Blackscreen crashes (dxgkrnl.sys)

sweeneytodd94

Posts: 20   +0
For some time now I've been having the occasional black screen crash (no BSOD info), sometimes with no dumps produced either. I had some dodgy RAM, which I've now replaced. There was also an issue with my SSD and BIOS, which has now been resolved by flashing BIOS to the latest version. The problems have become less frequent, but I'm still getting the occasional blackscreen when resuming from sleep. Please find attached the latest few dumps.

I'm on Win 7 (64-bit), and have the latest nvidia drivers. I don't believe it is another hardware issue, and my temps are in order. Any advice would be much appreciated, I can only assume it is something to do with directx/graphics drivers but perhaps not.

Many thanks in advance
 

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  • Minidumps.zip
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Both these minidumps show an error code of 116 which is usually related to your graphics driver or the card.

This is the write up from a BSOD index.

I would start by cleaning the card contacts with alcohol or a soft pencil eraser, then blow out the slot and the cooler with a can of compressed air. Then download the latest drivers and save them to your desktop. In device manager uninstall the existing graphics drivers and then install the new ones.

http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/25912-bsod.html#post280172

"It's not a true crash, in the sense that the bluescreen was initiated only because the combination of video driver and video hardware was being unresponsive, and not because of any synchronous processing exception.

Since Vista, the "Timeout Detection and Recovery" (TDR) components of the OS video subsystem have been capable of doing some truly impressive things to try to recover from issues which would have caused earlier OSs like XP to crash. As a last resort, the TDR subsystem sends the video driver a "please restart yourself now!" command and waits a few seconds. If there's no response, the OS concludes that the video driver/hardware combo has truly collapsed in a heap, and it fires off that stop 0x116 BSOD.

If playing with video driver versions hasn't helped, make sure the box is not overheating. Try removing a side panel and aiming a big mains fan straight at the motherboard and GPU. Run it like that for a few hours or days - long enough to ascertain whether cooler temperatures make a difference. If so, it might be as simple as dust buildup and subsequently inadequate cooling."
 
Hi Mark,

I cleaned the card as best I could, and reseated it. It looked fine, although I noted that two of the contacts were slightly shorter than the others. Not too short to work, I don't think, but noticeable. Don't know if that might be some sort of damage or what?

Uninstalling the drivers has thrown up a few issues. I took them off using the normal uninstaller, restarted, and windows managed to fine the 273 drivers. Removed, restarted, and then I had the 270s. Now I think I finally got all of these off, and then used Driver Sweeper in Safe Mode to clean any remaining nvidia graphics & physx entries. Restarted. Before I install the latest drivers, I've noted another problem, which might have been underlying all this all along. When I go into device manager to see what the installed driver is, it is coming up with a code 19:
Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)

I tried uninstalling the device and various restarts, but I can't seem to get any further, it's just sitting there, with this error. I've seen code 19 before on optical drives, and the fix involved removing upper/lower filters from the registry. I've also spotted that a few people have tried this for graphics cards too. I didn't want to do it without checking though, but had a look in regedit and there aren't any filter entries in the class key anyway.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and thanks for your help so far.
 
I got this from another thread. I hope it may help.

Follow this guide first so you can get back to where you were if something goes wrong. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/4230-registry-backup-restore.html

Do not forget, if you have a restore point that will take you back before this problem started that may be you easiest way out of this.

As unlikely as it seems, I was able to resolve a VIDEO problem with this technique. The error seems to be common for CD/DVD's (think I saw it a couple years ago myself) but it can and does happen to other devices as well.

In my case, the video driver would not load properly. So I was stuck with generic standard VGA (stinks on my wide screen monitor!!!). Exact same error in Device Manager on the Display item (blah blah Code 19). Problem started after some incomplete patching after a reboot (tried to do too many patches at once I think).

So I went looking, and sure enough under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\

there are about twenty similar looking keys

{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} vs.
{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
-------^^
One had keys '(Default)' = Display Adaptors and 'Class' = Display

and there was an 'UpperFilters' = pivot

(pivot being the crummy utility that screwed me up, which I had uninstalled in my troubleshooting efforts- or tried to, I am guessing the system was locked into trying to load the missing utility)

renamed it to 'UpperFilters.bak' and rebooted. Full screen goodness resulted !!!

So ANYBODY getting that error for any devices could try a similar series of steps. Find the Class object for your problematic device (looking at the '(Default)' and 'Class' keys under those similar entries) and move/delete those UpperFilter and/or LowerFilter keys.

You would think with a documented solution like this, Microsoft could have the result reachable from the "Look online for solutions" button under the device object in Device Manager. I have never seen that produce any good result. Geez I was ready to reinstall Windows after trying to remove and reinstall the drivers, safe mode, etc. for days.
 
I found exactly the same thread a little earlier too. As I said, I checked those keys and couldn't see any 'UpperFilters' key or anything similar...

Shall I just try to reinstall the drivers now? I mean, they were largely working fine. I just don't know if this was part of the problem or if actually it might have been caused by conflicts with the other older drivers that were somehow still present...?

P.S.
I don't have any suitable restore points that I can rely on.
 
The best method to get new drivers installed is NOT to reboot after uninstalling all the old ones as windows immediately tries to reinstall any suitable driver it can find on reboot.

Download the latest drivers to your desktop.
Uninstall the device in Device Manager.
Use this guide to find any hidden drivers.
Install the new drivers and then reboot.

I was editing the last post when you posted your reply, did you catch the suggestion to use a restore point earlier than when the problem started?
 
I see.... think I was learning that the hard way!

I can't uninstall in device manager, it just comes back instantly with the same error. Your link doesn't seem to be taking me to the right place, I end up with: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/3067...n-maintenance-tasks-automatically-in-windows/ but anyway, thanks, I found it! There were loads of these, of various types, inc dozens of generic volumes and shadow copies. Possibly unrelated, but probably not helping!

There were no other video drivers though, just the gtx 470, and that one will not uninstall... Should I ignore it (the code 19 and inability to uninstall?) and just install the new drivers anyway?

I saw your edit, thanks, and edited my reply!
 
Well I've installed the latest from nvidia, no problems. The error has gone, and things seem to be running okay. However, I don't know if any of this has done anything to help alleviate the black screens, which were sporadic in any case. I'll keep waking it from sleep and see if it comes back over the next couple of days, and let you know if I'm still having problems.

Thanks for your help.
 
Few more problems since, although I think this time its mostly due to the sound card. Very frustrating, s'like buses. Please find attached last two dumps.

I might replace the X-Fi card with an Asus Xonar or something, but haven't decided what. I'm also getting my cooler RMA'd, so that will help temps, although I don't think those are related either.

Any advice on the cause of these dumps would be great.

Thanks.
 

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  • dmps.zip
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Two different minidumps. The first one blames a driver ha20x2k.sys, there is a fix for that in post 8 of this thread you may like to try.

The second one has a bug check code of 124 which can be caused by any item of your hardware.This guide may help isolate the cause. It could be that this BSOD was due to your graphics card or drivers as with the previous ones.
 
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