disp_nv4 BSOD error - need some help

[Jie]

Heyas,

I've been getting a strange BSOD error over the past few months. It started when I began playing Oblivion. When entering certain locations the computer would crash to a BSOD, giving me the error of disp_nv4 error. The computer had entered into an infinite loop. I've since shelved Oblivion and ocassionally still get the same BSOD when playing other games.

I've done pretty much all that can be done without replacing a second eVGA 7800GTX I just purchased for an SLI setup. I gues my main question is can this BSOD be caused by power supply issues? I know this is a known driver error, but was curious if my system is a bit taxed. I'm not at home, but I belive I have an Enermax 660w Power suply that has never given me any problems.

Just thought I'd also mention it takes my PC ages to load and it ussually drops to a blank screen a few times before loading windows. Most often just before the windows logo pops up with the moving bar and then just before the blue scrren with windows in the corner. Not sure if this is bad or just because of the SLI setup?? I'm pretty sure it use to do this before SLI...

I've been avoiding a complete re-install of Windows XP. Could this also fix my problems?

Things I have tried to fix the BSOD:
1 - tried various drivers for Vid and sound cards
2 - used various Registry Cleaners
3 - used various disk cleaners
4 - Run memtest and Prime without any snags
5 - re-installed problems games
6 - and a bunch of otehr stuff...done so much I can't remember them all!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

My system:
AMD X2 4400+
DFI Lanparty nf4 SLI-DR
2 x eVGA 7800GTXs
2 gigs Corsair XMS ram (3-3-3-8)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Gamer
Enermax Noisetaker 660w power supply
Samsung Spinpoint 160g HD
Hyundai L90D+ 19" LCD
Lian Li V1000 Case
Custom water cooling setup

 

[ikjadoon]

Firstly, yes that BSOD can be caused by PSU issues. I had the same issue. What driver version are you using? Try rolling back to the driver that came with the CD...

But the PSU is quite beefy. Could you check the rails for me? Go into the BIOS, something like Voltage or Power Setup or PC Health. We don't want to change any voltages, just check what they are, specifically the 12V+. Not the CPU voltage, DIMM voltage, etc., but the power voltages...

Now I see you are using a water cooling setup. What are you water cooling? Just the CPU? What is the cooling on the chipset? Sometimes water cooling cannot correctly cool some motherboard components, but I'm not sure. Have you tried going to DFI Street? They have some real DFI gurus there. I wouldn't hesitate in reposting this issue there.

~Ibrahim~

 

[Jie]

Firstly, yes that BSOD can be caused by PSU issues. I had the same issue. What driver version are you using? Try rolling back to the driver that came with the CD...

But the PSU is quite beefy. Could you check the rails for me? Go into the BIOS, something like Voltage or Power Setup or PC Health. We don't want to change any voltages, just check what they are, specifically the 12V+. Not the CPU voltage, DIMM voltage, etc., but the power voltages...

Now I see you are using a water cooling setup. What are you water cooling? Just the CPU? What is the cooling on the chipset? Sometimes water cooling cannot correctly cool some motherboard components, but I'm not sure. Have you tried going to DFI Street? They have some real DFI gurus there. I wouldn't hesitate in reposting this issue there.

~Ibrahim~

As soon as I get home I can post those numbers for you. The one thing I have not done is actually use the drivers that came with either card. I always assumed the drivers on Nvidia's site were better. I will certainly give a role back a try. I'm using the most current/official NVIDIA drivers at the moment.

As far as water cooling...it was my first attempt and a bit excessive lol. I'm using the new Swiftech mp655 pump and am cooling the chipset, cpu and 2 vid cards. I have a dual and single rad with 3 papts 120mm fans. Two are 3-pin and one is 4-pin. My temps are great actually...my flow rate is so so due to the addition of cooling the chipset. I thought I had done enough research, but now realize I have made a few mistakes along the way. I am still satisfied with the system and it cools very well for my needs.

I have not yet posted this issue on the DFI site. I know the site and will copy these same questions there. Thanks for mentioning that.

Oh and nothing is OC'd at the moment. I was hoping to OC once the 4400+ is burned in a bit more and I have yet to OC the vid cards.

Thanks!

 

[ikjadoon]

Got it, thanks! The Voltages will effectively tell us whether the PSU is the issue or not. Yeah, the drivers on the site are generally newer and sometimes even better, but I can remember more than once that they caused me some issues, like crashing games, and I just resorted to the drivers on the CD and the issues disappered. Maybe because they dropped full support of the GeForce 4 Ti 4600 quite a while ago,lol, but...

The water cooling should be all right...Is everything left at stock in the BIOS, then? I know that the water cooling is probably amazing, but could you just check the temps of the CPU, motherboard, chassis, chipset, GPU? Some of those won't be found in the BIOS and you can forget about those. I just need to know the ones that are in the BIOS, and DFI has an extensive BIOS, anyways.

Yeah, DFI Street is a very good site and I am almost certain that either us or them will solve the issue. I have a better feeling they will, as they are much more experienced in DFI boards, but we aren't that shabby either. Just make sure you put your specs in your sig and your location, which are both required.

Yeah, as soon as everything is working, I'm sure you can get more than a resonable OC, possibly 3.0Ghz!

~Ibrahim~

 

[badge]

Heyas,

I've been getting a strange BSOD error over the past few months. It started when I began playing Oblivion. When entering certain locations the computer would crash to a BSOD, giving me the error of disp_nv4 error. The computer had entered into an infinite loop. I've since shelved Oblivion and ocassionally still get the same BSOD when playing other games.

I've done pretty much all that can be done without replacing a second eVGA 7800GTX I just purchased for an SLI setup. I gues my main question is can this BSOD be caused by power supply issues? I know this is a known driver error, but was curious if my system is a bit taxed. I'm not at home, but I belive I have an Enermax 660w Power suply that has never given me any problems.

Just thought I'd also mention it takes my PC ages to load and it ussually drops to a blank screen a few times before loading windows. Most often just before the windows logo pops up with the moving bar and then just before the blue scrren with windows in the corner. Not sure if this is bad or just because of the SLI setup?? I'm pretty sure it use to do this before SLI...

I've been avoiding a complete re-install of Windows XP. Could this also fix my problems?

Things I have tried to fix the BSOD:
1 - tried various drivers for Vid and sound cards
2 - used various Registry Cleaners
3 - used various disk cleaners
4 - Run memtest and Prime without any snags
5 - re-installed problems games
6 - and a bunch of otehr stuff...done so much I can't remember them all!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

My system:
AMD X2 4400+
DFI Lanparty nf4 SLI-DR
2 x eVGA 7800GTXs
2 gigs Corsair XMS ram (3-3-3-8)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Gamer
Enermax Noisetaker 660w power supply
Samsung Spinpoint 160g HD
Hyundai L90D+ 19" LCD
Lian Li V1000 Case
Custom water cooling setup

My guess would be your MB is failing. One other thing, feel you video cards and check if they are vibrating from their fans and/or the CPU fan. I installed Zalman GPU coolers on two 7600GT's and had to set the fan speed on low due to vibration. My best guess would be your MB is causing your problem. I just RMA'd my SLI MB. See my sig. HTH.

 

[ConsciousTech]

ikjadoon has pretty much gotten the jist of it. I would like to push the drivers issue, I had the exact same problem during certain encounters in World of Warcraft (mostly newer content) and I basically just waited it out for a newer release of the drivers from nVidia, eventually it came and I've been fine since.

This is on a pretty crappy card, FX 5700LE, which is older so the bugs I was experiencing then may be what you're experiencing now. And ikjadoon I had that same 4 Ti 4600...and even tough the FX line is one of the worst to be released, thank GOD I god rid of the Ti =p

 

[wolfman140]

Another idea, although you wouldn't think it'd work, is do a disk defrag. Seriously, I didn't think that'd do anything either. But dude I was getting the same error in WoW like 3 times a night all of the sudden out of the blue. I kept getting WoW errors too in addition to the BSOD. I tried re-installing drivers, turning down my OC, everything. Then one day I was just cleaning up files and such and saw my hdd needed a defrag BAD. So I did it and guess what? No more BSOD's.
I never thought a disk defrag would do that...but it did. So if you haven't tried it, definately try it my friend and it may do the trick.

 

[Jie]

Ok here it goes. ikjadoon, I hope this is what you asked for. My apologies if its not.

Temps:
CPU - 37c
PWN Area - 41c
Chipset - 37c

Voltages:
ATX +3.3v - 3.3v
ATX +5.0v - 4.97v
ATX +12v - 11.89v
ATX +5VSB - 4.99
Battery V - 3.08v

CPU Core - 1.32v
LDT Bus - 1.19v
Chipset - 1.49v
Dram 2.5v - 2.5v

All these were taken after a little gaming. Please let me know if you require more info!!

Thanks again!

 

[ikjadoon]

The are perfect, thank you so much!

Looking at them, they look great. The 12V+ is slightly low, but this was after recent load so that is perfectly fine. So we can effectively rule out the PSU. The temperatures look good, too. Nice temp on the CPU. Chipset looks good, same with PWN. So heat isn't a problem for those parts.

Check the GPU temperature after load. Play a game, something intensive, not Minesweeper, and minimize after a few good minutes. Then launch nVidia's control panel. I don't have a nVidia GPU on me right now, so I don't know the exact directions, but something about temperature settings or temperature thershold. When we know the load temp, we can rule out overheating.

~Ibrahim~

 

[Jie]

Ok just played a few maps of COD 2 and the vid card temps are as follows:

Vid Card 1 - 38c
Vid Card 2 - 42c

Looks like, hopefully, we are ruling a few things out hehe. I appreciate the help!!

Did you read my note on how long windows takes to load and the frequent black screens? Not sure if thats anything, but it happens after the windows xp logo comes up and you see the blue staus bar moving.

Thanks!

 

[ikjadoon]

You're right. GPUs are perfectly fine, actually they are really good temps.

Black Screens? Hmm..That again seems to point towards to a GPU issue.

That machine is extremely fast and should be booting to Windows in no time, +/- 30 seconds tops, but it depends on how many programs you are running.

Now that I think of it, what processes do you have running? Disconnect from the Internet and shut down all your programs, including Anti-Virus. You can't get a virus now, it should've detected it before anyways. Run a game that you know has given you a BSOD. Any lucK?

So we've ruled out all major hardware issues including overheating and possible hardware malfunctions. Have you been able to roll-back to the drivers on the CD?

To finalize any hardware issues, have you tried running with just one GTX? Does it remove any issues? Also make sure the power plug for the cards are in securely. Good luck!

~Ibrahim~

 

[Jie]

Yes, it's taking more than 30 seconds to load windows. I fear a re-install coming? lol

In task manager I have 38 processes running w/ a 288mb Commit Charge. That doesn't seem too bad? I'm not sure which ones I should end?

Doh forgot to mention one more thing. When the pC does eventually load it takes a few seconds for the internet to fire up. I have Norton Corp. edition that seems to take a long time to load up. I ussualy have to waite about 10second +/- to be able to us internet explorer. Kind of strange huh? Again maybe a DFI question, but I'm uasing the onboard nic.

I've rolled back the drivers and have yet to see a BSOD.

I'm going to give the single GPU a shot and see what happens. I think I was getting the BSOD prior to the SLI setup though.

I'll give you an update after I try shutting down the anti-virus and running with one GPU. Ofcourse when I want a BSOD I can't get one lol!

Thanks!!

 

[ikjadoon]

30 seconds, ouch...It might be some of the processes, 38 doesn't seem to bad. Does shutting down some of them help any? I would run just with the game on, and no other processes, minus explorer.exe. Just make sure you only shut down processes in your username.

Yeah, some programs might not work before the AV intializes. I had the same problem with an old system....

I hope it was the drivers, good luck!

~Ibrahim~