrong. Lots of trades involved with this problem- but I think I got to the bottom of it.

MY PROBLEM (if it sounds like yours read on)-

I have a 2 month old laptop that I play WoW on and use for work. One month ago a patch came out for wow, and I started getting "nvlddmkm driver has stopped responding and succesfully recovered". I was able to uninstall my driver, do a vista system restore to 1 week prior to the problem (i thought wow's patch was the problem) and then dump wow, new patch and all back onto my hard drive from my external, and reinstall my driver from HP. I was back in buisiness- no more error.

Fast forward one month- new WoW patch (still thought that was the problem) and the error is back. New drivers, sweepers, restore, uninstall, reinstall, pull out memory, swap memory, ect. No resolution. Found this site- was directed here by HP and Blizzard btw so Kudos to you guys. But the error cannot be fixed again.

SYMPTOMS-(to ensure that you have this problem and not another)

At some point you have run a graphics intensive program (game, design software, dvd player, ect) you need to have run something that caused your card to "work" a little. Can't get a heart attack sitting on the couch so to speak.

If you are in vista- you got a TDS error- "XXXXXXX driver has failed and recovered succesfully"

If you are in XP- your application stalled out, froze, tore, pixilated, or what ever you want to call it. Basically you had an obvious interuption in graphics processing.

THE AUDIO, TEXT, GAMEPLAY, ECT CONTINUED TO RUN. For example- on WoW- when you log in a dragon flys a loop, even though my screen fizzeled the dragon was in the correct spot in it's flight pattern when it recovered- the sound continued to play ect. THIS LETS YOU KNOW THAT ONLY THE CARD IS FAILING, your connection is good, processor is fine ect.

That's how it starts, eventually you will reach a point where this error escalates, and takes one of three forms- (based upon what I have read in other's posts)

1-Vista- you reach a point where your application is unrunnable- I.E.- i turn on WOW, game loads, screen stalls, flashes black, recovers, and repeats. say 2-10 seconds for each of those steps. The game is even slightly usable right before the stall out. Some people experience longer periods of time between errors- but eventually you will reach this point.

2-XP- sounds like just some graphics stalling, slow game play, then one day you just get black/blue screen errors until you can no longer start the machine.

3-You can only run off the standard vga adapter. Any program requiring graphics will either not start, or cause a crash. I get an error saying that a suitable device could not be found and the program will terminate.

WHY THIS HAPPENED SO FAST TO ME AND YOUR ISSUE TOOK/IS TAKING LONGER-

I use this laptop for work and for play- it is started/shutdown at least 5 times a day. I also have the following intensive routine. Laptop is on in the AM at the house- gets packed up in a bag and driven to office or jobsite. During the day I am running around- using laptop in the car, on the job, and in the office. Sometimes I shut down, sometimes I close it up and stick it in the bag while it's running and whip it out again later. That ###### gets hot sitting on my desk- today it's 45 degrees F outside- 78 in my house. It gets scary hot sometimes sitting in my bag as you can imagine. Eventually i set it up at the office or at home for the evening.

As you can see I am very hard user on my laptop- but this only supports my argument that this is a heat realated issue, and more importantly a heat cycling issue. I don't know the specifics of it- but what really happens when you just close your laptop and slip in your bag- sleep mode? I know that what physically happens is that the computer continues to use power- but not run the fan- so the heat of your session is never swept away since the fan does not run for longer after you close it up. They make toilets and buildings that automatically run your exhaust fan for up to 5 minutes after you leave the room to alleviate mold and stale air in your bathroom- but laptop fan shuts off right away?

THE RESOLUTION-

Many of the cards in this series are faulty- as a construction guy I understand this part just fine. The cards, but more importantly the polymers/resins used to build them, are failing due to hot/cold cycling. NOT EVERY CARD IS BAD- BUT ONCE IT STARTS TO GO IT WILL EVENTUALLY FAIL.

MY ARGUMENT-

You can search the web and find articles related to this- many of them are pure rumors and totally unrealiable, some are not. What sealed the deal for me is this- my 2 month old computer has been completly discontinued by HP, and they have stopped selling all of thier laptops with anything but an nvidia 9600 series card. Thier low end laptops run an ati card.

WHY DOES A NEW DRIVER HELP- a new driver makes the card more efficient- less prone to overheat, and more likely to not max itself out. It delays the problem or allows your computer to last longer. OR YOU MAY HAVE ACTUALLY JUST HAD A BAD DRIVER- IN WHICH CASE YOU WILL NOT HAVE THIS ISSUE ANY MORE. see symptoms.

WHY DO BIOS UPDATES HELP- I am a bit out of my realm here computer wise- but my understanding is that the BIOS update makes your fan run earlier, longer, harder, or continously so that you do not have as many heat problems. Perhaps someone with more knowledge than me can test this out. I did not do a BIOS update, as none was available from my manufacturer and I was uncomfortable with 3rd pary options.

WHY DOES RUNNING XP HELP- No tds errors. It's not that you don't have a problem- it's that XP does not have this safety feature to alert you to the problem. The card can run without the OS interupting it as it begins to fail- UNTIL IT EVENTUALLY REACHES THE POINT THAT YOU FAIL AT STARTUP. Not saying that XP cannot resolve Vista related glyches with your games, but it does not solve this problem- found many xp users on various forums, and on this forum.

WHY DOES A BOOST/REPAIR/CHANGE IN POWER SUPPLY HELP-Because you have a heat issue- more power makes the fan spin faster- or at least at the correct speed. So your cycling is not as dramatic.

WHY DO ALL KINDS OF RANDOM SOLUTIONS HELP- Depending on your set up the failure may trigger many random problems. Again- not an expert, but to me a failing card wired direct to your motherboard sounds like it could cause many issues. Also the initial errors are very random. Think of insulation on a wire. If it starts to wear a bit, say is just thin in one spot, and the right conditions exist- like you jostled around your laptop- then you can get an arc or voltage out of the wire, but randomly. As the insulation continues to wear you eventually get a failure. THIS IS JUST MY LAYMAN'S EXPLANATION ON WHY I THINK THIS PROBLEM GETS WORSE OVER TIME AND CAN BE CORRECTED INITIALLY, BECAUSE WHEN IT STARTS IT'S NOT THAT DRAMATIC OF A FAILURE.

WHY ARE YOU ENCOURAGED TO TRY THE STEPS RECOMMENDED FIRST BY ME- because you may actually have a simple bad driver. NOT EVERY CARD IS BAD.

WHY YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO TRY THESE STEPS BY YOUR MANUFACTURER-

1)- eliminate the fact that you simply have a functional card with a driver or installation error.

2)-if your card has failed then it costs money

3)-the longer you attempt to repair your card the faster your warantee expires.

4)once your warantee expires then you are on your own.

HOW TO RETURN YOUR MACHINE- (took 30 hours- 7-10 phone calls)

1- patiently grind your way though tech support- honestly trying to find a solution

2)- the hard part- you may find a solution- WHY IS THAT HARD- because your problem could return- and then this whole post applies to you.

3)work with customer support to try thier items, you need to exhaust "thier checklist" of solutions

4) you will eventually be elevated to better techs, and in the case of HP- you will eventually get to your personal case manager.

5)then ask for refund

****- BE NICE THE WHOLE TIME- every call you make is saved to your case number, while unproffesional- let's be realistic- if you are an arse- then the tech will write up your case poorly, and possible against you in thier logs. Eventually the one who is authourized to give you a refund will read your file to determine if you deserve a refund. Don't scream and yell, don't ask for money until you follow thier procedures, and don't be afraid to negotiate. I got lots of covert help from tech support people and most of them indirectly gave me the info on this page. Remember they are on tape and can't just start telling you anything they want. My final tech did admit to me that cards are failing, it is not isolated yet or known how widespread.

THIS BUGGED THE HELL OUT OF ME- MOSTLY BECAUSE THERE WAS NO ANSWER TO THIS PROBLEM- YOU MAY NOT LIKE THIS ANSWER BUT I BELIEVE THIS IS THE RIGHT ONE, MAYBE IT CAN BE VERIFIED BY SOMEONE MORE COMP SAVVY THAN ME- BUT I WANTED TO PASS THIS ON- ESPECIALL WHEN I LOGGED ON THIS MORNING AND SAW 4OF7 NEW TOPICS ON THE FRONT PAGE RELATED TO THIS ISSUE.

NOT HP

NOT VISTA

NOT MICROSOFT

NOT YOUR PROGRAM

NOT EVEN INVIDIA

JUST A SIMPLE BAD PART, PROB FROM A SUBCONTRACTOR SOMEWHERE.

TAKE CARE ALL!

[Guest Dmytty]

Nice communication and very deductive logic. Not often that construction people (I have GC experience) are IT savvy or given to such a patient and methodical approach.

Please email dmytty hot mail com. I would like to talk construction innovation and opportunities with you.

[Guest wild willy]

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