Some problem with my computer {nv4_disp.dll and nv4_mini.sys(?)}

[Rui]

Hey.

I've been having various freezes on my computer in the past months; keyboard and mouse blocked, sound loop, nothing to do but press the power button.
They happen mainly when I'm playing StarCraft II, when I'm downloading something (I was downloading WoW yesterday to claim my 30 free days and it froze twice before getting to 1 GB), and, in other occasions, when I'm viewing YouTube videos (StarCraft II ones).

The graphics card is always the first thing to get fried on my computer, so I'm assuming it's it, but perhaps someone can better inform me. I have, once or twice, had a problem with this file called nv4_disp.dll. The one time that I remember it happening, my computer began running sooo slowly, it did like one action every 20 seconds (closing programs and whatnot took 1 minute). I'm not sure if I managed to shut down my computer through regular means or if I had to use the power button, but it did inform me that nv4_disp.dll had stopped working.

I've been searching and reading various help threads but they have not helped me so far. DSG pointed me to this thread, I read everything, changed a few of the settings to those they recommended (though my panel looks a little different), and even tried that «patch». I started WoW Installer and it froze before even getting to the download >.<

Today I installed a new version of the drivers with a clean install. I was not on Safe Mode, but I want to be sure that was the cause and not another clue; at some point of the installation, I was asked to restart the computer for the installation to proceed, and so I did. When I came back to windows the resolution was very very small (probably because the previous graphics driver had been removed?), the installation continued, I left my computer for a minute or two, and, when I came back, my computer had suffered a Blue Screen of Death, mentioning the file nv4_mini (I think the file extension was .sys?). I went to NVIDIA's control panel and apparently the most recent version is installed.

Now I'm gonna try to mess around with it but I'm almost sure I haven't fixed the problem.
Please do post!

 

[BlargHonk]

Is it a laptop with any of the Geforce 8's or Quadro 100's?

If you don't know, type dxdiag into Run, and tell me the details on the Display window. If that doesn't work (relies on drivers) run this: http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html and tell me what the graphics tab contains.

 

[Rui]

Oh, sorry, forgot to give away that data. It's an Intel(R) Core(TM) Quad CPU with Windows XP with a NVIDIA GeForce 220 GT, 3 GHz, 3 GB of RAM.

 

[Dr Super Good]

It could be a defective card. The nvidia drivers are crashing due to a hardware defect which cause a freeze as they are fatal.

My brother had a simlar problem with his 8800 GT where it would lock up for a few seconds then vista reported the display driver stopped responding and had to be restarted (Vista and 7 restart the display driver if it hangs unlike XP which will not and will atmost BSoD).

Especially if the error is not commonly solved on the internet, it is usually a hardware defect. Not all graphic cards when manufactured are usable. Although the rejection rate for defective cards is good it is still possible that a flawed one makes it into use. There is also the issue of yield increasing as below descibes.

Defective GPUs are sold for use as lower range and slower cards where they are used perfectly well but with the defective parts disabled. This is because of the manufacturing yield where not every GPU manufactured is suitable for use in top range cards (parts of it are broken). Because they check the condition of every individual GPU it is impossible for a low range card to have a non defective GPU as all non defective GPUs will be sold as high range cards. Do not feel ripped by this as all processor manufacturers do this and this is how afordable components are made and so this can. The reason I am mentioning this is that not all GPUs work and some of them are so defective they might have to be scrapped (not suitable for use). It is possible you just happened to get a GPU in your card where it appeared to work fine in their general tests but actually some part of it is still defective when used for a while.

Especially if the crashing becomes more frequent and worse it is likly the problem. The only solution would be to use the manufacturer garuntee to have the manufacturer replace it with a new card (if it is still under garuntee). If not then you will probably have to buy a new card.

 

[BlargHonk]

all non defective GPUs will be sold as high range cards.

Actually, they frequently disable the parts on higher end cards to make lower end ones due to higher demand on the lower end. An example is the Phenom 2 X3 720, it frequently had a 4th core which could be unlocked with the correct BIOS settings and functioned normally, later fixed though.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Well maybe for GPUs only. They still definatly sell imperfect ones as lower ranges with disabled shaders or pathways for better yield.

They do this in component manufacture as well. Accurate resistors are the same as innacurate ones but when made they get measured and those within a certain range get sold as better ones than those that are not. The result is that less accurate resistors are almost impossible to be dead accurate as all those that are get sold as high accuracy ones.

 

[Rui]

Well, I think that it might be related to downloads somehow, actually. I tried downloading a game as large as StarCraft (less than 1 GB) and it froze. Twice. I had to push the power button and restart the program in order to finish the download. Same happened when I used the WoW Installer. It needed to download all those GBs, but my computer would freeze before even getting to 1 GB.
Any ideas on what could cause that?

P.S. By freeze I mean the mouse and keyboard become unresponsive, there's nothing you can do except push the power button to force the computer to shut down.

 

[BlargHonk]

Could be anything from bad NIC, to bad HDD, to bad RAM, to bad software. Any other symptoms?

 

[Dr Super Good]

The computer freezing can occur in many ways.

1. Graphic driver crashes and beocmes unresponsive (unable to update display)
2. Processor becomes I/O locked (HDD crashes)
3. Some process overloads the processor locking it down (high piority multiple threads).

Ofcourse faults in hardware like the actual processor itself can cause the above to occur due to the faults it introduces.

 

[Rui]

There are no other symptoms I can think of / have noticed. Is there any way to start ruling out causes?

 

[Urwaldbewohner]

Aslong there are no other symptoms the easiest way is to gat a second PC and exchange testwise every part that may be broken one after one. If none of ehm is the prob you may reinstall Windows.

EDIT:sry for Grammar can't write at this time of day...

 

[Rui]

Just froze twice. I had 6 tabs open, one of which was the Hive Chat, and one was a YouTube video with a song only. I was writing a message on Hive Chat when it occurred. This is what led me to believe it's an Internet problem (the video from YouTube must have been downloading at the time of the freeze). Then it froze again on windows startup.
Plus, the computer used to shut down in less than five seconds after I pressed the power button, but I noticed it has been taking more and more time (more than 5 seconds at least)

P.S. -- No other programs were open, only Mozilla Firefox. I had been refreshing one of the tabs various times to see if the SC2 forum icons were working.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Possible overheating? I assume your in Summer weather now and spontanious lockups and crashes are a common sign of overheating (although they usually go straight to a BSoD but can hang for a while).

What graphic card are you using? If it supports DX10 it is likly that youtube is being hardware accelerated which would support the graphic driver problem you report.

 

[Rui]

Maximum temperature was of 25ºC today, though in my room it might have been 30ºC. There are days in which the temperature is much higher and it doesn't crash, though.

 

[Rui]

Okay, I'm not sure if it's related, but my Internet has been getting slower and slower. Right now, it is completely screwed up, I had to wait for minutes just for this page to load and I'm seeing it almost in Archive version (nearly everything is white). I do not know if this Internet crawling I'm having right now has anything to do with the case, though. The temperature isn't too high today, again, I think it is a maximum of 30ºC in my room.
Just to demonstrate at which point things are crawling, I've been trying to search with Google and it is not responding (I click the Google Search button and wait, but nothing has happened).

 

[Dr Super Good]

That must be your internet just screwing up. If the signal noise ratio gets too high (so most packets are unusable and must be resent) or if there is a bottleneck in the network can cause this.

 

[Rui]

Strange thing happened today. I was giving the SC2 campaigns another play-through, I saved the game, and my computer shut down. Just like that, it didn't restart or anything, it's as if the power had been cut from it, but the monitor and sound were still on.
I was on the Hyperion's bridge if that's relevant at all.

 

[Dr Super Good]

You graphic card overheating? You can monitor its temprature using the one tool nvidia provides.

 

[Rui]

Another weirdness happened, I turned on my computer from stand by, opened the browser, entered the chat, and it began acting really slowly, momentarily freezing, and then freezing completely (though it still reacted with a «beep» if I pushed too many keyboard keys). I'm not sure if it's related though.

 

[Magtheridon96]

Do you have Windows XP SP2 or higher?
Other versions of Windows XP don't go well with multiple cores.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Another weirdness happened, I turned on my computer from stand by, opened the browser, entered the chat, and it began acting really slowly, momentarily freezing, and then freezing completely (though it still reacted with a «beep» if I pushed too many keyboard keys). I'm not sure if it's related though.

The OS was waiting for some resource which was unable to arrive (eg data from the hard disk) or some task which was crutial but unable to complete. The beeping I think signals that the I/O buffer for the keyboard is full and so keyinput is having to be discarded due to the lack of the OS attending to it.

 

[Rui]

Well, it keeps getting worse =s I was testing a map in StarCraft II today and suddenly there was what seemed like a lightning on the bottom left middle of the monitor and then it all went black. I managed to install the latest version of the drivers (I'm not sure why I did that?), and I've left it alone for about 7 hours now.
I tried turning it back on but I needed multiple attempts, it would either sound a beep and not do anything, the monitor button would flash on and off like the computer hadn't even been turned on, even though it was actually powered up, or so it seemed. I managed to actually get into windows twice, but it did that slow freeze and then freeze completely again. It starts acting really slowly, and I can't press any buttons, only move the mouse key, but if I try to right-click anything, it freezes completely. I unplugged the modem and my desk candle (I'm still convinced it is an electrical issue).
Now I've managed to actually get in here and post this. I realize this is probably not the best place to ask, but just in case someone has an epiphany and to keep log of the whole process if I need to take it to repairs.
EDIT: Oh and I went into safe mode once to recover some files in case I needed to get this computer fixed.

You graphic card overheating? You can monitor its temprature using the one tool nvidia provides.

Yes, but how does the graphic card make the computer freeze while browsing the web? Or are you suggesting it's unrelated? Some of those times I was viewing videos, how much does the graphic card get pushed then? But still, how to explain it when I wasn't viewing videos, just chatting on our chat or something?

Do you have Windows XP SP2 or higher?
Other versions of Windows XP don't go well with multiple cores.

I have a Quad core (did I mention this?) but with Service Pack 3.

The OS was waiting for some resource which was unable to arrive (eg data from the hard disk) or some task which was crutial but unable to complete. (...)

Why would that happen? Buggy communication between hardware and software?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Yes, but how does the graphic card make the computer freeze while browsing the web? Or are you suggesting it's unrelated? Some of those times I was viewing videos, how much does the graphic card get pushed then? But still, how to explain it when I wasn't viewing videos, just chatting on our chat or something?

If your graphic card supports DX10 then it will be working hard decoding the video. Additionally, your graphic card is in use all the time even on the desktop as it is far more efficient at rendering graphics than the CPU. For such faults to occur it need not be even working hard (it just has to be producing incorrect results from time to time). Especially how you mentioned that strange lighting occured generally points towards some hardware defect in the graphic card. This sort of fault only ever gets worse, and it is inevitable that eventually your system will fail to boot at all until the defective hardware is replaced.

Why would that happen? Buggy communication between hardware and software?

If a hard disk was going at a few bytes a second and a page fault occured it could cause this. Additionally, if the graphic driver went into an errored state this would happen (as nothing can be rendered so the same frame will appear to hang as there is no ability to change frames until the graphic driver is restored).

 

[Rui]

So I've replaced the broken graphic card but the freezes still keep happening every now and then (just happened right now and I was using the chat, plus doing stuff here on the forums and viewing the IPL live stream). I figure the graphic card is not the cause behind the main symptom; something causes it to break?

(there should be a REAL Dr.House for computers ;>)

 

[Dr Super Good]

If the freeze lasts for a few seconds and then everything resumes fine it is possible your Hard Disk is set to turn off after a while of not being used. You can control this time in the Power Management part of the Control Pannel. Be aware that not letting your hard disk turn off when idle can result in excessive wear and waste electricity (although minimal of both).

 

[rrrmmm]

check this nv4_disp.dll post for information about this blue screen problem....