Impossible to install new video drivers due to BSOD on boot

[AyaJulia]

Hello,

I've been trying for ages and ages to install new drivers for my video card, but it never works. Every time I install one, I either get a BSOD on boot and need to roll back OR I get into Windows and get nothing but basic VGA because "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)." It's getting unbelievably frustrating at this point. The only drivers that work are the ones that came with the computer nearly two years ago, and they're unusable due to causing crashes in some software I use.

System specs according to CPU-Z:
Motherboard is "Alienware m15x" (Yes, a laptop) - chipset is Intel GM965, more details available if necessary
Video is NVidia 8600M GT
I thought I saw something in this latest dump about DirectX, so I've installed the latest version, still nothing.

Dump files follow - the most recent one that spurred this post is obviously the one labeled 070410, but there are a bunch in here from March from the last time I was trying to tackle this problem.

One last thing - please don't direct me to the laptopvideo2go guys. I've asked there twice and gotten next to no response. The few I do get assume I'm a bit of an idiot, asking about things like whether I copied the .infs or thinking when I complain about flickering I'm thinking of power settings. (And since I brought up hacked .infs, I feel the need to point out that official drives straight from NVidia don't work either--I've tried tons of different versions....)

Thanks very much in advance.

 

[TorrentG]

Hey.

Error code 43 generally means that the graphics card can not communicate with the motherboard successfully. The reason this happens mainly is because the proper chipset drivers are not installed.

Please visit the following link and use the automated scanner to allow it to install all the latest drivers it finds for you:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/default.aspx?iid=gg_support-EN_01+home_downloadctr

If it doesn't find anything, then visit the manufacturer's website for the latest chipset drivers and install.

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You already have a video driver installed for your card which is great. No further attention needed here:

nvlddmkm nvlddmkm.sys Mon Jun 07 18:24:52 2010

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I would definitely uninstall Avast! with the special tool found here:

AV Uninstallers - Windows 7 Forums

and then install MSE as a replacement.

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Your card reader drivers are too old and must be updated:

rimmptsk rimmptsk.sys Wed Nov 16 21:28:31 2005
rimsptsk rimsptsk.sys Thu Dec 22 03:02:21 2005
rixdptsk rixdptsk.sys Tue Nov 14 20:35:19 2006

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Your Intel wireless driver needs to be updated. Hopefully the scan above should do that for you. If not, obtain a new one from the manufacturer's site for your laptop:

netw5v32 netw5v32.sys Thu Mar 26 12:10:37 2009

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If after doing all of these things you still have problems, please post a new crash dump and I'll help you out further. Good luck and enjoy.

 

[TorrentG]

One further thing...I can make a driver for you out of the latest desktop drivers. This would only be worth trying if the above fails to fix the problem.

If you'd like me to do this, then I need some info. Please open the device manager, right click on the video card. Properties. Details tab. Change the dropdown to hardware ids. Then copy/paste the info to a new post.

Let me know...

 

[AyaJulia]

Thanks for the offer. Like I said, I've been all over LV2G dealing with many, many, many versions of NVidia's drivers, including inserting my own subsys ID etc. into a .inf file that they posted without modifying. I'm drowning in drivers--including the most recent desktop drivers. XD Just need one that works.

Regarding the steps you've asked me to take--
-Wireless driver got updated from the scanning tool. The tool also complained about my wired driver, audio driver, and video drivers, but that's more from not recognizing them at all than being out of date.

-Card reader drivers were hell to find. It's a generic 4-in-1 and I think the most recent ones are from 2009, and it still might not have updated all of the various mini-drives. I would love to just disable it altogether. I never use it. -.-;

-I don't want to remove Avast. I know MSE is better, but I'll be honest, money's tight, I couldn't afford an honest copy of Win7. MSE won't run on this. :x Any other recommendation other than AVG? I know free AVs are generally crap, but Avast seemed like the lesser of many evils.

-Thanks for the inventory of what was out of date. I knew some of this stuff was, but I had no way of knowing what and how bad. Alienware is terrible about drivers to be honest.

Rebooting, removing old video drivers, rebooting again, and installing new ones now--will post back to let you know how it went.

 

[TorrentG]

MSE is free and is the only antivirus to never cause bsod under any circumstances. And very resource friendly too.

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

The reason I recommend is because Avast! could actually be playing a role in the problem.

Did the Intel site update the chipset drivers?

 

[AyaJulia]

I was under the impression that MSE would only work on fully legit copies of Windows. I'll have to try it. Worst case scenario is I go back to some other AV again. For now (VERY short term) no AV is installed.

Intel's scan did not touch/mention the chipset drivers.

Rebooted with Avast still installed -> Code 43
Uninstalled Avast with the tool you linked -> Rebooted -> BSOD twice, followed by Code 43 (no changes between these three boots, not even a rollback, not sure why it lets me into Windows sometimes and other times it BSODs)

Despite two BSODs, it only gave me one dump to post. Everything you've mentioned is as up to date as I can get it.

 

[AyaJulia]

Sigh, I did everything to attach the file except hit "upload." It's 4 AM, be nice. D:

 

[TorrentG]

lol

I just noticed you have sptd.sys on the system. That is very notorious for crashing Windows 7. So to remove the possibility of it causing a problem here which it very well may be, please uninstall Daemon Tools. Then you'll need to use the uninstaller/installer found here to actually uninstall sptd.sys:

DuplexSecure - Downloads

PowerIso and UltraIso are perfectly stable under Windows 7 for drive emulation.

Actually now that I think about it, you are getting 0x8e stop errors. This is exactly what sptd.sys causes.

 

[AyaJulia]

Well, I removed Daemon Tools and I stopped getting BSODs, so I guess your work is done? I still can't get any video drivers to work because of the ever-so-inspecific Code 43, though. Guess this is the point where I just try dozens of versions...

....again.....

Going to sleep. Will check back before the downloadathon when I wake up for any advice anyone may have for me.

Thanks a ton for the help so far.

 

[Fire cat]

lol

I just noticed you have sptd.sys on the system. That is very notorious for crashing Windows 7. So to remove the possibility of it causing a problem here which it very well may be, please uninstall Daemon Tools. Then you'll need to use the uninstaller/installer found here to actually uninstall sptd.sys:

DuplexSecure - Downloads

PowerIso and UltraIso are perfectly stable under Windows 7 for drive emulation.

Actually now that I think about it, you are getting 0x8e stop errors. This is exactly what sptd.sys causes.

A very nice and user friendly drive emulation software is Virtual CloneDrive.
http://www.fc-designs.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16

You can emulate up to 15 drives, and you can use 8 of them at the same time. Very light as well!

 

[AyaJulia]

Well, I was wrong about Daemon Tools being the source of my BSODs. I got five this morning before Windows would let me in. Problem is, none of them gave me a dump to post. They didn't say "dump failed" like the other guy down the page who you guys recommended a HD replacement to... they claimed the dump was successful but didn't actually write a file.

They're still 0x8e like Torrent was saying Daemon Tools causes, but stpd.sys is gone from my system entirely. About half of them place the fault in dxgkrnl.sys, others don't name a driver at all.

So I still need help, please.

 

[AyaJulia]

Things I've tried since last posting:
-New chipset drivers
-sfc /scannow at the suggestion of a google post implying dxgkrnl.sys may be corrupted - Everything is ok.
-memtest - Everything passes
-Saw someone say offhand that some particular bios version is the only one that allows video updates. Tried to flash that version into my bios. Failed with some garbage about how it won't run in battery mode and I need to plug it into AC power. This was both with AC power in, and without a battery in. Ai. Abandoned the idea of a bios flash. I think my version from 2008 is the most recent anyway.... sadly. Alienware doesn't make it easy to find bios updates through their site. :\

Haven't gotten a BSOD since the five in a row earlier, but I'm going to assume the Code 43 issue and the BSOD issue are inextricably linked and presume I could get one at any moment, so I do still need help. Just keeping you good folks up date date on what I've been doing. Going to try different driver versions now, don't honestly expect any of them to work, they never do....

 

[AyaJulia]

Sorry for all the posts in a row, I promise this is the last one until someone needs a response from me. It's just that I finally got a new dump file to post reflecting all of the changes I've made.

 

[Nibiru2012]

Go to Intel's site for the Chipset drivers, Mobility driver and graphics driver. They all have to be installed.
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-025753.htm

Install the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility first.

Install theMobile Intel GM965 Express Chipset driver next.

If you need it, install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver next.Then install the nVidia 8600M GT driver from here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_winvista_win7_x64_195.62_whql.html

Go the the Alienware website to see if there are any additional drivers for your model computer. DELL owns Alienware and may have changed things around a little.

NOTE: After going to the website to look at the drivers for your notebook model, it lists the two following video chipset used on it and neither one are the vVidia 8600m GT.
What is shown are the GeForce GT 240M or GeForce GTX 260M. At least that is what's shown for the Alienware M15X notebook computer.

 

[AyaJulia]

Hi, thanks for your input Nibiru--but I've done every last step of this.

-Chipset drivers are installed as I mentioned a couple of posts up

-The scanner on the graphics chipset driver says my card is either unrecognized or unsupported, so there's nothing to install on that front.

-I've tried eight different versions of NVidia's drivers today alone. As a sidebar, you linked me a 64-bit driver... I know I hadn't specified up to this point, but I'm running a 32-bit system. But trust me, I've tried several versions within the 195 series. I'm in the process of downloading a 190 driver right now because they all BSOD'd me.

-As I've mentioned before, Alienware is horrible about keeping its drivers up to date. They've REALLY gone downhill since they merged with Dell. The laptop itself is a pile of crap in the first place, but if I could afford to buy a new one, I would've stopped trying to fix this eons ago haha. Anyway, the ones that came with the computer are still, to this day, all that's been posted. Including the card reader drivers from ~2006 that were in my first few dumps. And the video driver it has posted, which works and is stable with all but my most important piece of software, is nearly two years old.

Regarding the following:

After going to the website to look at the drivers for your notebook model, it lists the two following video chipset used on it and neither one are the vVidia 8600m GT.
What is shown are the GeForce GT 240M or GeForce GTX 260M. At least that is what's shown for the Alienware M15X notebook computer.

"Alienware m15x" is a laptop model name, but it also happens to be the type of motherboard reported by CPU-Z despite me NOT having that exact model. My laptop's actual model is the m5500, which I assure you comes with the 8600M GT.

Thanks again for your time, response, and ideas!

 

[TorrentG]

One further thing...I can make a driver for you out of the latest desktop drivers. This would only be worth trying if the above fails to fix the problem.

If you'd like me to do this, then I need some info. Please open the device manager, right click on the video card. Properties. Details tab. Change the dropdown to hardware ids. Then copy/paste the info to a new post.

Let me know...

I suggest we give this approach a try.

In the meantime as you await the driver and response from me on precisely how to install, please use Driver Sweeper from guru3d.com to remove all traces of NVIDIA files/settings from the machine.

 

[AyaJulia]

I have been using Driver Cleaner Pro to remove all traces of NVidia drivers between every new driver version. But if you insist, my video card's ID is 0407 and my subsys ID is 0770152D. Unless I'm mistaken, that and the card model (NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT) should be all you need?

Also, I got a new kind of BSOD on some version or another - "Page fault in nonpaged area" instead of the usual "Kernel mode exception not handled." Attaching the unique dump below. There are also a number of other new dumps, but I suspect they're more of the same and nothing anyone might find useful.

 

[TorrentG]

Actually, I need all the info from that screen copied/pasted, especially because it's a mobile solution.

The latest dump still shows DirectX/video involvement.

In the meantime, please download this driver and run it. After it extracts to C:\NVIDIA and before it installs, close the program. Do not let it install, only extract.

I'll have further instructions after I post a new .inf for you. Also, highly recommend Driver Sweeper.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvista-32bit-257.21-whql-driver.html

 

[AyaJulia]

See attached

 

[TorrentG]

Cool.

Extract my attachment to any folder. Then copy/paste the .inf directly overwriting (copy and replace when it asks) the NV_DISP.inf at C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\257.21\WinVista_Win7\English

Open device manager. Right click on video card. Update driver software. Browse my computer. Let me pick. Have disk. Browse.

Now find and double click on the NV_DISP.inf you just copied over. Hit ok, hit next and it will install.

Good luck with this. It should be good.