Diagnosing Laptop / Vista Problem – Please Help

Pencheven · June 28th, 2009, 01:28 PM

Hi guys – Sorry for the Epic post..

Yesterday I had a problem with my Laptop when Vista decided to go all screwy on me..

**Update** - Please see latest post

Well Googled the error codes some more, seems other are having the same crashing problem, tried a remedy found here but no luck. I tried doing what some others have suggested, ran EVE Online and Steam again, both made it crash, this time left it, as the sound still seemed to play. Eventually came to BSOD and restarted without the messed up screen but started with "recovered from an error" and soon after my screen froze again, it looks like it might have gotten into this "continual shutdown loop"

Im not sure if this is a hardware problem (graphics card died maybe?) or if it’s a software problem (Vista broken itself?) but im guessing the latter which is why im posting here. Before I explain what happened, ill sum it up by saying:

Iv run a memory check
Iv run check disk
Iv run NOD32 Virus scan
Which have all turned out blank

I don’t have CCleaner installed on the laptop, however a friend refereed me to this site: Free PC Repair, Protection & Clean Up | Advanced SystemCare Free Computer Scan, Optimizer, Maintenance
Apparently its meant to be a better competitor to CCleaner, could anyone give me a review or comparison to which is best?

Although I think the problem is a little more serious than that.

Backing Details:
Sony Vaio Laptop VGN-FZ18E
T7100 / 2GB Ram / 160HD / 15.4” Display / NVIDIA 8400M GT / Vista Home Premium

This laptop is only used by me, password protected on Vista & BIOS etc, no one has access to my room, only bought it early last year, has never had any problems before. The laptop does run extremely hot, but its never had a problem with it.

What Happened Yesterday
I was attempting to upload some photos to facebook, however it complained that using the Java Applet with Vista & Firefox would cause FF to crash, unless you installed the update.

I followed the update and downloaded the new version of Java, have check now and its all legit. After installing I went back and although it still complained I went ahead with “I have the latest version installed”.
After a minute of uploading some photos FF crashed, and about 30 seconds later windows froze, next the screen went blank (black) and the laptop became completely unresponsive.

After no response I panicked a little and forced a reboot by holding down the power button. However on reboot, the splash screen was all messed up (like blue lines everywhere, picture not right) and the loading screen had these vertical blue / white dots across the screen. It then failed to load into Vista and restarted with more options:

On restart I first let the vista “Startup Recovery” do its thing, it looked like it worked fine, no errors found, no weird screen, however on reboot still the same problem.

I then ran a memory check which turned out fine too.
Next I tried running “Run Last Known Good Config” but same result.

Finally I booted into safe mode which worked fine thankfully. I Googled (on my desktop) the problem and some forums which asked to search the logs of the time of the event. There were lots of errors that occurred which at the time, non of which had happened before.

Iv pulled two logs (see below) which seemed to be the problem, the first is from Application Log which is the first error that occurred, the second is from system which looks like it might be the source of the problem, though I don’t really know what these entail.

After letting it sit in safe mode for a while I tried reboot it again to take some photos, but magically it worked straight into windows.
Some configurations had changed, which mainly seemd to do with the log in (I have a custom login background and iv switched off Ease Of Access) – however everything else seemed fine.

A little bemused, I restarted again and it froze half way into windows, however all restarts after this seem to work fine for the time being, can surf the web, MSN etc.

What Happened today
Today I tried to diagnose the problem some more, and thought it could be the graphics card which died, so I tried running some more intensive applications (Steam, EVE Online, Java Applet online) – right after logging into EVE the screen went blank again (black, like its switched off) and Im having the exact same problem again as yesterday.
I booted into safe mode and found the same errors again (see below) so im assuming its either Vista, or some hardware died when I forced it to reboot

Application

Code:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-EventSystem
Date:          2009-06-27 04:28:02 PM
Event ID:      4609
Task Category: Event System
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      Sony-VaioFZ
Description:
The COM+ Event System detected a bad return code during its internal processing.  HRESULT was 8007043c from line 45 of d:\longhorn\com\complus\src\events\tier1\eventsystemobj.cpp.  Please contact Microsoft Product Support Services to report this error.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-EventSystem" Guid="{899daace-4868-4295-afcd-9eb8fb497561}" EventSourceName="EventSystem" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="49152">4609</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>16</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-06-27T15:28:02.000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>187022</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>Sony-VaioFZ</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="param1">d:\longhorn\com\complus\src\events\tier1\eventsystemobj.cpp</Data>
    <Data Name="param2">45</Data>
    <Data Name="param3">8007043c</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

System

Code:

Log Name:      System
Source:        Service Control Manager
Date:          2009-06-27 04:28:40 PM
Event ID:      7026
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      Sony-VaioFZ
Description:
The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load: 
AFD
DfsC
DMICall
easdrv
epfwtdir
NetBIOS
netbt
nsiproxy
PSched
RasAcd
rdbss
Smb
spldr
tdx
Wanarpv6
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Service Control Manager" Guid="{555908D1-A6D7-4695-8E1E-26931D2012F4}" EventSourceName="Service Control Manager" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="49152">7026</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-06-27T15:28:40.000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>242189</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />
    <Channel>System</Channel>
    <Computer>Sony-VaioFZ</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="param1">
AFD
DfsC
DMICall
easdrv
epfwtdir
NetBIOS
netbt
nsiproxy
PSched
RasAcd
rdbss
Smb
spldr
tdx
Wanarpv6</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Any Ideas?

Pencheven · June 28th, 2009, 09:05 PM

Just to update with a little more information, Im thinking it must be either my graphics card or display drivers, attempting to run any game causes the screen to distort, then the laptop freezes and restarts, after that I get the messed up loading screen and failing to load into vista..

If I switch the laptop off for a while and return then it boots up fine again, although it throws up the following "Video Hardware Error" (See below).. Im even thinking it could be the heat as its defiantly gotten hotter over the last few days, but this thing always runs hot..

Video Hardware Error

Code:

Product
Windows

Problem
Video hardware error

Date
2009-06-29 12:27 AM

Status
Not Reported

Description
A problem with your video hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name:    LiveKernelEvent
OS Version:    6.0.6002.2.2.0.768.3
Locale ID:    2057

Files that help describe the problem
WD-20090629-0026.dmp
sysdata.xml
Version.txt

Extra information about the problem
BCCode:    117
BCP1:    84D83008
BCP2:    8C00F060
BCP3:    00000000
BCP4:    00000000
OS Version:    6_0_6002
Service Pack:    2_0
Product:    768_1

Pencheven · July 3rd, 2009, 10:44 AM

Iv been spending some spare time in the week trying to fix the problem, but still no luck, though I think I’m getting closer to the problem.

The laptop will run fine on its own without any graphic intensive applications running (i.e. Non intensive browsing, MSN).
Its always been set to “Performance” battery settings, which when I run any games e.g. the screen will freeze, and either recover from an error or BSOD.

Running on a lower power setting seems to stop this from happening (though I don’t know if it might just take longer for it to happen). I ran a full suit of applications on a lower power setting for over an hour without any problems.

The BSOD error that I receive is the following:
0x00000124 (0x00000000, 0x877BC3F0, 0xF2000040, 0x00000800)

After some Googling that error seems to be related to GeForce Nvidia cards and some audio problems, non which lead me to a concrete solution.

Yesterday when I was trying to recreate the problem by running some more games I found that now the screen would go blank, and after some time recover to desktop with the following error:

“Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding”

Googling of that found that it is an Nvidia driver failing that recovers to desktop, a lot of people seem to have the problem but I haven’t found a solution that fixes the problem.

Later that same evening however, I was attempting to watch a youtube video and got a BSOD with the same front end error above.

Just for reference, these are some checks I have done:

NOD32 Scan – Clear
Spybot S&D – Clear
Malwarebytes – Clear
CCleaner – Cleaned, but error still happening - Clear
Hijackthis – One reported case which reference MSN Messenger file, Clear
Reinstalled Nvidia drivers – Thereafter started the “nvlddmkm stopped”..

Crashing from a game seems to cause Vista to load fine, crashing from the browser however seems to cause it to have the graphic problems I described earlier. Simply leaving the laptop switched off for 30 mins rectifys this problem.

All this happened after I installed Java, but could this be a heat problem?