ok...so, as you no doubt have read, Vanguard crashed my pc to a BSOD and so I figured I'd let it alone for a while and wait for another patch. I started playing NWN 2 and it went well for an hour, until it went BSOD on my ass as well. Blue screen without text this time.

All this started after a) setting the case fan from 'high' to 'medium' and b) taking out a secondary SATA HD that was making strange noises. So, I do the whole shabang: re-install graphics drivers, put case fan back to high...no result. If anything, the BSOD crashes (no text) seemed to be happening more quickly than before. Usually after 5 or 10 minutes in the game.

I resort to flashing the BIOS to the most recent build (1013, I was on 1008). I first update the chipset for the mobo to the latest version as it says on the asus site. Flashing goes well, I reboot and....system hangs at the splash screen. Doesn't get past it! I do get the post but that's it. I try pressing del and other keys to get into some diagnostic screen (just trying anything really) but it just won't react. For a day and a half, I'm thinking I fried the BIOS. But yesterday I decide to let it run for a while...and lo and behold, after 5-10 minutes it DOES get past the splash screen and boots completely normal.

I start making some internet searches for my problem and come accross a few similar cases, and I find this:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview ... erthread=y




The guy mentions pulling out all USB cables and whaddayaknow? After pulling out all USB cables I've got attached (3) IT BOOTS UP PERFECTLY NORMAL. Yeah, WTF?!! I could SOMEWHAT understand this if I had any semi-system-critical devices on USB attached but I don't: a USB hub, a printer and my crappy usb modem. Anyway, the guy mentions that one cable seemed to be causing the problem in one particular slot so I'll fiddle around with those later. Still, what a ridiculous cause of my problems. I already uninstalled my USB controller hub in system devices and let windows re-install it, but no good. Still won't properly boot with the USb devices attached.

Anyway, now we got that idiocy behind us: the 1013 still didn't prevent the BSOD's in games. Still occuring quickly and not showing any text. Since the system hasn't had the slightest crash in the past month except for in games (Vanguard and NWN2 , but I suppose it's a general games issue), you'd think it's a heat issue. Yet, when feeling the airflow from the case with my hand -I know it's not a super indicator but hey - the air doesn't even feel lukewarm. Just cold-ish, like it is in rest. Also, it wouldn't explain either why the crashes got MORE frequent and happened more quickly after turning up the fan speed a notch.

After one of these games-related crashes a pc n44b booted up my machine while I was withering away on the couch behind my back, and got the 'system has recovered from a serious error' message. And sent it to MS. I wish ppl didn't touch my machine...about time I find a job and get out of here. Anyway, so she printed off the report and it said "problem caused by device driver". Of course, the report didn't say WHICH driver or WHAT device. Thank you for your glorious information, MS.

The only thing I can do now is re-install directx but we all know that's not gonna change anything (Vanguard made me install the latest version a week ago). I updated the graphics and chipset drivers and flashed the BIOS. What else IS there to update? Sound drivers?

Sorry for the long blah. But you see, this is all very weird. It doesn't make sense. I suppose I'll boot up NWN2 one more time and try and monitor the CPU heat process on the utility until it crashes again (because it will crash) and see if it reaches critical temperatures, right? Any other suggestions are welcome, cos I'm all out of ideas. I considered loading setup values in the BIOS screen but I would be extremely surprised if that'd change anything to my (weird-ass) usb problems.

I hate the world.

P.S. I'd like to stress that the system is running perfectly normal as long as I don't start to play games, and that it never crashed doing anything else than gaming.

ok.... first, you say you reinstalled the chipset and video drivers... did you do it correctly? Did you uninstall the old ones, reboot, let windows detect defaults (and fail), reboot, then reinstall? Or did you just install over top? If the latter, you did it wrong.

mildly related, Vanguard trashed my graphics drivers. I had to uninstall and reinstall them on Sunday... game would just crash on startup otherwise.

So anyway, the proper procedure for ripping your whole driver array.

1. Uninstall graphics driver, reboot
2. Uninstall chipset drivers, reboot
3. Let windows redetect drivers... if it fails, no biggie. Reboot.
4. Install chipset drivers, reboot.
5. Install graphics drivers, reboot.
6. Install directx, reboot.

And that should do it. I would recommend that whole procedure. Also, can you monitor your graphics card temperature? I had a ti4600 that got heat damaged or something and started failing, even though the rest of my system temp was fine.

As for the USB thing... your usb drivers are failing to load for something, probably. If you wait forever, it does load, right? Check out bootvis...it can tell you exactly what driver is causing the problem. Probably just USB in general, but who knows.

http://clankiller.com/technical/tweaks/ ... tweaks.php
or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BootVis

Thanks for the response already. Yeah, I didn't uninstall then install. But I'm pretty sure I had the latest chipset drivers anyway (after the wipe I did months ago), I just re-installed them to be sure and to avoid the new BIOS destroying my system. (since the asus site said I had to have the drivers installed before updating BIOS to a later version)

I might give it a go with the graphics drivers though, if it messed up yours then there's a good chance it fooked mine too. I guess.

I don't think I can monitor the gfx card temperature but I'll look around for a tool...might be one that comes with the software.

@ USB and boot: yup, if I wait for say, 7-8 minutes the pc does boot past the splash screen and everything is just fine. So I'll definitely give Bootvis a try. Still, this is a pretty major fuckup by Asus...I mean, way to make my lousy basic USB setup virtually make my pc fail after updating to a BIOS 4 times as recent.

Would you advise running memtest? Though I suppose zero crashes apart from games doesn't really indicate a ram issue.

It could potentially be memory. When I built my last box I had some strange problem with my 2 sticks of RAM not liking each other (memory timings maybe). The issue would very rarely manifest itself in Windows, but would within a few minutes in a game (guild wars being my test game). If you have multiple sticks of RAM, you could try pulling out all but one stick to see if it alleviates your problems any.

Aye aye.

I found a little tool that can tell me my gfx cards temp btw, Rivatuner. I think you'll like it as well, offers a vast range of information about your gfx card, including fan speeds and temperatures etc etc. I reckon you could tweak a lot of shit as well, but I'm staying far away from that.

With the fan speed set to automatic (so maybe at 20% speed judging by the sound it makes (isn't making) and the fact that I'm just using basic windows), I get a reported GPU heat of 43° C. That's pretty damn low considering the fan isn't anywhere near cranked up yet.

From this site:

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When you take it to shop, have them test the CPU just in case.

I might...I found some pc shops in my home town, imagine that. One of them looks like a bunch of amateurs so I don't think I'll knock down their door. They do offer internet/games for a mere 0.5€ per hour, so I know where I'm going when my pc is fooked.

Anyway, I fiddled around with the USB devices and after any reboots I found it's the printer's connection which is making the pc hang at the splash screen. The pc will boot up just fine with the USB hub and modem attached.

I then tried changing the slot of the printer wire, but that didn't make it go away. I also tried plugging it in to the USB hub instead of directly to the pc and still the same problem. The good news is that this is now a minor issue: I can just plug the printer in and out without too much of a bother when I need it. The bad news is that I still have to find a solution.

I also uninstalled the gfx drivers, rebooted, installed, rebooted, directx 9.0c, rebooted. Gonna try gaming later tonight and see what gives.

Didnt see Ox online so i guess, the testing was a failure

Hehe, nah, I didnd't get to it, is all. Maybe today...after I write another 4 application letters. *smashes desk with a lvl 4 Blow of Frustration*

Application letters are teh suck.

Just do a CV and change the job title at the top

Let us know how the PC turns out. I know it's unlikely given the course the problem has taken, but is it possible that it's the printer? Tried it in another system?

I just rebooted. I did what Satis suggested: uninstall gfx driver and reboot. Let windows install drivers and reboot. Install gfx drivers and reboot. And still the same thing: after about 10 minutes in NWN2, I get a blue screen with no text.

I was monitoring the hardware temperature as well: the CPU and Mobo are absolutely fine; they stayed at a solid 35 C° and under. The graphics card hit up to 67-70 C° but I don't think that's outrageous...right? Any idea what a dangerous temp for a gfx card would be?

So, I guess I'll have to run memtest. I'm almost hoping it's one of the ram bars cos that would be the easy-to-fix thing.

P.S. and I unplugged the USB printer while playing, just to make sure it wasn't some weird conflict with it also causing the game crashes.
P.P.S. upon rebooting after the crash, the boot failed and I got a blue screen (with text) right after the splash screen. However, it was immediately gone as the pc booted up again. Another strange thing is that, also with the previous in-game crashes, windows takes a LONG time to load. Almost like it's loading previous settings or something? Weird, in any case.

Have you tried pulling all but 1 mem stick? I'm not sure memtest will tell you much... it'll just come back if the memory is throwing actual errors. I dunno if it'll pick up any kind of timing issues or not.

Any you've turned off automatic reboot and system restore, right?

I would have sworn I turned off automatic restarts but apparently I didn't. No matter, turned off now. And nah, no system restore.

I'm gonna try switching out the ram bars one of these days. All internet and no gaming makes jack a dull boy.

i had some knackered ram a while back ox, memtest wasnt any help at all

Mm, so I'd better switch out the bars then, k. What were the effects of the faulty ram? Games crashing?