BSOD and MORE issues on my m9700

Hello all, wow long night! Ok so today I decided to re-format using my Alienware XP Home CD to free up some HD space... I reformatted like I normally do and everything went perfect.

Then a few hours later, I decided to do a thorough physical cleaning of dust as well... I carefully (and correctly, not the first time) took out the battery pack, HD, both RAM sticks, both graphics cards, and both fan units.... Then I blew out a solid amount of dust, carefully cleaned it out, and re-assembled it....

Now this is where my problems started. Everything booted up fine to desktop, then I opened up a game (AoC) and AFTER completing the loading stage the graphics got really distorted and the whole computer locked up... I manually restarted, then I got a BSOD right after seeing my Windows XP password login prompt.... I had to physically change something, whether just disconnecting and reconnecting the SLI cables, or something, just to be able to reboot and NOT have that BSOD, orelse it came up everytime.... Then I tried MANY combinations of switching out and swapping both graphics cards and both memory sticks, yet I still encounter the same problems... Even tried about 3 different graphics drivers (fully removed each), so I don't think it's the graphics drivers, as they all have been working fine before I PHYSICALLY cleaned the dust from my laptop...

So obviously after dissasembling it, it lead to all these BSOD issues... I got some other BSOD randomly also... Too many different types to list out... I can't even try reformating or go through "sfc /scannow" without it either leading to another BSOD or randomly restarting during the scannow processes, preventing it from completion...

Sorry extremely long post, but I have no idea what to even do now... It's working fine for normal use but I basically can't open games (and not sure what else).... Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

 

How's it going Lardmaster,
I know this might sound like a novice statement, but you may have accidently zapped your video card/s with ESD. Were you using an ESD mat, ESD bracelet, or did you touch a metal part of the case before removing the hardware? If not, this is most likely the case. Based on the distortion of graphics, I'd have to say that one or both video cards could be damaged. Have you tried with one video card? What does the blue screen say?

Hope this helps,
Gabe

 

Hi thanks for the response. I don't use any of those although I do 'ground' myself generally by touching metals. Is it possible that maybe new thermal grease needs to be applied? This is 1.5 years old and I have never changed it. I have also tried all the combos of my two graphics cards and still the same issues.

The blue screens show any of the following:
0x00000050 (0x80EF92C3, 0x000000000, 0x80EF92C3, 0x000000000)
0x0000008E (0xCooooo1D, 0x8082A665, 0xF7283010, 0x00000000)

0x00000012
0x0000000A

But normally when I start a game it just freezes, and that mostly leads to the BSOD upon restart, but I haven't seen them lately, I'm just getting the freezes now... Although I recieved some BSOD during 'sfc /scannow' and attempting a reformat.... Thank you.

 

hey lardmaster

if you didn't clean the heat transfer surfaces on your gpu's, cpu and heatsinks and applied new paste that could very well be your problem - I would try that first...IMO you need to do that every time you remove the heatsink, if air or dirt gets in there it degrades the heat transfer.

good luck

 

Hi lardmaster,
So you're getting some memory addressing on the blue screen? Does it say anything related to a physical memory dump by chance? If it does, you might be looking at an incorrectly seated, or possibly damaged memory stick.

Gabe

 

Hey use this it may work!

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx

 

Thanks guys for all the help so far. Here's the update: I went to my local computer shop looking for some Arctic Silver 5 but they were out, so on the spot I went with Antec Formula 5 Silver Thermal Compound (which I just read is nearly identical to AS5) and some grease cleaning alcohol liquid... (they did not have any purifier)

Then I cleaned and greased both GPUs and the chipset and re-assembled.... Still had problems... Then I went back to do the CPU core and re-assembled back up.... And that's where I'm at now, just recently completed fully greasing. So far it seems steady after doing the CPU core. I was able to run a full "sfc /scannow" just to test, and I was able to test 1 of my 2 games so far for a couple minutes, and it didn't lock up or BSOD during those few minutes.... So I'm hoping the CPU core grease was the issue... I still have more testing to do tomorow and I'll report back if I still have any issues. Hopefully not! *crosses fingers*

Thanks again.

 

cheers buddy! sounds promising...
it's entirely possible that there was a large air gap b/w your heatsink and cpu resulting is overheating...hope that's all it was