BSOD after WIN7 re-install.

Hello,

I've bought my system back in jan/2010 and it worked fine until yesterday, the thing is, last week I was getting a bunch of random bugs with my computer and it was more than a year from the last fresh win7 install, then I decided to format everything and reinstall windows 7.

First problem, when I decided to do this I realized I had lost my Windows 7 DVD which came with the system, so I saw this other topic here on NBR which linked me a legal download of Win7 that I could use my Serial Key, so I did it, and everything worked fine first couple of hours, until I decided to play a game.

GPU drivers were: Catalyst 12.6
First game I played was Dota 2 and I was getting this random artifacts and sometimes some flickering going, so I restarted my computer and it worked fine once again. Yesterday I started StarCraft 2 and the artifacts were back, but this time I didn't have time to reboot, because after 10 or 20 seconds, I had this BSOD. Restarted the computer and again opened StarCraft BSOD again.

So I went to Safe Mode, uninstalled the drivers, driver swept the rest of it, and installed current version of catalyst, 13.1, that made things even worst, since I couldn't even use windows, as soon as I typed my user password the screen would freeze, turn to black and BSOD.

So Safe Mode again, unstalled the drivers and driver swept again, and installed some older versions, Catalyst 12.1 (which I had installed before working 100%) and it worked until I decided to play my first game, and had a BSOD before the game would even show me any image, after this it went again to the same problem with 13.1, login into windows and black screen then BSOD.

Then I decided to go even further, I opened up my laptop, cleaned the fans and replugged the cards and the cfx cable, uninstalled everything again and reinstalled into catalyst 12.3 (another driver that i had before) and the problem stays the same.

I'm a little worried, do you think is there a physical problem to my gpus like a short circuit or something? I did lot of travel during the first two weeks of this year and was carrying my alien around everyday, but it was sitting still since january 11th.

the BSOD show me some ati*******.sys file message dumping memory or something.


Edit: my system specs are on my sig.

Please HELP, I'm kind of desperate.
Thank you.

 

CPU and GPU temps?
Have you made sure all the heatsinks are properly seated and thermal pads applied?

 

Thanks for the reply, but I think that's not the problem the coolers are in the right place, I didn't move them, and the thermal pads are untouched (factory defaults). But anyways I'm gonna check the coolers tonight after work.

I have one question though, my laptop was off for about 7 hours (the whole night), and I turned it on this morning and I got the BSOD as soon as I logged in, so supposing that I'm having heat issues, shouldn't I have a time window until it temperatures rises and before it goes BSOD

 

Just a quick question before you rip it apart, did you use the dell published drivers before going to the latest ones? (sure doesn't sound like heat issues but worth monitoring in-game just in case)

 

No, after the fresh install I went straight to the 12.6 drivers, no dell driver before, why?

 

Make sure you had windows 7 sp1 installed. I always got random BSOD's before I got that installed, but afterwords, the problems magically went away.

 

Check out this video and let us know the exact details of the BSOD.

LINK

 

I read a lot of times that it is best to install the dell drivers first before trying the latest ones. You might need to remove the ATI drivers and re-install the dell release.

Do you know what the BSOD was reporting, ati????.sys or kernel driver maybe? If it goes away too quickly, track down 'whocrashed' and post the results. Should help to track it down

 

it is ati****.sys, I'll do that as soon as I get back from work...
I didn't know that installing other drivers right after fresh windows install would mess things up, but my system is really messed up, u think I should reinstall Windows again?

 

I have seen some people (mainly ATI) having problems going straight to the latest release.

At this stage I'd say start again. No point in chasing issues with such a messed up install . Only use drivers from dell first, then test. If all OK create a system restore point and go for the manufactures' release.

Good luck

 

do u know how can I restore factory defaults without the windows 7 dvd?

I read somewhere that we have to press F10 and then choose the restore option, but what I get some sort of boot screen.

 

What you are looking for is a pre-installed partition on the HD that Dell use for an image.

I'm not sure of the access method or even if they did that on the R2. Hopefully Luis, who posted earlier can advise?

 

sorry double post!

 

Try F8 as soon as the alienhead disapears and select repair. Hopefully it will offer you a restore from the image?

 

anyone knows?

 

to make things worse I just got home and my computer is not recognizing CDs or anything it's like dead, it won't read, so I can't format and fresh install... I don't know what's happenning..

 

Weird! I assume you are getting into windows? If so then put the windows CD in and power it off. Then restart and press F12 at the alienhead screen. You should see a boot menu that you can select to boot from the CD (R2 might be diferent). Go from there.

If you don't get a boot menu, press F2 at the same point as before and go into the bios. Find the boot order and place the CD/DVD first. Restart and try that.

 

I've done that already, it seems that my cd drive is not even connected, I mean, it's like it's powered on but can't read any data, like a cable is disconnected, also I'm having huge beeps on boot 50% of the time I reboot my computer.

 

Sounding like a prety serious HW problem. At this point I'd try just disassembling everything and putting it back together. It might be just a loose connection. How many beeps? That can point to the area of the problem.

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?c=us&cs=19&docid=496582

 

I rebooted and tryied to count the number of beeps, it was arround 45-50 beeps, starts like regular beeps and then goes really fast.

I wasn't having any beeps before, just the driver BSOD, I disassembled it until the gpus and reseated them, now I'm getting these beeps, the beeps happens but it won't stop windows from booting, and I'm typing on it right now, the two problems right now are my GPU's that as soon as I install a driver they die and my CD/DVD not working i dont know why, beacuse I just used it few days ago to fresh install.

 

Maybe you didn't put it back together right, or zapped something (ESD)? I'm kinda at a loss. Is there a hardware diags option on F12?

 

yes there is, I just ran it, and it didn't show any errors. weird....
I'm making a usb boot to reinstall windows, that's my last shot.

 

Worth a shot. I'm still thinking something is not back right after the stripdown though (if that beeping is still happening?). Fingers crossed...

 

man thank you so much for your support, I'm just waiting for the Win7 iso to finish downloading and then run the USB boot.

in the mean time, I took a picture of my beloved BSOD.

http://img805.imageshack.us/img805/2054/20130125200654.jpg

 

I guess that's not my lucky day, I did a fresh install with a usb drive installed dell's drivers and it worked without giving me BSOD while browsing, but as soon as I start a game it will crash.

Also, I re-opened my laptop and reseated my keyboard that was the part that I was always moving but never disconnected, I had like 10 restarts without beeping, and then beep again. My CD drive still won't work, I'm starting to think that this is a motherboard problem, because I'm having all those random problems...

 

It is sounding that way. The BSOD is the common one I see with video driver issues but it can be hardware just as easilly.

Desperation here now, since you have crossfire, try removing one of the cards in turn and checking it out with just one ATI card? Or even without any ATI card at all? Maybe one of them has gone bad?

 

I disabled crossfire under Catalyst Control Center and my computer is working fine now, I guess it might be a faulty cfx cable or a gpu, using it for hours now, at least it's not dead, I bought some thermal paste online and I'll try to remove the heat sink from the gpu located right so I can unplug and reset the cfx cable, that's the only place I didn't try, because the cable is under the heatsink.

 

Could be the cable or a card but it is just as likely a driver issue.

I don't klow much about ATI drivers but it might be worth testing with the last dell release for your model to see if crossfire works?

Edit: Might also be worth opening up a new thread over in the R1/R2 owners lounge asking if there are any tricks to getting crossfire enabled on the latest drivers?