Freeze and CRASH !!

Hello Major Geeks, i have a major problem! Recently in the last few weeks my laptop has has 3 separate, but maybe related issues. The screen freezes and needs a hard boot to restart, sometimes I get the blue screen and crash dump report, sometimes the screen goes black then recovers with a 'your video card has shut down and recovered' message. It will run for about 15-30 minutes on a fresh start up then after crashing I can only get about 5 minutes before another crash. I have taken it apart and removed dust from the exhaust fan but no improvement. I will give as much detail as possible but what information do you need from me to be able to assist?

Details:
2011 Dell XPS L701X



I have ran every windows and my-dell diagnostic program i can find, here are a few results

Upon crash this is at the bottom: (not sure if they are O or 0)
***stop 0x00000101,
(0x0000000000000019,
0x0000000000000000,
0xfffff880031e0180,
0x0000000000000003)

Another test I ran gave me this:
1) 6.1.7600.16385
2) 6.1.7600.16385
3) unknown
4)1285
5) auto fail over
6) either Auto fail over or 1, (poor notes)
7) Bad Patch
OSVersion 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256:1
locale ID 1033


FROM BELARC:


Windows 7 Home Premium (x64) Service Pack 1 (build 7601)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United States)
Installed: 2/28/2011 5:45:53 PM
Boot Mode: BIOS (Secure Boot not supported)

1.73 gigahertz Intel Core i7 Q 740
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache
6144 kilobyte tertiary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (4 total)
Hyper-threaded (8 total)
500.11 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
381.37 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GT32N [Optical drive]

ST9500420AS [Hard drive] (500.11 GB) -- drive 0, s/n 5VJABPXG, rev D005SDM1, SMART Status: Healthy

OK, the video jsut crashed so the computer is not far behind, let me know what you need to assist, thank you in advance!!

Using MS protection, and have ran malwarebytes, superanti spyware, and spybot as well.

Bruce

 

Hi, bmarshall1. Welcome to Major Geeks.

Could you locate the crash dump in the C:\Windows\minidump folder and attach it as a ZIP archive to your next post? This will help the people here with debugging software determine if this is a hardware or driver issue. BTW, they're zeros not ohs.

My personal opinion is that overheating may have caused graphics card failure but, that minidump will clarify things.

 

Hello mdonah,

thanks for the reply, I think you are on track with the graphics card overheating as before I cleaned out he vent, the computer was running pretty hot, I downloaded Speccy but paid more attention to the other temps. Unfortunately for some reason i am locked out of the mini dump b/c it it says 'file not found or no read permission'. any thoughts on that?

Lastly, is the graphics card replaceable or am i better off with a new computer. I only use it for email and web surfing.

 

Right click Computer in the Start menu and select Properties. Then click on Advanced system settings. Then click on the Settings button under Startup and Recovery (see attachment 1). Under System failure, make sure that Write an event to the system log is ticked. Also, untick automatically restart and overwrite any existing file (see attachment 2). It defaults to Kernel memory dump but, I select Small memory dump (64K). OK out of System Properties and close Control Panel. The next time the computer crashes, a minidump file should be created and you should be able to attach it.

Your laptop has an nVidia dedicated graphics card like my Precision M70 and it is replaceable. I had to replace the graphics card on my laptop a while ago. It's not difficult but, I'd make sure I had the service manual in front of me before attempting to do so. Parts have to be removed in order and replaced in reverse order and the mounting screws have to be loosened and tightened in a specific sequence. Otherwise you could damage the card and/or the system board.

 

OK, I have made the change to my system properties as suggested and will wait for the next crash, should the information appear in the same minidump folder? As far as changing out he card, I am very good at taking things apart and fixing and have already had this laptop down to the motherboard to clean the insides so a graphics card should not be too hard with a little critical advice.

 

The minidump should show up in the minidump folder in the form Mini000000-01.dmp with the date and the number of the mindump in the same minidump folder. As to why "file not found" or "access denied" for the minidump I requested, did you simply open the folder in Widows? You should have seen a .dmp file.

The graphics card is attached to the cooling unit by Torx screws. If you don't have the proper size torx screwdriver, purchase a card that's already got the cooling unit attached. That's what I did with mine and I didn't have to worry about applying thermal paste or anything else. But, please, get the Service manual from Dell.

 

OK, I did a system restore as far back as I could go. This gave me mini dump access but also eliminated the mini dumps except for one, I was able to zip it and open it in windows.

I did open it in windows and here is the result below, there are 589 pages of the gibberish below. My computer *seems to be working better after the system restore, maybe a virus? But all my malware programs came up negative. Hopefully I will be able to use it long enough tonight to cause a crash... or maybe no more crashes!

zip attached


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According to the Bugcheck Analysis, a PCI Driver I/O Request packet caused this particular crash and the minidump you attached. However, since you did a system restore to nearly a month ago, we don't have the info about the most recent crashes. I guess we'll have to wait for the next crash if any.

Also, since you did a System Restore, you're going to have to reset Startup and recovery as before.