NVidia help

Hi everybody,
As suggested above and meanwhile the Staff experts find a solution to my PC slowness, I would like to ask help for another problem that has caused me more than one headache: The problem is known as "nv4_disp infinity loop". Machine freeze up one or several times a day ending with a blue screen, the only way to keep on is a hard restart.

I Googled it and it seems to be an old Nvidia Issue, in fact, all begun when I installed a new NVIDIA GeForce EN8400GS video card due to hardware failure on the original card (blown capacitor)

Wondering if someone have heard about and can give some help.
I have tried to update the driver, but it says that there isn't a better one than the installed.
Changing the video card for another brand? rolleyes

Thank you in advance.



P.S.
Should I post this in the HARDWARE SECTION?:-o

-Sorry for my English...

 

Looking forward for a fix hint on this issue, I just want inform you all that I will be absent for three weeks. Anyway, I will try to be in touch in case of any answer.

Thanks

 

Hi Tony41,
Have you tried the patch here....

www.synapse.gr/downloads/nv4loopfix.zip

To install it, unzip the file and run the setup.exe Do not run the setup from the compressed folder.

So what does it do? It closes the RX55 memory register in BIOS. The RX55 register's official name and function is Memory Write Queue (MWQ) timer. The MWQ timer is actually a timing device included in the memory host controller to prevent write data being held in the memory queue too long. After the data has been in the queue too long it times out. This timed out data is then given a higher write request priority. Now that might sound nice a bit of extra performance BUT the procedure fails when overloaded. 3D games and Win XP put too much load on the memory queuing timer procedure. The nVidia new driver exaggerates the problem even more as the driver enables nVidia cards to use even more memory than previous driver versions.

I found this patch on the Nvid Forums.

If this does not fix your issue then I suspect it to be a Ram problem you could run mtest to see if your modules are are still up to scratch, it may also be that you just don't have enough Ram installed.

iain.t :major

 

Thank you very much Iain.t

I'll try it later on, I'm preparing to fly tonight, so I hope to install the patch before leaving.

I will be back to you as soon as I can, today or later, if I find a way to be in touch during my trip. (I don't have portable PC...)

Thank you again for your support.



Ah... memory is OK. I have 3 Gb in two modules; 1 & 2 Gb. I tried using one by one and the problem showed up same with each card alone.

 

Your welcome and enjoy your trip!!

iain.t :major

 

I have just installed it, now I can do nothing but wait. Unfortunately, I have only few hours left before leaving to know if it worked. Today has occurred three times...

The other problem (the slowness, from where this post was moved) is the one to solve. After installing the patch, it took almost 10 minutes to reboot (automatic check disk included this time...). It is exasperating ! :banghead

Thank you for your wishes.
Stay well.

 

Hi Tony41,
I hope that patch works for you!!!, if you are suffering from severe lag at start up i would suggest disabling all of your start up programs via msconfig...

The easiest way to access MSCONFIG is by going to the “Start”, "Search", then type the msconfig and wait for a second for the windows to search for the utility, finally click on the MSCONFIG shown on top of the menu.

Under the Startup tab there is a list of all the programs that start in the Windows Registry. Just uncheck the programs you don’t want to load and leave the rest alone. After you’ve made your selections, click Apply and Ok.

if this stops the "lag" try enabling the start ups one at a time to find which one is causing the "lag" once found just leave it unchecked.

iain.t

 

Hi Iain.t,

Thank you, but the severe lag is not only on start up, but in general. That's why we suspected malware or something like that.
See http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?p=1637258#post1637258

I have already checked the programs that load at start and I think are the minimum needed.

BTW, the machine hasn't frozen yet... I will turn off it in +/- an hour...

bye

 

I would start by getting rid of any files/programs that i don't use and, do a little bit of in house maintanance there is a good tutorial about how to do this here....

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=48

maybe also run a HDD Diagnostic on your drive, it is advisable that you only use the Manufacturers own tool for your drive i.e... seagate/fujitsu/western digital and so on....

good luck and have a safe journey

 

I haven't see any requests for you to disconnect any external hardware like printers etc., or extra boards that the machine doesn't need to boot with like sound/network cards etc. What about 'Device Manager', any yellow or red ticks in there? right click computer/properties and choose it.

If the machine still is slow after that then we go to the next step. It's always best to have as clean of a machine as possible to start diagnosing it. Maybe start with Memtest86 to check your RAM.

 

Hmm, perhaps I've strayed too far from the original post.:confused :-o

 

Hi augiedoggie,

thanks for your help.

Right now, I' away from home for a while, +/- three weeks. I'm writting from a provvisional machine.
I will follow your suggestions as soon as I get back.

Thank you again.

 

Hi everyone

I'm back from my trip, sorry for this absence.
Well, my machine still slow, mainly during start up an still experiencing randomly hang ups, one or two a day.

The boot is extremely slow, sometimes it ends with an automatic check disk in the middle of boot and then restarts again. Yesterday, it froze at “click over the name to start” point, in the middle of the boot. The cursor was enabled but there was no response to the clicks. I had to restart the hard way.

I have to say that there are a minimum files necessary for booting, only one printer and good RAMS (tested). What really amaze me is the high activity of the hard disk (blinking led) during the boot. What is he doing during such a long time?

As for the hang ups, I already ran the www.synapse.gr/downloads/nv4loopfix.zip and it didn’t fix it.
Should I take drastic measures and reformat and start all over again? That would be a big headache for me…



Thank you all for any help.

 

UP...

Still having random freezes... Same blue screen error pointing to nv4_disp file as the cause of the problem (infinite loop)
Should I replace the graphic board?
Should anyone has/had this kind of issue?

Operating System
MS Windows XP Professional 32-bit SP3
Graphics:
S1770NSL (1024x768@60Hz)
NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS

Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks.

Tony

 

Try this method first after downloading the latest drivers for your card. If that doesn't work, start thinking about a new machine as fixing yours would cost more than it's worth. Good luck.

 

Thank you augiedoggie,

Yes, I think buying a new machine will be the best option...


BTW, I found this message on the page you linked:
"Attention - Guru3D Driver Sweeper has been discontinued as such you will not find any download links here any longer."


Stay well.

 

Bah! There's other driver cleaners out there but I've never used them. I hope someone else has a decent suggestion. Still, if you haven't un/re installed your drivers yet, I suggest you try that, my last ditch attempt here.

 

Yes, my son updated it just yesterday in the morning with the latest drivers... It froze again in the afternoon

Thank you again for your interest.


T

 

OK, but do an uninstall, reboot and then re-install as just overwriting the driver could leave nasty stuff around. Do everything in safe mode for best results.

 

Hi,

I found a problem that might be related...
The bootable hard disk (C:\) is suddenly “disappearing”.
After the umpteenth freeze, the system didn’t want to reboot, asking to “select a bootable disk and hit Enter…” After a hard restart and tapping F8 I could see that C: was not present in the blue bootable option list.

This is the normal way that should be after tapping F8:

DHH: PM – MAXTOR 90432D2 (Note: this is an old 4Gb HD with DOS files that I rarely use)
CDROM: SM-HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-H4
HDD: 4M ST3500320AS
HDD: 3M ST3500418AS (Bootable device)

Well, after freezing, I tap F8 at restart to find out the same list without HDD: 3M xxxxxx…
Then, after just fooling around moving wires, the HD appeared again in the list and boot was OK… until next freeze.
I checked for loose wires and/or critical plugged connectors, but everything looked OK.

It seems to be a hardware problem, disk? motherboard? something else? Any suggestion will be appreciated to avoid buying a new machine and lost a bunch of things and time…

Hope to have made myself clear. Sorry for my English.

Thanks

 

Rare but it does happen. I asked the lady who's rig that I was fixing to get a new ribbon cable as I had replaced it with one of mine, the techie looked at her as if she was insane! So for $2.50 plus gas, I fixed it. She actually went back and told him he was full of shit!:-D

 

Thanks guys,

Except the Maxtor 4 Gb disk, the others two are SATA disk, so are not flat wire attached, anyway, their cables were already interchanged a week ago without good results. I also checked the disk board connector to look for some visible damage and/or cold solders. Same on the other side of the cables, on the motherboard. No visible damages.

Let me tell you that I'm dealing with this problem (hanging nv4_disp blue screen) since almost a year, and everything started after a major repair including a new disk (C: indeed) and a new graphic card Nvidia EN8400GS Silent (no cooling fan, only a huge heat sink). No heat cause, I've removed the side panel and installed an external cooling fan, just to discard possible heating problems.

I've continued working this way because sometimes it goes a week without problems, but sometimes it happens two or three times in a day.

I will try to replace, when possible, one at the time, first the graphic card, which is less traumatic...rolleyes

I will keep you informed

Thanks again.

T

 

UPDATE

Hi guys,

Problem fixed.

The problem was caused by the NEW Graphic Card Nvidia EN8400GS Silent.

Replaced and no more hangs.


Tony