I built my PC about a year ago and it has been running fine ever since. Unfortunately that is up until now. A couple of days ago I had a problem with my graphics card drivers where bvlddmkm.dll would constantly crash and reset after 30 seconds of playing World of Warcraft. That after some fiddling turned to a blue screen of death. I fixed this by replacing the graphics card firmware which seemed odd because the original stuff worked fine for the past 6 months. I ran a memory test (default vista one) and it said everything was fine.

Today I had been getting more blue screens when playing WoW, seemingly this doesnt happen when I am just sitting listening to music or browsing the internet. I decided to run another memory test to see what happens, it got stuck so I restarted my pc. At this point whenever I turned on my pc very little happened. The lights would go on, all fans would turn on with the exception of the cpu fan (I have a rather random and large cpu fan which takes a second or two to get up to speed normally, the computer likes to beep at me while this happens but this time there was no beeping, power was going to the fan just not enough to get it started nudge it and it went round fine).

After some investigation I thought it w=may be the connection between my gfx card and motherboard. I unscrewed the gfx card, took it out and replaced firmly. This fixed it and now my computer loads fine. Only thing is I am loathe to put the screws back in the gfx card as they dont seem to line up perfectly and looked like they may have slowly pulled it out of line.

My computer is running on its side now to put as little pressure as possible on the gfx card and has not yet experienced a blue screen although I have run no games on it since then.

My card is a G Force 8800 GTS, its fairly large.
My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4
I have a fairly old Lian Li case with it all in.

I would appreciate if anyone knows if these problems are connected and if there is a viable fix. Any advice on securing my gfx card without putting strain on it would be great too.

if it's not lining up properly you could try putting a washer or two behind the motherboard mounts on the front side.

or bend the bar on the video card slightly on the screw end.

I would try the washers.

With the machine off, of course, loosen all the mobo screws to see if the board has flexed or "drifted" any, then retighten them all when you're sure it is in the right position.

Check your PSU. WHat's the voltage on the 3.3, 5, and 12v rails at under load?

I ran orthos with speedfan and core temp running for 20 minutes to get the figures in the image below.



Will try putting some washers in later maybe, I remember having a similar problem with the graphics card and motherboard I used to have in the same case bu that never seemed to result in blue screens.

Is it likely that all these problems are being caused by the graphics card being loose?

Look at your 12v readings in speedfan.

It's probably not reading correctly, but your PSU is probably dying, regtardless.

In my experience, a dying PSU is the #1 cause of a dying, crashing PC.

Its dying? That isnt good What exactly should the figures in speedfan read?

Any idea what would cause that, the PSU isnt old at all. Is it in danger of breaking my computer or will it just make it crash?

Have not had any problems since yesterday when I replaced the graphics card but still want to sort it out.

Your 12v readng should; be, well, about 12v.

Try the hardware monitor in the BIOS, and let us know the 12v reading from there. The speedfan readings can't be right, if they were your PC probably wouldn't boot.

usually caused by a cheap no-name PSU.

My hardware monitor in the BIOS as fas as I know does not give an actual reading of my 12v, if it does I could not find it. It does have seomething that monitors the 12v rail, and it has a big OK sign next to it. I think the 12v speedfan reading is just way way wrong. Have had no crashes since replacing the gfx card.

Thanks for your help, I will try adn fix the card in place properly. If you have any other ideas that would be great.

You could check with a volt meter if you have one and know how to use it. You would then know exactly what the voltage was. Be sure to check the motherboard connector if you check the voltages. Depending on the powersupply, this may be on a different rail then the other molex power connectors.

You do realise you spelt ignorance wrong?