m15x random freezing.

whats the best way to see whats causing this ?

Every now and then my alienware m15x will just freeze and i have to reboot for it to be ok..

This has started happening since i have replaced the following

Either

The processor 920xm
The ram 8gb Corsair
The SSD 120gb vertex 2e

unsure what it causing it and seems to be completely random !..

I thought it was the SSD at first .. so sent it back and got a new one and it seems to be better but still doing it every now and then , sometimes with a blue screen .

I have a 2nd hdd in place of the Disk drive so have the original 500gb sata hard disk.. should i install windows on that and see if it still happens ?

 

Download and run WhoCrashed (free). It will analyze your logs and dump files to help identify the cause(s) of system crashes. Sure don't want to re-install yet.

Resplendence Software - Advanced System Tools and Developer Components

 

thanks for that .

Doesnt seem to have much information on the times the laptop just froze . Has a few of the bluescreen issues i had .

heres a few from when i had a bluescreen.

On Thu 27/01/2011 14:21:01 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\012711-13213-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x70740)
Bugcheck code: 0x101 (0x19, 0x0, 0xFFFFF88002F64180, 0x2)
Error: CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that an expected clock interrupt on a secondary processor, in a multi-processor system, was not received within the allocated interval.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver which cannot be identified at this time.


On Wed 19/01/2011 09:09:31 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\011911-13494-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x70740)
Bugcheck code: 0x50 (0xFFFFF8A108172E38, 0x1, 0xFFFFF80002BA990D, 0x5)
Error: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that invalid system memory has been referenced.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver which cannot be identified at this time.


The following dump files were found but could not be read. These files may be corrupt:
C:\Windows\Minidump\011911-13088-01.dmp

 

Just happened again , this time the screen went all blue and Was flickering half of the screen .

temps look ok ? 50c Idle for both CPU and Graphics card .

Doesnt seem to matter if im playing a game or on desktop browsing ..Its just crashes when it wants to.

 

This sounds like a GPU driver failure. What kind of GPU do you have?

You can go and check in the event viewer whether it really was caused by the video driver.

It will say something like "atikmdag.sys stopped working" if you have an ATI card or "nvlddmkm.sys bla bla" when you have a Nvidia card.


In case it's really caused by the GPU driver the first thing I would recommend is unstalling the current driver in safe mode, use ccleaner and drversweeper and then install the driver again (or try a newer or older one, Dell driver may even be the best choice)

 

I am guessing that he has an Nvidia 260M.

 

yes its a 260m

Done a quick google and it also seemed like a Graphics card Error

These was the graphics card drivers i was using

nVidia_GeForce-GTX-260M--65W_A01_R279493

I then changed them for the latest ones on the nvidia website, i played CS for around a hour last night and all seemed fine

Hopefully this has sorted it , thanks for all the help every one.

 

Back when I had the 260M, I would get random freezing, even doing normal tasks. Now that I've switched to the 5850 I have no problems. Unless you need those CUDA cores, You should speak to Dell about changing card.

 

Where abouts in event Viewer .. I assumed because the PC froze and didnt Do BSOD it wouldnt be logged ?

 

Would they still replace it even if i have changed CPU , ram HDD and swapped the DVDRw for a HDD

 

As long as it is still in warranty and you haven't damaged anything in the process of changing those parts, then yes, they will.

 

thats reassuring to know
Seems to be ok since i have changed the drivers ..

Im pretty sure running off my exisiting HDD it was ok but started playing up when i went to SSD .. So im assuming its either the Drivers or the disk drive at fault.

I run it atm every day for around 9 hours , but im going to play some games tonight to see if it crashes again

 

Go to the control panel and type event viewer in the search bar.

When the driver crashes the system won't crash immediately and usually you get a warning in the system log which says that the GPU driver failed.

 

thanks for the help guys but seems to have hopefully fixed its self after i changed the graphics card drivers..

very strange.. then again i should expect it from a m15x

 

Im haveing the same issue, I get the exact same error as the OP and it led to a HDD failure. Dell has replaced my HDD and ran the diagnostic tool with which the concluded there is nothing wrong with the hardware. Im going to try the new nvidia drivers and see how it turns out, but before my HD failure I was using the new drivers on NVidias site and they dint help. my error log is:



Crash dump directory: C:\Windows\Minidump

Crash dumps are enabled on your computer.


On Mon 2/7/2011 1:31:11 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntkrnlmp.exe (nt!KeBugCheckEx+0x0)
Bugcheck code: 0x101 (0x19, 0x0, 0xFFFFF880009B1180, 0x4)
Error: CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT
Bug check description: This indicates that an expected clock interrupt on a secondary processor, in a multi-processor system, was not received within the allocated interval.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver which cannot be identified at this time.

 

Mine is Very random . But things seem to have improved since changing the drivers last night . I havent had a crash yet and played quite a lot of games and even run 3dmark all the way No crash ..