Sigh, I've done something bad (M17x)

Specs:

T9600 at stock speed
4 gig 1333 mem
300 gig(x2) raid 0
Vista 64


Background:

I was playing Medieval II and was getting some weird video glitches, so I tried to run 3dmark06 to test my video cards. I started getting a COM Surrogate error so I did some research on it and followed all the guides to fix it and nothing worked. So I decided to uninstall my video drivers so I could downgrade my drivers from 186.91 to 186.82 because I know I didn't have any problems with the 186.82 drivers (but I have ran 3dmark06 with the 186.92 drivers before and never had the COM Surrogate error but wanted to be sure). I did that and rebooted and it was still showing Nvidia 280m's in device manager (before you install the drivers it doesn't show it).

Since it was showing the 280m's still, I thought maybe I didn't uninstall the right drivers so I just uninstall ALL of the Nvidia drivers. Did that rebooted, and it started saying it was trying to find drivers for the SMbus and ethernet etc. So I said F it, I'll restore a backup when I had 186.82 installed. Did that and was still getting the COM Surrogate error when trying to run 3dmark06.

So I said F it, I'll restore it back to the original state I got it in from Alienware with the restore option. Did that, as it was installing and setting up the desktop I had a BSOD error. Rebooted, then it tried to reinstall the desktop. I had to pick a NEW user name since it had the old one in the system and then it installed the desktop fine. I installed a few basic things (better mouse drivers cause the wireless mouse seemed choppy). Then I installed 3dmark06, and STILL got the COM Surrogate error. Ran some CPU tests like Intelburn and the CPU temps were only going to 50c (that didn't hit me weird till later lol). So I said wow, these restores must NOT RESTORE EVERYTHING. I was guessing they left a file here or there so I said F it again and decided to just do a complete reinstall of Vista.

Booted from CD, reformated the HD, reinstalled Vista, etc. Installed all the drivers from the resource DVD from Alienware and installed the 186.82 Nvidia drivers. Installed 3dmark06 and tried to run it and got the damn COM Surrogate error again (I was baffled since I never got this error the first time I installed it). Installed intelburn, Prime95, Osbro-whatever, Passmark, and Super PI. Ran intelburn it was still only getting up in the lower 50's (right when I got the computer and installed it it would push it into the upper 80's). It hit me then that that wasn't right. Ran Super-pi and ran the 1M test and I was taking over a minute to finish it (Best time was 13.something seconds for me). Ran Passmark and I'm getting a overall score of 286. Knew that can't be right. Ran the Vista test and got a 5.6 on the cpu /shrug.

So I rebooted and ran the Alienware Diagnostics and when I started it I was getting some kind of USB error. When I ran the extended test, the only errors I was getting was some kind of audio inturpret errors and a 1344(or whatever the thing is called) inturpret error.

Anyone have any clue what I could have done to the cpu or something related? It's something that crippled the CPU speed or something that has to do with the cpu (or maybe the motherboard).

I'm clueless and baffled at this point lol.

 

After upgrading some drivers I got COM Surrogate error while trying to run Vantage.

Did some research but the only fix I could find which was disabling some Windows check thing didn't work in 64bit so said meh I don't need Vantage anyway.

Ran Vantage a week ago about three weeks after the problem first showed up and it ran fine.
So forget the COM Surrogate thing it's some Windows issue.

As for your CPU slowdown ect sorry got no idea

 

I would try using another version of windows if you are willing to wipe your laptop that much. I would suggest Win7 RC or Windows Server 2008 for free.
Only install the video drivers if possible. From experience I know that chipset drivers are not always that bugfree, but the standard Microsoft drivers can sometimes work better.

Or get a boot disk that can do memory stress tests. Worst case it is a bad motherboard and you will need to send it in.

 

Not sure why your CPU would slow down....If I was in that situation, I would respawn or reinstall again. Something may have got corrupted when you had the BSOD during install.

 

I know this is a kind of obvious answer. Are you sure stealth mode isn't enabled? I do believe that it stays triggered through reboots and even reformats.

 

After my 4th complete install of Vista it FINALLY started working right again /shrug.

Can you still download and get a key for windows 7 64-bit RC? I'm getting the Windows 7 64-bit upgrade but it will take about month to get it mailed here.

 

Last I looked the download was no longer available but you could still register for a key.