M6600 constant random shutdowns :(

4 times in the past day I've had 4 random BSODs / forced shutdowns on my M6600. i thought it was temperature related the first time, however the other 3 crashes were at non-stress temps, one incidident was just random in windows i.e. not in a heavy graphical app. crash report below:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 5129

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 116
BCP1: FFFFFA800D18F4E0
BCP2: FFFFF8800FC47750
BCP3: FFFFFFFFC000009A
BCP4: 0000000000000004
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 256_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\070415-80948-01.dmp
C:\Users\paul\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-206685-0.sysdata.xml

I've had this laptop for nearly 4 yrs... never had BSODs before, no recent software installs. Its out of warranty...I can try memtest and scandisk, but if they don't provide any answers is my motherboard basically screwed?

 

btw I used an online minidump analyzer to get thhe following:

---
so either display driver or display adapater itself is dying..?


VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE (116)
Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed.
Arguments:
Arg1: fffffa800d18f4e0, Optional pointer to internal TDR recovery context (TDR_RECOVERY_CONTEXT).
Arg2: fffff8800fc47750, The pointer into responsible device driver module (e.g. owner tag).
Arg3: ffffffffc000009a, Optional error code (NTSTATUS) of the last failed operation.
Arg4: 0000000000000004, Optional internal context dependent data.

Debugging Details:
------------------

TRIAGER: Could not open triage file : e:\dump_analysis\program\triage\modclass.ini, error 2

FAULTING_IP:
nvlddmkm+9af750
fffff880`0fc47750 48ff2569f7ecff jmp qword ptr [nvlddmkm+0x87eec0 (fffff880`0fb16ec0)]

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: GRAPHICS_DRIVER_TDR_FAULT

BUGCHECK_STR: 0x116

PROCESS_NAME: System

CURRENT_IRQL: 0

STACK_TEXT:
fffff880`039eaa48 fffff880`04c6c134 : 00000000`00000116 fffffa80`0d18f4e0 fffff880`0fc47750 ffffffff`c000009a : nt!KeBugCheckEx
fffff880`039eaa50 fffff880`04c3f867 : fffff880`0fc47750 fffffa80`11d40000 00000000`00000000 ffffffff`c000009a : dxgkrnl!TdrBugcheckOnTimeout+0xec
fffff880`039eaa90 fffff880`04c6bf43 : fffffa80`ffffd846 ffffffff`fffe7960 fffffa80`0d18f4e0 00000000`00000000 : dxgkrnl!DXGADAPTER::Reset+0x2a3
fffff880`039eab40 fffff880`04d3c03d : fffffa80`0ca95010 00000000`00000080 00000000`00000000 fffffa80`1043c410 : dxgkrnl!TdrResetFromTimeout+0x23
fffff880`039eabc0 fffff800`0335caba : 00000000`04f78ef5 fffffa80`11d3fb50 fffffa80`0ca18840 fffffa80`11d3fb50 : dxgmms1!VidSchiWorkerThread+0x101
fffff880`039eac00 fffff800`030b4426 : fffff800`03242e80 fffffa80`11d3fb50 fffff800`03250cc0 00000000`ffffffff : nt!PspSystemThreadStartup+0x5a
fffff880`039eac40 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : nt!KiStartSystemThread+0x16


STACK_COMMAND: .bugcheck ; kb

FOLLOWUP_IP:
nvlddmkm+9af750
fffff880`0fc47750 48ff2569f7ecff jmp qword ptr [nvlddmkm+0x87eec0 (fffff880`0fb16ec0)]

 

nvlddmkm is a reference to the NVIDIA display driver. Pointing to a display issue as you mentioned. At the age of the system, I'm sort of afraid that the GPU could be failing.

Did you update the driver recently? (Or maybe Windows Update did it without telling you, if you have automatic updates enabled?)

Do you have Optimus enabled? Optimus will let you run the laptop off of the Intel GPU. It can only be enabled if you do not have an IPS display.

If you don't use external displays, you can turn on Optimus and completely disable the NVIDIA GPU (from device manager). If the system runs stable for a while in this configuration, that will point further to an issue with the NVIDIA card.

 

hi thanks that's great advice i have enabled Optimus, disabled 3000M card, and am currently testing. it runs very slow in 3D but to be expected lol.

i had not made any changes to the system and auto-update was disabled. yesterday i tried a fresh install with more recent nVidia drivers to see if it would stop shutdowns, but to no avail. IMO drivers is unlikely as the semi-old drivers worked fine for 4-5 months.

EDIT: i can't reproduce a crash with Optimus running and nVidia card disabled, so pretty sure the card is dead.

 

I've had similar problems from day 1 with 2 m6600's & the 3000M. What solves the problem for me is a program called nVidiaPowerMizerManager. It's not from nVidia but it creates some registry settings to disable the power mizer function of the nvida card. This means the card runs at full speed when on, but that's not much of an issue with Optimus.