Bad Company 2 Crash / Freeze + BSOD... Help!

I have a clean install of Bad Company 2 on the following system

Athlon II x4 620 (I think)
2 GB DDR3 1333 mhz memory
Nvidia GTS 250 1 GB
Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Everything is stock. Framerate is good: 45+ @ medium settings at 1920x1080.

I have been monitoring the temperatures of the parts, and they are all low (the CPU / GPU seemed to max out in the 50's if I remember, even up to the point of the crash - I was logging them every 1 second to a file)

It's a clean install of the operating system and GPU drivers- the latest- version 260.99.

Basically I get point artifacts (the screen will freeze in game and turn funny colors, green dots) - then it hangs for a few seconds, the screen goes black and/or I get a BSOD. If I get a BSOD I get notified that nvlddmkm.sys stopped working and a pointer to 0x00000116.

This ONLY happens with Bad Company 2, in game (not the menus) and I think only in multiplayer also. No other game causes a crash (L4D2, Starcraft II, Modern Warfare 2, GTA4, Dirt 2, etc)

I was slightly worried about my PSU, but I'm starting to doubt it because it's a nice brand good reviewed, very new 550 watt power supply, and my system demands MUCH less, and it literally only happens with bad company 2.

Any help?

 

That GPU will be a lot hotter then 50c trust me, I'd expect it to be in the 80s easily. Artifacts normally indicate a GPU issue hence why the driver would crash afterwoods.

I'd check the GPU temperature myself, use HWmonitor and have it log to a file.

Also try a lower driver version, newer is not always better, non of the new 200 series of drivers work on my laptop and cause black screens of death the older 197s work fine..

 

I did furmark stability testing and got the GPU into the high 80's, and it was completely fine for an extended period of time.

I also ran memtest86 for a while and had no problems detected there.

 

Memtest has never been very reliable for me. I've had USB problems before due to bad ram and memtest found nothing, replaced them anyways and problem solved.

Any overclocking? I find prime95 is better for a system diagnostic and you can change the settings to help narrow down the issue.

 

No overclocking, can you help me figure out some prime 95 tests? I ran the balanced test only. I would run other tests especially if they can help isolate the problem.

It only happens in Bad Company 2 multiplayer so I started to think it might be network related, shut off the firewall, and the problem still occurs. Currently I'm testing the game with my ram underclocked from 1333 to 11xx.

I'm gonna run with the memory underclocked. If it's stable, I'll try putting it back to normal clocks and reproduce the issue. I might also experiment with overclocking the GPU / CPU while the memory is underclocked.

 

prime 95 guide

 

I've had similar crash problems specific to battlefield games, and read others with the same. Try uninstalling/disabling your sound and play for a bit to reproduce the crash. It has something to do with punkbuster and battlefield and/or realtek sound (thus, why it only crashes when you're online). All i know...is that whenever I play 2142 or Battlefield Heroes, I had to disable the sound. Eventually I found a workaround online somewhere.

 

I tried disabling realtek sound from the bios, but it still results in the same behavior (crash, bluescreen).

 

just an update on this in case anyone experiences a similar issue. it was the "obvious" answer.

the graphics driver stopped responding during the crash, because the GPU was failing. I replaced the GPU and no longer experience the issue.