Hey

[bootsy72]

For some reason, even after I have updated my video card drivers, my video card display adapter still has an exclamation mark after it under the system window in the control panel. I know that I have downloaded the correct device drivers.

They will install, and then everything will be fine... until I restart the computer.. then the exclamation comes back.. and the install is still there, I can find the files on the c: drive under an NVIDIA directory.. but the computer is not making the connection..

And files keep getting corrupted for no reason.. I just reformatted windows and am still having the same problem.

I have tried two different video cards and had the same issue... files just getting corrupted.

Is this a Motherboard issue?

Any ideas would be helpful. Thanks

[RickyTick]

I don't think it would be a motherboard issue. Probably video card and/or driver issue.


Download a program called Driver Cleaner Pro (or Driver Sweeper)
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745
Uninstall the video driver
Reboot in Safe Mode (press F8 while rebooting)
Run Driver Cleaner
Go to Nvidia.com and download the latest WHQL driver for your video card
Reboot normal.

Try this before doing anything drastic.

[bootsy72]

Thanks for your response Ricky.

I did as you said (downloaded driver cleaner, opened in safe mode, and ran it).

When I rebooted, windows started up but I could not use either my mouse or my keyboard and I kept receiving an error that "ctfmon.exe" could not be started because of something or other. I turned off the computer, restarted a couple of times, and kept having the same issue. So I ended up repairing my windows installation. Now here I am with windows repaired, and I am about to update my graphics driver.

I'll let you know how it goes.

[bootsy72]

The craziest thing has happened.

I am using internet explorer, and unless something is my homepage, it will not work.

I get to my homepage, type in a different website, and a new window shows up but nothing happens.. the webpage freezes.. and I cannot go anywhere or do anything on the web. I can only move around one sight as long as the link is not a pop up. Any kind of pop up or different website will not work. I managed to get here by making my homepage the forum website.

I restarted and my nvidia driver is still fine.. but now my internet is all screwed up, as mentioned above. What can I/should I do?

I suspect some malware or something.. is that possible even after reformatting and repairing? I don't know what to do. SUggestions?

[bootsy72]

I also cannot download anything.

[The Wise Monkey]

Have you got access to another computer? Try downloading Firefox, or some other browser, and see if the problem occurs with this other browser. If not, try and download the latest version of IE from the Microsoft website.

[bootsy72]

Mozilla works. Why might Internet Explorer not work?

Any ideas?

Thanks for the help fellas.

I just hope that this isn't another bad MB..

This super PC has not been very easy.. it's been a pain and it's driving my wife nuts

[The Wise Monkey]

Heh, I know the feeling.

It sounds like your IE files may be corrupted - perhaps something went wrong in the repair process.

Are you able to download the latest version via Windows Update?

[bootsy72]

Whatever is corrupting my IE files is messing up everything.. I came home from a baseball game (left the computer running about 3 hours) and it was just restarting over and over again trying to load but unable... it would go to the prompt screen giving you 30 seconds to move up or down from "start windows normally" to "use last working setup" or "safe mode" and so on. I tried to start windows normally and use last working setup but neither worked.. then when I shut off the computer and turned it back on it worked fine. That seems to be a pattern. Restarting the computer causes problems, but shutting it down and turning it back on seems to work fine. Any ideas guys?

Note: I have had the same problem on two different video cards...
Is this a memory issue?
Or just plain a MB issue?
I do not know how to make memtest work.. I've been to the webpage and downloaded it.. but I can't figure it out.

[RickyTick]

You've already replaced the mobo one time, right? Didn't you change from Asus to Gigabyte?

Try to get in the bios and check the voltage going to the ram. If its 1.8 volts, then bump it up to 2.0 or 2.1 just to see if it makes a difference. Nothing to loose. Its worth a try.

[bootsy72]

Hey Ricky,

I have returned the mobo once before.

I already bumped up the voltage to meet the specifications because the BIOS runs it a little lower so I have the voltage up +1. At those settings the computer worked fine for a long time; it's only been in the last month that there have been weird problems. It all started because the keyboard would turn off for no reason and quit working. Occasionally the monitor would go black. Both problems were fixable with a restart. Then in the last week, after I thought we had fixed the keyboard problem, all of a sudden files started getting corrupted and windows was unreliable--sometimes when I rebooted I'd have to reboot 10 times just to get back into windows. I blamed my MSI 8800GTS because it was after we installed that graphics card that the keyboard started glitching. (I ran the computer for like a month perfectly--0 problems--before changing out the graphics card). So, I turned off the computer when I couldn't get it to boot, and plugged in my old graphics card, and it booted up perfect. I reformatted the computer, and everything was going fine until I restarted after installing my updated graphics driver... when I restarted, the computer was still showing an exclamation next to my graphics adapter (and I'm positive I have the right drivers). I told you guys about it, you recommended Driver Cleaner, which I used.. but am still having the same problems--EVEN after having to repair my fresh (like 2 days ago) Windows install.

Thing is, after having the new graphics card for like 24 hours the mouse and keyboard cables were damaged while everything was running because our pet chewed into them a bit. We did not realize it right away--and were using the mouse and keyboard--and then they suddenly quit working after my wife noticed they were damaged. We bought a new mouse and keyboard, and everything was fine.. but then the keyboard started shutting off... we bought a new keyboard... used the BIOS to enable USB keyboard and mouse... still had the problem.. downclocked my stock overclocked graphics card... seemed to help.. but still had the problem.

Anyways--I'm afraid the damage done to the keyboard and mouse connection might actually hurt the mobo and now it's really hurting.

What do you guys think?

[bootsy72]

Also, I forgot to mention that under my tasks i have the following

Kernel Fault Check dumprep 0 -k

What is that? I use WinPatrol and it does not tell me anything about it.

[The Wise Monkey]

The kernel is the core of the Windows OS, and this is saying that an error has occurred within the kernel. However, it could have been caused by one of a number of programs that use the Windows Error Reporting service as their exception handler. It gets very technical, but it doesn't tell you very much - just that one of your programs or the OS threw an error.

To be honest, it seems like you are trying to bodge the system back to working. Sometimes, it is just better to reformat and start again - not repair. Backup all your files, re-install your OS, then see if it works. If not, then you have a hardware problem, if it does, then install drivers one at a time, restarting after each install, until they are finished or you encounter an error.

I know this is a real pain - have had to do it myself loads of times. However, it is the best way to get a clean slate and to isolate the problem.

[bootsy72]

Hey Wise,

Thanks for your response.

The thing is, I just reformatted my hard drive 2 days ago because of this same problem. I switched out my graphics cards as well. It was after I installed the graphics drivers that things got funny. But it can't be the graphics card because that would mean both graphics cards I have are bad (and this one worked fine before I took it out a couple of months ago). So right now I have a fresh install, that I had to repair after using driver cleaner because ctfmon.exe or something like that would not run after I used driver cleaner.

Thoughts?

[The Wise Monkey]

ctfmon is a Windows process that deals with the Microsoft Office lanugage bar, and the alternative user input services.

Try installing some previous drivers as opposed to the latest versions and see if that makes any difference.

[bootsy72]

Ok... originally, I downloaded the 175 drivers from the NVIDIA sight.. then I jumped back to the 169.. that is what I was using until your recommendation and now I am on the 163 drivers. I did one restart and it was flawless. That's a big deal. lol Usually there are problems within a couple of hours--I am about to leave for a couple of hours, when I get back, I'll let you know how it is going.

I was looking at the NVIDIA forums and apparently both the 169 and 175 driver updates were buggy.. both are for the g92 graphics cards (which is what I have coming in the mail to replace my MSI right now--should be here tomorrow). So hopefully both of the driver updates were just buggy, and I can be on my merry way. =)

Thanks guys--will let you know what happens

[The Wise Monkey]

I hope this sorts your problems - its a shame that you are having these issues. :(

[bootsy72]

Thanks for your help Wise.

Check it out--2 restarts and everything is kosher... hours have gone by and everything is kosher... EXCEPT... my windows updates won't install. no error is given, it just says that they couldn't be installed, and then it gives me the option to click close.

Ideas?

[bootsy72]

Ok... check it out. Because IE was acting funky before, I got online to download the update for it.. I thought this might help the windows updating too... anyways, in the process of installing the update, I got a stop error

Stop: 0x0000008E (0xC0000005, 0x805BD3E7, 0xB680BBB8, 0x0000000)

Beginning dump of physical mem
Dumping physical mem to disk: 1-35


That is what it showed.. I let it dump physical mem to disk up to the number 35 before I shut down. It counted to 35 by ones.

WHAT is going on?! lol

[RickyTick]

Check this out.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827663

btw, have you also loaded SP2?

[bootsy72]

Alright...

I followed the link that you left, but in order to download/install the updates you have to be using Internet Explorer.. and remember, my internet explorer was all jacked up.

I just reformatted the computer. Everything is fine now.

I read that Avast Antivirus version 4.8 (the one I was using) was giving people random BSODs.. that's why I reformatted.

Now I don't know which video drivers to download (because apparently they have given people trouble) and I don't know what free antivirus to download...

suggestions?

[The Wise Monkey]

AVG Free is pretty good and free:

http://free.grisoft.com/

Try downloading a couple of revisions back for the video drivers first, and see if they are stable.

[bootsy72]

Thanks Wise.

I now have AVG and the most recent video card drivers (I went with my intuition and downloaded them--I'm blaming everything on Avast).

I do hate to blame avast.. I really liked it and used it over a year on my laptop.. but for some reason it did not like this configuration.

Do you have any guesses as to why it would work fine on the laptop and not on my super pc?

I will let you guys know if we have no problems for a bit. About to perform my first restart since installing the new drivers.

[bootsy72]

Well, I got some stop errors this morning (after the computer ran all night perfectly fine). I could not restart and boot up properly, I had to shut the system down and then it turned on flawlessly (weird how that happens).

I ran driver cleaner and got rid of the new NVIDIA drivers--I am downloading an older version of them right now. I am also downloading from the gigabyte website updates for all the drivers on my MB.

Hope it helps.

[The Wise Monkey]

Let us know how it goes - I know that it must be very frustrating.

[chunkylover53]

Bootsy, have you run memtest86 yet to test the memory? The problem you described in post #11 sounds like what has happened to me before, and it was a bad memory module. I really think you ought to try it.

[zburns]

I had a brief incident on my new build which has some similarity to what I am reading on your problem. About one month ago I had just loaded Vista Ultimate but no anti virus, no windows updates, no Vista SP1. Before going on line to load drivers, I insisted (to my self) to load my Nod32 antivirus. My video card had not yet been recognized in Device Manager,either.

Started downloading drivers with no problem. Windows update started telling me it was "updating". At some point Windows "recognized a new device" -- the video card, and recommended a driver, etc..

Somewhere in this sequence which really had been very orderly and made sense to me, so far, everything on my screen slowly started to go "haywire"; things would change for no reason. I would reboot, same story.

My first thought was the anti virus, Nod32. I called their tech support and described what I was seeing. The tech quickly informed me to turn off the Nod32 until I had finished downloading all drivers. He further said "not to worry about viruses from manufacturers driver sites or any reputable site like Microsoft; viruses come from unreliable sites, servers, email etc.."

So I turned off the AV, problem immediately stopped; I then finished some grand total of 80 Vista updates, then downloaded SP1. No problems at all while doing this -- frankly I was amazed. That was all about a month ago; since then, absolutely not one problem, hiccup with Vista or the antivirus.

Oddly enough, even tho I turned the antivirus off and the prob went away, I did not realize that the Antivirus probably restarted it self after a reboot or after turning power off and back on.

This was a long four or five hour sequence which had one scary hour of an obvious problem; otherwise everything went so smooth that you could not believe it.

I can only attribute the problem to a conflict with the antivirus and a combination of something I was downloading, or lack of some update that was quickly auto downloaded by Windows.

One other reinforcing point. I looked at Amazon for "reviews" and antivirus software before purchasing. Nod 32 had five, "five star" reviews -- all glowing reports. Somewhere in Amazon, or another website, I ran across one reivew, that reported an awful problem, unresolved by the writer, that was very similar to what I describe above -- his computer went crazy with the Nod32 installed -- he unloaded it and installed something else.

If you have constantly had antivirus installed most of the time, some of the time or all the time, my experience above says turn it off or deinstall and see what happens.
zburns

[The Wise Monkey]

Video drivers and chipset drivers should always be the first thing you install, even before anti-virus software, as this can interfere with the installation of the drivers.