Or sum shit.

So here's the run-down:

I installed Oblivion (the game by Bethesda, but you probably knew that). I finished the main quest, but as I began doing the other quests, it started slowing down and the sound would get all robotic and then the game would crash. After a few times of this, it just froze, making the computer just stop. Hard reboot and wash-rinse-repeat.

Suddenly hard-reboot began leaving me with a black screen after the "Windows Starting" animation (where the Windows 7 logo forms, right before it switches to the log-on screen).

A friend of mine managed to get the computer working by uninstalling the NVIDIA video card in safe-mode and then re-installing it once we were able to successfully log on normally. Now YouTube is crashing the computer in the same manner as Oblivion did, so I'm guessing this is a video card problem (I'm able to make this post because I uninstalled the video card in safe-mode and rebooted with out it).

This is a DELL Inspiron laptop, intel CORE i3, 64 bit Windows 7 (as stated before). Also, I have no recollection of receiving a recovery disk or Windows disk (and even if I did receive one or the other or both, they'd be in Florida and I'm in Japan).

Anyone know what the hell is going on, and how I can get this fucker back to properly functional? I really hope I don't have to send it home to mum and have her send it off to DELL (thanks for not letting me send it directly to you from Japan, DELL, as per your warranty :facepalm).

Edit: YouTube works fine now that I've uninstalled the NVIDIA card. It wants me to restart because it auto reinstalled the card, but I guess since I haven't restarted yet, it's not fully installed.

 

Yes. The problem still persisted.

The friend seems to think that it might be a physical problem with the video card itself. I'm inclined to agree since things crashing the system (though I still won't touch Oblivion yet) don't crash it (i.e., YouTube), once the card is uninstalled.

 

I'll try that. Thanks!

 

You should have a recovery partition.

If the old drivers don't work, you could look if GPU-Z and CPU-Z are still able to recognize your video card. Since it seems that you can only go into safe mode with your video card installed, do it there.

A little more information about your system would be nice. You should be able to create a file with GPU- or CPU-Z, which you could post here.

 

CPU-Z TXT Report
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Binaries
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPU-Z version 1.58

Processors
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of processors 1
Number of threads 4

APICs
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Processor 0
-- Core 0
-- Thread 0 0
-- Thread 1 1
-- Core 1
-- Thread 0 2
-- Thread 1 3

Processors Information
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Processor 1 ID = 0
Number of cores 2 (max 8)
Number of threads 4 (max 16)
Name Intel Core i3/i5/i7
Codename Sandy Bridge
Specification Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2310M CPU @ 2.10GHz
Package
CPUID 6.A.7
Extended CPUID 6.2A
Core Stepping D2
Technology 32 nm
Instructions sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, EM64T, VT-x, AVX
L1 Data cache 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache 2 x 256 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L3 cache 3 MBytes, 12-way set associative, 64-byte line size
FID/VID Control yes

Turbo Mode supported, disabled


Thread dumps
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPU Thread 0
APIC ID 0
Topology Processor ID 0, Core ID 0, Thread ID 0
Type 01400000h
Max CPUID level 0000000Dh
Max CPUID ext. level 80000008h
Cache descriptor Level 1, D, 32 KB, 2 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 1, I, 32 KB, 2 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 2, U, 256 KB, 2 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 3, U, 3 MB, 16 thread(s)


CPU Thread 1
APIC ID 1
Topology Processor ID 0, Core ID 0, Thread ID 1
Type 01400000h
Max CPUID level 0000000Dh
Max CPUID ext. level 80000008h
Cache descriptor Level 1, D, 32 KB, 2 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 1, I, 32 KB, 2 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 2, U, 256 KB, 2 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 3, U, 3 MB, 16 thread(s)

CPU Thread 2
APIC ID 2
Topology Processor ID 0, Core ID 1, Thread ID 0
Type 01400000h
Max CPUID level 0000000Dh
Max CPUID ext. level 80000008h
Cache descriptor Level 1, D, 32 KB, 2 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 1, I, 32 KB, 2 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 2, U, 256 KB, 2 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 3, U, 3 MB, 16 thread(s)


CPU Thread 3
APIC ID 3
Topology Processor ID 0, Core ID 1, Thread ID 1
Type 01400000h
Max CPUID level 0000000Dh
Max CPUID ext. level 80000008h
Cache descriptor Level 1, D, 32 KB, 2 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 1, I, 32 KB, 2 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 2, U, 256 KB, 2 thread(s)
Cache descriptor Level 3, U, 3 MB, 16 thread(s)



Chipset
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Memory Type
Memory Size 6060 MBytes

Memory SPD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


Monitoring
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

LPCIO
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hardware Monitors
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hardware monitor Battery
Voltage 0 12.78 Volts [0x31E9] (Current Voltage)
Capacity 0 8400 mWh [0x20D0] (Designed Capacity)
Capacity 1 8058 mWh [0x1F7A] (Full Charge Capacity)
Capacity 2 8058 mWh [0x1F7A] (Current Capacity)
Level 0 5 pc [0x5F] (Wear Level)
Level 1 100 pc [0x64] (Charge Level)


PCI Devices
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


Graphics
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of adapters 0

Graphic APIs
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


Display Adapters
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


Software
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Version Microsoft Windows 7 (6.1) Home Premium Edition Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)
DirectX Version 11.0

ACPI
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

ACPI Tree

 

Does the graphics card work until you reach the desktop? Have you scanned for malware?

 

You created this log in safe mode with the video card installed, right? Because according to this log, all you have installed in your PC is the CPU and RAM, nothing else. That's odd.

If you created this log in safe mode, try to create another one in normal Windows.

If the log looks the same, then open the HDD or RAM slot, after confirming in your warranty agreement that this doesn't void the warranty, and look if it smells burnt.

Another thing you should do, is to also post your problem on a forum that is specialized on computer issues. They can most likely help you better there.

 

Actually, I created the log in normal windows mode. When I rebooted after uninstalling the video-card in safe-mode, it auto-reinstalled it upon start-up. However, it said I had to reboot to make the changes permanent, so the computer's not working with the card at all at the moment.

At this point, because the computer's working very smoothly without the video card (even smoother than it used to, strangely), I'm further convinced that the video card is at fault here. I may end up sending it back to America for fixing.

By the way, I was under the impression that I had four RAM slots, but only three of them filled with 2GB sticks, but if I'm reading that log correctly, I have only two RAM slots one with a 4GB stick and one with a 2GB stick?

@Zansa, before I just simply left the card uninstalled, the graphics card seems to have "worked" up until it got used, like when I loaded a YouTube page.

I STILL haven't tried running Oblivion again, but at this point, I'd rather just avoid restarting the computer for as long as I can, lest it make the reinstall of the graphics card effective again.

Neither AVG nor SpyBot have found anything amiss.

 

The graphics card is always used. If there's no graphics card at work, there's no picture being displayed. Your card isn't displaying certain types of media right, or having difficulties processing anything above a minimal task.

I didn't see anything about your RAM in the log you posted, but I may have overlooked it. If I had to guess, it's reading two of the slots as one since they're both filled, and the other separately. Generally motherboards have a set of colored RAM slots. If your motherboard can handle four sticks of 2GB you could have two blue slots and two yellow slots, for example.

If you're dead set against sending your laptop back to America, you could flash your BIOS as a last resort, otherwise it appears you're going to have to send it to Dell. Be prepared for a very steep cost though. I had a laptop break earlier this year and the only thing stopping me from fixing it myself was a safeguard they had in place to prevent it from going back together unless you had a special tool. I was quoted a price of $300 for them to fix it when I called tech support. $150 for them to look at it, then I start paying for time and labor, and whatever parts they needed to replace, on top of shipping and handling. Depending on your laptop you might be better off just buying a new one, especially as you'd be shipping internationally.

 

A 4GB and a 2GB are odd. Normally, you only put sticks in that have the same amount of memory. Maybe you only have two slots, then that combination makes sense, since there are no 3GB SO-DIMMs.

Your video card seems to only work if no driver is installed, since after a reboot the Windows driver is activated. I look if I can find something like this in one of the hundreds of German forums.

EDIT: After about 20 minutes of searching, I'm now almost 100% sure that the video card is dead. You can go to a nearby computer store that has a workshop to let them take a look, they should do that for free. Be sure to tell them if you still have warranty, you don't want them to break any seals that void the warranty after all.

 

Thanks, guys.

Yeah, it seems to me, too, that the video card is dead. My guess is that Oblivion put too much demand on the card (which was probably defective, since the strain shouldn't have done it any harm, certainly not from Oblivion), and the weak point broke killing the card.

Then again, I know next to nothing about any of this shit. -_-;

Edit: might not have even been a weak point. It could just be that the laptop couldn't sink enough heat fast enough for the graphics card, or so my firend suggested.