BSOD BugCheckCode 278 - on third video card

Question

My entire pc has been crashing often. It started off quite slow (every few days) and increased to 7+ times per day. It originally only happened while playing World of Warcraft and increased to happening during other games.

I used to run 2 video cards with SLI - GTX 570s. I have RMA'd both cards. Currently only have 1 card in (haven't received second new one yet). Whenever I remove 1 card, I switch my nvidia control panel to turn SLI off. Basically, I'm on my THIRD video card. I installed this current one yesterday and within 4 hours of install, crashed again.

When it crashes, sometimes the screen is a bright green, sometimes a salmon colour, sometimes it's been grey, bright pink, sometimes that rainbow/snow look.

I have memory dumps turned on but they don't save. My main drive that holds windows is a Solid State Drive. I have all my video games on a second drive which is not an SSD and at some point I tried having memory dump save to the second drive and despite being set to my second drive, it wouldn't save. Since then, it won't save even to it's default location.

Since it won't save memory dumps, I can't use the WhoCrashed program, however, in the past before memory dumps stopped saving, it always came up as Nvidia drivers that crashed.

All drivers are up to date. I even tried letting things update beta drivers, that didn't make any difference. As far as I know, power supply is strong enough to handle 2 cards, never mind just 1.

Specs:

OS: Windows 7, 64-Bit

Ram: 16 GB Corsair Vengeance

PSU: Corsair AX 1200 - ATX Power Supply

Mother Board: P8Z68-V Pro Gen 3

CPU: i5-2500k Sandy Bridge

Error:

EventData

---

BugcheckCode 278

BugcheckParameter1 0xfffffa80118641a0

BugcheckParameter2 0xfffff88005f83f50

BugcheckParameter3 0xffffffffc000009a

BugcheckParameter4 0x4

SleepInProgress false

PowerButtonTimestamp 0

At this point I'm wondering what else can cause this issue. It's always the 278 code. Any research I did told me that it was a video card which was the reason I RMA'd both cards. EVGA seemed to agree. Could it be my motherboard? Could it be cables?

Really at a loss here.  I originally posted this a day or 2 ago on other tech support forums and haven't even seen a single response yet, so I'm trying here.  At this point, it's crashing often again.

Thanks, hoping someone can help!

Note:  DxDiag is too big even for it's own post :/

Answer 1

Hi Sidney,

Very glad to hear, good work! If and when you are comfortable and feel your issue has been solved, I'd recommend marking the post of mine that answered your question so this thread no longer shows up as requiring an answer.

Regards,

Patrick

Answer 2

I marked your final post as the answer because technically the answer wasn't in your other posts.  It was just all the troubleshooting that helped narrow it down.  If people read your thread I am sure they'll see the bolded text saying solution above and read it!

Thanks again :)

Answer 3

Definite nvidia driver issue.  Downgraded to a really old version of nvidia drivers after finding these threads:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/616206/geforce-drivers/what-acute-s-going-wrong-with-drivers-for-400-500-series-/

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/617641/geforce-drivers/problems-with-the-gpu-or-with-the-driver-/

Plus multiple other threads on different sites confirming it's not just me.

If anyone else stumbles across this thread with the same issue

SOLUTION:

• Use this link http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us
• Select 310.90 or 310.70
• Uninstall your current drivers
• Reboot
• Let the PC auto install the generic drivers
• Install the 310.90 or 310.70 drivers

Thank you SO much for all your help!  Very clear easy to follow answers with instructions.  You have saved me a lot of headache and stress!

Answer 4

Crashed and it caught it! Finally :D

On Tue 10/8/2013 12:36:53 AM GMT your computer crashed

crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\100713-9703-01.dmp

This was probably caused by the following module: nvlddmkm.sys (nvlddmkm+0x8F0F50)

Bugcheck code: 0x116 (0xFFFFFA8010FBE4E0, 0xFFFFF88005F23F50, 0xFFFFFFFFC000009A, 0x4)

Error: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR

file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys

product: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 327.23

company: NVIDIA Corporation

description: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 327.23

Bug check description: This indicates that an attempt to reset the display driver and recover from a timeout failed.

A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: nvlddmkm.sys (NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 327.23 , NVIDIA Corporation).

Google query: NVIDIA Corporation VIDEO_TDR_ERROR

On Tue 10/8/2013 12:36:53 AM GMT your computer crashed

crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp

This was probably caused by the following module: nvlddmkm.sys (0xFFFFF88005F23F50)

Bugcheck code: 0x116 (0xFFFFFA8010FBE4E0, 0xFFFFF88005F23F50, 0xFFFFFFFFC000009A, 0x4)

Error: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR

file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys

product: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 327.23

company: NVIDIA Corporation

description: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 327.23

Bug check description: This indicates that an attempt to reset the display driver and recover from a timeout failed.

A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: nvlddmkm.sys (NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 327.23 , NVIDIA Corporation).

Google query: NVIDIA Corporation VIDEO_TDR_ERROR

These are drivers I just installed earlier from scratch.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Newest:

On Tue 10/8/2013 6:10:43 PM GMT your computer crashed

crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\100813-8829-01.dmp

This was probably caused by the following module: nvlddmkm.sys (nvlddmkm+0x8F0F50)

Bugcheck code: 0x116 (0xFFFFFA801064E010, 0xFFFFF88005F65F50, 0xFFFFFFFFC000009A, 0x4)

Error: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR

file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys

product: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 327.23

company: NVIDIA Corporation

description: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 327.23

Bug check description: This indicates that an attempt to reset the display driver and recover from a timeout failed.

A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: nvlddmkm.sys (NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 327.23 , NVIDIA Corporation).

Google query: NVIDIA Corporation VIDEO_TDR_ERROR

On Tue 10/8/2013 6:10:43 PM GMT your computer crashed

crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp

This was probably caused by the following module: nvlddmkm.sys (0xFFFFF88005F65F50)

Bugcheck code: 0x116 (0xFFFFFA801064E010, 0xFFFFF88005F65F50, 0xFFFFFFFFC000009A, 0x4)

Error: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR

file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys

product: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 327.23

company: NVIDIA Corporation

description: NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 327.23

Bug check description: This indicates that an attempt to reset the display driver and recover from a timeout failed.

A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: nvlddmkm.sys (NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 327.23 , NVIDIA Corporation).

Google query: NVIDIA Corporation VIDEO_TDR_ERROR

On Tue 10/8/2013 6:07:16 PM GMT your computer crashed

crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\100813-10514-01.dmp

This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x75B80)

Bugcheck code: 0xA (0x10, 0x2, 0x1, 0xFFFFF8000F095F1F)

Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

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 Microsoft Windows or a kernel-mode driver accessed paged memory at DISPATCH_LEVEL or above.

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 that cannot be identified at this time. .

There's a fourth that was just above the ntoskrnl.exe one, but I crashed as I was editing this post earlier to put it in and I guess it got overwritten or something, but it was an nvidia driver also.

Answer 5

Great, I look forward to your update.

Regards,

Patrick