Recurring BSOD Error - M17x R3

Howdy! In my time troubleshooting past problems with this laptop I've seen how helpful everyone here is, so I figured I would come here for help, as I've nowhere else to turn. This is my first post, so, bear with me. I'll try to be as cooperative as I can!

I'm dealing with a super pesky BSOD issue. It's always the same error - DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE 0x0000009F. It happens at random times; I haven't been able to isolate what's causing it. I installed WinDbg and tried looking at the minidumps, it said it was pci.sys (?) causing an error (I have the dumps of the most recent BSODs if you want them). I also used BlueScreenView and in all of past 5 dumps it highlights

as the error. I've done lots of troubleshooting through google, lots of which happened to be viewing threads on this forum! I saw someone whose Realtek Card Reader driver was the issue, but when I tried the driver that worked for him, I got a BSOD the next day (I then proceeded to uninstall that driver and re-install the original). I read also that it's an issue with the integrated graphics. That makes some sense because I never remember crashing while gaming, using the main card, but that could merely be coincidence as the BSODs aren't frequent enough to say. I didn't know if switching between integrated and the main card could be a problem..? I also saw a thread in which someone said that it was a problem with the GTX 460M (my card) itself, and that Dell said it was causing issues, and needed to be replaced. I didn't want to have to resort to that if I didn't have to, so I'm coming here for help!

Here are my specs:

Code:

Computer Model M17xR3 
BIOS Vendor Alienware 
BIOS Version A08 
BIOS Date 07-29-11 
Windows Version Microsoft Windows 7 Professional  SP 1
 

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.20GHz 
Clock Speed 2.3GHz 
L2 Cache Size 256 

8GB RAM

Network Card Adapter DW1501 Wireless-N WLAN Half-Mini Card 

Display Adapters 
    Intel(R) HD Graphics Family -250.087890625Mb 
     NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M 1536Mb

Sound Devices 
    IDT High Definition Audio CODEC 
     Intel(R) Display Audio 

USB Controllers 
    Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C26 
     Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller 
     Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C2D 

The driver for my 460M is version 285.62. I believe I installed it to play BF3, I think I had to use a modded inf, because it wouldn't work otherwise.


Anyways, I'm not sure if this will help, but here's other background info: Since, maybe, mid-October I've been getting these BSOD on a somewhat frequent basis. I might have 3 in one day, none for two weeks, and then 2 more in the span of 2 days. I had ignored it as it seemed to grow less frequent and I didn't have the time to attempt to fix the problem or have my laptop out of commission - as I was in the middle of my semester. I don't know what I changed on my machine to cause this -- about a day before the first BSOD, I vaguely remember attempting to install some printer driver for a friend's printer, which I uninstalled shortly after. I don't think that it's the cause, just coincidence, probably.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

Put your dump files (C:\Windows\Minidump) into a .zip archive and upload them.

 

The way to fix that is to use the Nvidia drivers FROM DELL(beta is the most recent) not sure about ati.

^

Biggest disappointment for me!

dell/alienware will come out with later driver that are worth using.


TRUST THE ALIEN OF WARE!

dinky.

 

Download and run WhoCrashed ( http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed). It analyses the same dump data, but reports the results in a more plain English manner, often providing a Google search term to get you started toward a solution.

 

So, I just noticed that there's a GTX 460M Vbios A02 urgent update available from dell, which I don't have. I'll see if that changes anything.
UPDATE: Updated the Vbios to the new version. We'll see what happens...

Okay; I attached them to this post.

I believe the newest beta driver from dell is the one I have; when I installed it a month or so ago I believe it wouldn't work without a modded .inf, but I can try again. UPDATE: Yeah, the beta driver is indeed the one I already currently have installed. And even when I run the setup it says "The graphics driver could not find compatible graphics hardware." I believe that's what led me to get the modded .inf the first time I went to install it.

I installed and ran WhoCrashed on my dumps and it told me the exact same thing that BlueScreenView did - "This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x7CC40)"

 

While pci.sys was the cause, it does involve your nVidia driver. You may want to give the latest beta drivers for nVidia a try (290.53).

Make sure all your other drivers are up to date as well.

Do you have any anti-virus or firewall software installed? If so, which one? Some anti-virus programs have been known to cause problems.

Failing that, you can try and see if there's anything wrong with the system files: External Link (sevenforums.com)

If all else fails, it could be a hardware problem in which case I would contact Dell for a GPU replacement.

 

Alrighty, I installed the latest Verde nVidia driver - 290.53 - like you suggested, we'll see what happens.

I believe all of my other drivers are up to date as well (is there a suggested way to be sure of this?).

As for security, I've got ESET Smart Security installed. I've never had any issues with it before, though.

And just to check, I ran the system file checker and there was nothing wrong.

 

.... Kay. That's word for word one of the lines in aznpos531's post.


I believe all of my other drivers are up to date. Is there some way that I could be sure of this or a method to "make sure all my other drivers are up to date?"

 

Stragest thing.
This was happening to me aswell, unistalled mcfee, updated drivers to dell website.
Happened once or twice again, and then it just stoped. Never happened again...

 

Not sure about ESET but I do know that McAfee, AVG, Zone Alarm etc. have been known to cause BSOD's. As soon as they were uninstalled and MSE installed in its place, BSOD's went away.

I'm not sure if there's a quick way to do it but you can run through your devices and check the date of the driver, then compare the date of your driver with the drivers' date on the Dell website.

One thing that I did think of, did you update the vBIOS for your 460M? If not, this could well be a fix! If you have, we'll have to keep working at it.
External Link (dell.com)

 

Yeah, it's weird because I can go a week or three straight without having them, and then BOOM - 3 in a row.

Ah, gotcha; I'll wait to see if I get another BSOD before uninstalling ESET.

And I've been checking to see if there's any new drivers through the service tag specified dell drivers download page. I believe I'm up to date.

Regarding the vBIOS, yeah, in a few posts back I mentioned how I noticed there was an update and am now running on the updated vBIOS:

Since then I've also installed that beta driver you talked about.

What's interesting is that since I started this thread I haven't had a BSOD... but they were never frequent enough to tell if something I've tried is working, but hopefully the vBIOS update is the key!

We'll see I guess.

 

I must've overlooked that post.
Well in any case, I hope the problem gets resolved with the new nVidia driver.

 

Alright, well, as of about an hour ago I received another BSOD ... and then I got another about 30 mins later.

I went into WinDbg again and looked at the two most recent dumps and it told me the exact same thing as it did with the older ones, except I noticed that I had been overlooking something it mentioned about nvlddmkm.sys. I googled this and found that it can cause some BSODs or errors. Supposedly nvidia's driver updates don't replace this file which causes issues, so I had to do it manually (I used Handling "nvlddmkm.sys" Crash | Kioskea.net as a guide, there were a bunch of other things I found citing the same method). We'll see if that did anything!

Anyways, regardless, I'll upload these two new dump files (they're attached).

 

That was the reason I suggested updating your nVidia drivers but I had no idea that the driver updates didn't replace the file. That's an interesting fix you linked to. Let me know if it resolves the issue! I'd be interested to know.

 

I also noticed something weird. When my laptop's plugged in, and I open the lid, resuming it from sleep, it says "System is currently in battery mode. Plug in the AC adapter.." blah blah. That window's title is "Switching graphics card." This doesn't make sense, considering that it's plugged in when I open the lid. I have to unplug and replug in the cord for it to pop up as AC Power. Is this just a bug? Or could this be related?

 

Hmmm...that is indeed very weird. Although you're not the only one having problems with the AC adapter not being detected (there was a few threads talking about that), this is the first time I've heard of it involving "switching graphics card". Sounds like yet another problem with optimus. I can't really say for sure if it's related or not since I've never encountered anything like that; presumably because I rarely sleep my computer.

Have you applied the nvlddmkm.sys fix yet?

 

Yeah, I think it's because depending on whether you're running off battery or AC power it can switch to/from integrated graphics...? I'm not sure. All I know is that the little window the message was on was titled "Switching graphics cards." I'll screenshot next time I see it.

And yeah, I applied that fix right before I posted about it. I'm just waitin' for a BSOD to sneak up on me... hahaha

 

Is your power management profile set to High Performance? If not, you can try setting it to High Performance (either through control panel or the command center) and see if it eliminates that problem.

haha...Keep us posted on that! Hope there are no more BSOD's for you!

 

I just set it to High Performance in the command center - I'll keep you all updated!

 

the card reader driver caused me a LOT of problems with BSOD, I removed it and everything worked well
I couldnt even boot into windows at some point, try removing that driver if you haven't

 

Ha. So. About 2 minutes after posting my last post I got another BSOD...

Same causes are reported by WhoCrashed and WinDbg, but, however, this time BlueScreenView adds a second cause besides ntoskrnl.exe -- it says dxgmms1.sys was an issue.

... This most recent minidump file is attached.

Interesting -- which driver is this, specifically?
UPDATE: If you're referencing the Realtek PCIE Card Reader driver - I just removed it. We'll see what happens!

 

Dang...I was really hoping the fix you linked to a few posts back would solve it.
dxgmms1.sys still points to a graphics card/driver issue. I would try to reinstall the nVidia drivers from scratch. Uninstall the driver, reboot, run ccleaner or driver sweeper, then install the driver again choosing clean install from the custom installation.
Another thing you could try is to make sure you have the latest version of DirectX. dxgmms1.sys might be DirectX file (I don't remember exactly) It's a long shot but might be worth a try. It will have to be a clean install as well.

If that fails it may indicate a faulty GPU and your only option left that I can see is to contact Alienware especially if your computer is still under warranty.

@ Fire_storm Interesting bit about the card reader driver causing problems. Let's hope it helps Mackles.

 

I removed that Realtek driver before posting about the next BSOD - so that wasn't it :/

And I tried to completely uninstall my nVidia drivers and re-install the new beta but it keeps saying Driver Installation Failed at the end of the install... I tried re-removing everything manually and using driver sweeper and it still gave me that error. I just system restored so I'm back to where I was at before, but I don't know if it's worth trying to re-uninstall everything and try and get the new drivers to install again. Bah. This is balls.

 

Well that sucks...
It didn't give any indication as to why the installation failed?

 

The installation bar went at least 75% of the way and then it says "Driver Installation Failed." and shows a list of the components and it says that they all failed :/

 

I really don't know what else to try other than to reboot into safe mode and uninstall the nVidia and PhysX drivers from there. Reboot to safe mode again and run ccleaner and purge the registry. Reboot once more normally and give the install another go.

 

Meep. I posted on another forum or two to see what an outside opinion has to say. This bothers me. hahahaha

 

Mackles,

Upon a quick glance at this thread, I seem to be having the EXACT same problem! When I get a chance, I'll review in more detail and try some of the suggestions here and post back results. And I get that "Switch Graphic Card" pop-up all the time! Here's a pic of it:

SwitchGraphicCard - Kelley.Peart's library

 

Huh! Interesting.

I haven't had a BSOD in about 3 weeks, but I get them once or twice a month still. I haven't had time to try anything else or fix the error, but I'd love to see what you come up with!

And that is the exact thing I see as well!

 

make sure windows is all up to date. When I had my 460m and did a fresh install, I got BSOD's all the time until I got windows 7 sp1 installed. After that its smooth sailing.

 

Updates haven't changed anything, and I do have SP1 anyways