Dirty Power or a Faulty Video Card?

Well guys, I'm stumped! I've tried everything I can, but I kept getting that dreaded "nvlddmkm has stopped but has restarted successfully" error. The only catch is that this morning, my laptop went from that error to BSOD, or just locking up completely if it tries to access anything remotely 3D (including the spinning nVidia logo on the nVidia control panel 3D settings.)
I've got an M860TU, with a GTX 260m video card. The bios is up to date, and I've tried numerous nVidia drivers. The really odd thing though, is that my computer runs flawlessly if it's only on battery power. I know the BIOS clocks down the computer to some extent when it's on battery power, and I was wondering if there was any way to recreate that while it was plugged in. Using just the Windows Power Management isn't enough.
Am I totally crazy thinking I could do this? Should I just pack it in and try some new hardware? Could it really be a faulty power cable that's causing all my woes!? Anything I can do to check indefinitely what my problem is? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Cheezer69

 

Well with a lot of drivers past nvidia 186.81 I would get the same BSOD when entering windows (9800m gtx) with the power plugged in. So I would have to go into windows on battery and then plug in after windows had loaded.

I also found that to completely disable powermizer fixed the problem. So you could try the 186.81 or the new 258.96 notebook drivers. I am using the 258.96 and they have been fine.

 

Well I've tried a different power adapter, the drivers you suggested, and I've used each RAM stick individually. (The error is still there regardless of what I did, regardless of the combination.)

Still crashes as long as it's plugged in. Is the video card just plain faulty? I would still like to see if there's a way I can emulate the settings my laptop goes into when it's unplugged, while it's plugged in, if at all possible. If to at least make it usable temporarily until I can get a relacement card. If that's necessary anyways.

Thanks!

 

I've had that error on a desktop gpu before, it turns out the card was toast, so i had to replace it. This might be the same in your case, though i am not sure.

 

I think you're right, the more digging I do while I just hang out for responses on the forums and stuff, the worse it seems to get. Now even if I unplug it, it starts throwing me the error with anything 3D.

 

I had this problem a long time ago. I can't really remember how I resolved it: it was either I updated the gfx card driver, or I did a clean install of Windows xp + drivers (probably due to a concurrent OS issue). I contacted Sager about it in 2008.

The following is an email reply I got from them on this issue (quote):

"...the vBIOS varies with different cards. The vBIOS for 7950 and 8700
are different. The vBIOS for 8800 and 9800 are the same. If Windows displays the NV4 driver failed message, it is likely that the video card has hardware problem. I think you need to check the video cards one at a time. Please disable the SLi mode. Run 3D benchmark to check the score and run 3D bench demo to see if the same error message pops up. To test the video in the parent slot is more involved. You need to change vBIOS of the parent card to 45.24 first. Then swap the two video cards. Run 3D bench to see the score of that card. Run 3D bench demo to see if the NV4 driver error shows up. You may catch a failed video card."

He was a really nice guy. He's was talking about a vBIOS.iso he sent me relating to a different issue at the time. In the end I didn't do any of the above, sounded far to complicated at the time (would be no problem now). I know I didn't do anything very complicated to resolve it, was either gfx card driver update or clean OS install.