Blue Screen of Death because of Video Card?

[cschaef243]

Laptop Model: HP Pavilion dv9000

Video Card: Nvidia 8600 GS

Over the last 2 months my computer has randomly been freezing up and then giving me a blue screen of death. When it tries to reboot, it'll get the blue screen multiple times in a row (record is 8 times in a row) before successfully rebooting. Sometimes when it does reboot, the resolution is huge and it doesn't even read the video card (which in turn makes me restart the computer again and enter into another series of blue screens).

I was told by someone that Nvidia has a bunch of video cards out there that have been failing like this. Is that true? The laptop is only about 3 years old, and I was so sick of it I bought a new one. I'd like to sell mine but first I'd like to fix the problem (if I can) so I can get more than $30 for parts.

Any advice?

[TSIMS]

I would try to preforming a system recovery using the f11 key when boot up. This normally takes a bout a hour to hour and half to do but this would be the first step on determining if its a hardware failure.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01895783

[Mumbodog]

Use this utility and see exactly what driver or process is causing the BSOD

.http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

[cschaef243]

I performed a complete system recovery twice. Actually, after the 1st one, the problem got worse (no blue screens before the 1st recovery, just video game crashes, which is what led me to do the 1st recovery). Once I started getting blue screens after the 1st recovery, I did a 2nd one. However, the problem still persists. I find that hibernating my computer, rather than putting it to sleep or shutting it down, seems to help, but I haven't tried playing any games for fear that I will be forced into one of the repeating blue screen of death stages.

I do appreciate the suggestion though!

[TSIMS]

Have you checked at http://nvidiasettlement.com/ to see if your PC was affected?  Also you can try to update your BIOS and update your graphics card driver at www.hp.com and putting your product number in the search bar.

[Mumbodog]

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@TSIMS wrote:

Have you checked at http://nvidiasettlement.com/ to see if your PC was affected?  Also you can try to update your BIOS and update your graphics card driver at www.hp.com and putting your product number in the search bar.

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That settlement has ended.

[TSIMS]

That is correct but if it is then you still can contact hp at http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/wwcontact_us.html  and send the notebook in for repair with issue being the video card.

The website to see if your computer falls under this is http://nvidiasettlement.com/pdfs/NVF_NOT.pdf

[cschaef243]

I tried calling HP but they want $99 to help me because my laptop is no longer in warranty. It doesn't seem that my laptop falls in the settlement group because the p/n doesn't match =/.

As for the BSOD utility from nirsoft.net, only 2 of the crashes show up for some reason, and each of them has 2 different things highlighted.

usbhub.sys

nvlddmkm.sys

dxgkrnl.sys

ntkrnlpa.exe

Then theres a long list of other random things. Does this mean anything to anyone?

Thanks for the help so far to everyone! I really do appreciate it.

[TSIMS]

Try one more thing so I can narrow our search down..... Try running a start up test, Then after that one run a hard disk test. To get to the UEFI System Diagnostics, turn on the computer and immediately press the esc key to display the Startup Menu, and then press the F2 key.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01443317

This will tell us if there is some hardware that we need to replace.

[d5gary]

What to look for next. 

Your notebook will start looping, that is to say restarting and only getting to a desktop then restarting by itself.  Over and over and over uintil you manually power it off. The touchpad will freeze and not respond, so you will need to restart.  On restart a black screen with the phrase "operating system not found" will appear.  Sometinmes it will start loading Windows and sometimes you will need to restore to factory with a rescue disk.  While the pc is on, but not doing anything in particular, the screen will deteriorate into scrambled horizontal patterns that look like a stretched fabric.   The BSOD comes up with the infamous "crash dump" message.  The BSOD comes up but in what looks like Russian text.  The wireless adapter will no longer be recognized and the device cannot be uninstalled to attempt to reinstall the driver or upgrade it on startup.  HP will ignore you completely and you are going to be left with either a very expensive door stop or a $400 dollar repair from HP using the same brand parts that failed.  Nice.