GPU load (in GPU-Z) keep going to 0%. Shocks ingame. vga.sys driver not loading

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Alessandrogi

Honorable
Jan 9, 2014
6
0
10,510
Hey,

my screen often freezes for a couple of seconds. Not only when playing games (especially when playing games, but also while I'm typing this for example, every couple of seconds it freezes for a second or so). This is annoying while working and just using the computer in general, but it makes playing games impossible. I can't react to anything.

I have loaded GPU-Z, and I monitored it closely. Everytime I get a freeze the GPU Load falls to 0%. Does this mean I have a faulty gpu? Is the hardware broken or does it have to do with some driver for example? I have downloaded the newest nvidia driver from the nvidia site. I have tried a lot of different versions to see if it had to do with a specific driver version, but no luck. It freezes with every driver. I have reinstalled windows, twice. Once with 7 home basic, then with 7 professional (just to check if I had a corrupt version of windows), but still no luck. I have tried to do a bootlog, and also there I have the following line: Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\drivers\vga.sys .

I still have about 1 year warranty on this laptop (Yes it's a laptop, the gpu is a Quadro 1000M), but if it turns out it's a software issue, I will have to pay the technician since they only cover hardware issues and I've "wasted his time". So I only want to give in the laptop if I'm 100% sure it has to do with the hardware.

Anyone?
 
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Brantyn Gerik

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Sep 18, 2013
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the technician will charge labour regardless of what the problem is.

you can try to download the newest driver for the integrated graphics on your processor which can help with this problem (never try bootleg operating systems, as they are just loads of trouble if you don't know exactly what you are doing
 
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Alessandrogi

Honorable
Jan 9, 2014
6
0
10,510
No he will not charge, I have warranty that works as follows: if I send in the laptop and it turns out there's a problem, it gets fixed and the warranty covers it. If I send it in, and it turns out there's no problem, I have to pay the labour and also pay the shipping costs etc.

I already have the newest driver (january 8th), problem still persistnig.
I noticed the core clock, memory clock and shader clock graphs also go to 0 from time to time while in one of these shocks (not so often as the gpu load going to 0 though), while doing nothing. For example, I'm typing now and when it freezes while typing it has to do with the core, memory and shader graphs dropping.
http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/14/01/09/5v.png

I don't have a bootleg OS, I have legit versions of windows 7, both home basic as professional.

Any help?
 
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Brantyn Gerik

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Sep 18, 2013
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I would send it back, as it appears to be a failure of the video card in your system. I personally have not heard of a technician wanting to charge simply because it was a software problem over a hardware problem :/ i'm in class at the moment, so my attention is slightly limited, but i do still wish to help :D
 
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Alessandrogi

Honorable
Jan 9, 2014
6
0
10,510
Thanks for your input.

Yeah, that's the way the warranty works with this laptop. It's part of a campus project, so that students can afford medium-end laptops (in order to do heavy computational calculations) for an affordable price. Therefore the warranty is a "budget" warranty.

Are you sure this is a failure? As I am giving some evidence, but the warranty people are stubborn as hell (My roommate had a broken HDD and they said it wasn't broken according to their tests, while it clearly was) so I need something so that I can show them 100% sure that it's broken.

Again thanks so far.
 
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Brantyn Gerik

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Sep 18, 2013
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Universities are total money grabs in my opinion for these things, and it can be hard to find a campus with a tech that genuinely wants to help you for as little money as possible. Charging money for 'wasting time' is a definite representation of the type of staff you are dealing with. If you have tried all the other options, then it LOOKS like a hardware problem, but like i said, it's really hard to tell.
 
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Alessandrogi

Honorable
Jan 9, 2014
6
0
10,510
Well, the only 'test' I have done so far is monitoring GPU-Z for a couple of hours.
Is there some kind of trustworthy software in order to do GPU checks to diagnose if there's actually a problem?

And what about the "did not load driver vga.sys". I did tons of googling for that, and that was why I reinstalled the OS in the first place, I was hoping a fresh install would solve it. I've also tried all solutions I found on the internet, but it's still persisting...
 
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Brantyn Gerik

Dignified
Sep 18, 2013
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15,960
The only real way i can think is to literally just install the os onto a new, blank hard drive, and install drivers from the internet where possible (the laptop should have come with the driver cd that you need to get it in at least running order from a fresh install point). If this does not fix the problem, then honestly i'd say it's been narrowed down to a hardware problem
 
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Alessandrogi

Honorable
Jan 9, 2014
6
0
10,510
I formatted my hard drive and installed a fresh copy of windows (both the one from my HP_Recovery partition which lets my laptop go back to factory state, but I don't like that one since it comes with loads of HP bloatware and it didn't solve my problem, so that's when I installed a fresh, legit, copy of Win7 Pro which I got from campus) and installed drivers I downloaded manually exclusively from the manufacturer's site (HP). I didn't use any drivers from windows update (it's disabled for now) and/or programs like HP Support Assistant which downloads and installs drivers for you.

The only thing I didn't do, what you mentioned, is using a new HDD, since my HDD is just fine I think (I ran tests for it as well). I also looked up symptoms of a failing HDDs and I don't have anything like that.

I'll swing by the warranty's service desk on campus tomorrow and see if they are willing to take my laptop in then. Thanks for the help and advice.

Still I have one unanswered question; is there some kind of software that tests the gpu for failures. I mean like a gpu stresser for example that then checks if everything is going as it should?
 
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Alessandrogi

Honorable
Jan 9, 2014
6
0
10,510
Yeah, it's a hardware issue.
I got the exact same loan laptop from the warranty company, put on a clone I did of my own laptop, and look at the result:
http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/14/01/10/bqk.png

versus mine:
http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/14/01/09/8r5.png

Same, EXACT, system image, this loan laptop having a constant GPU load and normal temperature, while mine has a dropping gpu load, weird clock speeds and a high temperature.

Problem solved, as soon as I'll get my laptop back from the warranty company :)
 
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