980m nightmare situation!!

Hey guys...

Really, really hope someone can help me.
Upon trying to wake my laptop from sleep today, I got greeted with a black screen. Had to hard shutdown the laptop. Upon reboot I got a warning icon next to my 980m in device manager. So I proceeded to do the usual DDU, reinstall modded drivers. Except I got a BSOD on my next boot with a page fault in non paged area...
Repair, system rstore all failed. So i booted in safe mode, copied the few files I needed and did a clean install of win8.1.
I also reverted to Optimus again...
Unfortunately even without drivers the 980m showed up as a basic display adapter with a warning icon. Error message in device mgr :
This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)
The driver trying to start is not the same as the driver for the POSTed display adapter.

As soon as I installed the modded drivers and rebooted I got the same BSOD....
Is my 980m dead? I am going to try reseating it and repasting but I have little hope of this changing anything... Oh man am I forced to go back to my 880m?...


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Here is what we can try.
1. Run DDU in safe mode, get a copy of nvidia drivers that you KNOW works with no problem.
2. Remove the 980M, boot back into windows if possible (no 120Hz display)
3. Clean contacts on the 980M, reinstall
4. Boot back normally into windows, install the drivers
5. If you still get code 31 or Code 10, the card is toast.

 

Well just finished reseating, repasting, even reflashing my 980m to prema... Still didn't work on 359.12.... Hwinfo sees the card but no mem or core frequency. Installing driver and restarting: bsod...
I am so disappointed right now... Will try reinstalling my 880m now...


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sorry to hear it mate. If the 880M also doesn't work, you may have dead/dying board with MXM slot problem. Did your 980M have warranty from the reseller you got it from?

 

Yeah I got it from Woodzstack in November so it's still under warranty...
Will try the 880m in a bit and update you on whether it is working or not. I am assuming if it doesn't and it's the MXM slot that's the problem, that I am basically left with a 17" paperweight?

 

You can replace the motherboard.

 

Just installed the 880m. Bad feeling about this already. Same error in drv mgr already... Installing driver and rebooting now...


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Absolute worst case scenario is to back up your data, wipe windows, do a clean install and see if the issue persists.

 

@Raidriar

Oh well... Driver installed fine, 880m recognized... BUT gpuz render test shows nothing. Nada. Downloading unigine valley to test it. If it also fails then I guess it's a mobo issue... right?

 

As stated before do an absolute clean install of Windows and drivers and test with unigene or something else similar. If the issue persists, it is a mobo issue. If there is no error in device manager than I'm more inclined to think there is an issue with the OS installation than with the cards or mobo. If the error persists, it is more likely to be a hardware error. Again, we can't find out until you do a full fresh install. Use the Alienware restore disc if possible, as it will have everything ready to go for a quick test.

 

I started with a fresh install as I coildn't even restore windows...
Anyway unigine not working. Some VC2010 dll missing even though it is there. Right click - run with nvidia gpu does nothing... No error no message

Edit:
False alarm, just tried 3dmark and fallout. Both working fine... No artifacts nothing.... So it seems my 980m is defective.... Will do some more tests tomorrow before having the warranty talk with woodzstack...


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Yeah the 880m is working fine... Gotta love gelid extreme... Max temp during firestrike=71... Before I replaced it with the 980m I used to get highs of 85... Never repasted it though. Anyway it is midnight and i need to wake up at 6am for work... Will test the 980m again tomorrow...


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did you disable fast startup in windows? i honestly don't use sleep or hibernation modes regardless of whether i take it on the go or leave it at home.

personal policy.

 

Well I never changed that option (enabled or disabled)

Anyway before leaving for work I checked things again and the 880m still shows up active and zero issues in event viewer.
I will try the 980m again tonight... If it works I am seriously considering selling all my material possessions, kissing my family goodbye and go live with Buddhist monks. As much as I love Technology, I hate the illogical and unpredictable side of it.

 

Oh well, the 980m will be back in Eurocom's hands next Wednesday... Hope the situation gets resolved fast...
I was thinking of something just now as I was reading some other threads and thought I'd ask here.
I made quite a few upgrades to my laptop in a short period of time and while everything was working fine before the 980m, do you think my problem could be linked to a power issue?
I have the 240W power adapter (I've ordered the 330W original adapter by the way and should get it by tomorrow.)
My original setup was as follow:
880m, 840 Evo SSD as OS drive, 1TB storage cached by 80GB mSata SSD. Of course, I had the optical drive as well, but hardly every used.

My upgrade, PRIOR to installing the 980m:
Replaced the optical drive with a caddy and put the 1TB drive in it. Installed a 850 Evo 500GB SSD where the 1TB was located.

- Installed the 980m. No issues.

- Replaced the 80GB mSata with a 250GB mSata and used that as my OS drive.

- Again used the 980m without issues for some time. Can't tell you how long exactly unfortunately. But I mean, it did last at least 2-3 weeks.

- Like I said, I never OC'ed the card. But do you think the power draw was just too much for my 240W adapter? I mean we're talking 4 hard-drives (2 SSD, 1 mSata and 1 storage) with a 980m.

 

i doubt it's because of a lack of power. even with my OC I don't even pull anything close to 240W let alone go over 240W while staying under 330W in the majority of games with the highest about 220W while playing Mad Max with other games averaging between 150-180W.

Here's some numbers i had gathered:

idle = 50W
Mad Max (60fps), Batman Arkham Knight (30fps), MGSV (60fps) = 130W - 150W
Mad Max (120fps) = 220W
Project Cars (120fps) = 180W
Witcher 3 (30fps) = 170W
Witcher 3 (60fps) = 180W
Witcher 3 (uncapped) = 190 - 200W
Heaven Benchmark (60fps) = 200W
Firestrike = 200W - 220W
GTAV (30fps) = 140W - 150W

 

Thx for the input man.

Do you mind telling me what tool you use to monitor this?

I am just extremely worried that Eurocom will end up telling me that the gpu is working fine on their test systems... If they end up returning it as is, I honestly don't know what to try...

 

Buy a cheap kill-a-watt.

 

yes, you'll only need the most basic one.

 

have you heard anything back from Eurocomm about the 980m?

I have a 980m and a 240w power supply and its been fine on every game i have run on it. get great fps and im viewing it on an internal 120hz screen.

Hope you get the 980m sorted, amazing card. i did have a few black screen problems at first but that was just driver/windows boot up setting and they have been fine since running Win 8.1