Hulk'O'Saurus

For which I am thankful, by the way, because as I know next to nothing about pc stuff that whole thing has been a learning experience, if thoroughly unpleasant.

I apologise for resurrecting an old thread, but I've got an update on the issue, if anyone's interested. First, MSI didn't charge me for service whatsoever. They restored the factory settings on the machine(something I wasn't able to do) and it is running a lot more stable now. They've also performed a few tests of their own but couldn't find any problems whatsoever. They even sent me screenshots. I've been monitoring the thing for over two weeks now, and while it's running much more stable, it has still produced some bsods(after some considerable up-time). Their frequency has diminished. I have disabled Windows updates and haven't updated any drivers or anything. Is anyone still interested in giving this a go :( ?

I see. It's an GTX 1080 SLI. I see what you mean there, but in order to make anything happen concerning this I need to read on the subject further. Everything I've ever done to resolve the issue has been due to people's comments, and I have researched quite a number of things during last week. As I literally filed the fault description now - basically making another service request to MSI - there might not be enough time to further delve into this. I could include it as a suggestion to MSI, though. I believe this time they will look harder into it. Other than that, the only overclocked component is the cpu - does that change things?

Thanks for tuning in. BIOS update was one of the first things I did way back when. Didn't work. How would the gpu's firmware change things, though? I don't think there's anything on MSI's side that could be considered gpu firmware, though. The only thing I can relate to is the Dragon Centre, but that one only shows temps and clocks when it comes to the gpus. In any case, I am making another request to them literally today.

Thanks, man. Appreciated. I think that if everything hardware-wise was fine, a brand new Windows install should have fixed these gremlins. As it is I think I am just going to compile all of this into a failure report and ship it over for another inspection. Don't bother.

I tried GSmartControl today. The HDD - non-system drive, doesn't return any errors. The SSD - system OS drive cannot be read. It shows that it's SMART is enabled and supported but GSmartControl keeps ''unknown'' for it's basic health check. I also formatted OS drive and installed another, hopefully cleaner, version of Windows. That one went BSOD within 5 minutes of work. I went into Diagnostic and uninstalled both video adapter and 3d controller drivers. Now it worked. This is when I finally noticed something. The system is SLI and I think all of this time most of these BSODs have been happening when Windows tries to recognise and configure something about the SLI. The new installation of Windows, as it always does, detects first one of the GPUs, then the second one and you can notice that through Device Manager. That installation of Windows encountered some form of a problem when it trying to setup the second GPU. Windows also installs newer version of gpu drivers than the ones on MSI website(at least as far the laptop model is concerned) and that is non-negotiable with Windows. Even if you uninstall them, it will just repeat the setup automatically. Instead I updated GPU drivers to latest with Nvidia Experience and then installed a bunch of other drivers and MSI firmware on top of that. Restarting in between each new install. It's working without any issue so far. EDIT: Ok, it actually has frozen when I went to do groceries. EDIT 2: It crashed/froze a few times more including on startup. It also refused to load Ubuntu from flash twice.

I used Command Prompt to check the SMART and it didn't return any errors. Is there another application that does this better? I've also been installing drivers today. Windows itself is stable but I encountered a strange error. I was installing basic drivers - some from the manufacturers' websites, some from MSI's. In between every install I'd also restart to see if it will work. MSI's Dragon Centre is a decent app that can control cpu clocks and fan speed, as well as provide info on temps and a few other things. It has some additional features in the forms of apps, one of which can control blue light levels. I like that one a lot. But after I installed it - MSI True Colour, as it's called, the aforementioned error started appearing. Of course I uninstalled the app and rested again, this time with no error. The error appeared again when I got to sound drivers - Realtek High Definition Audio and Nahamic. The error appeared between installations of both, after which I uninstalled both drivers, and also Nvidia's Audio driver, as well. I installed GeForce Experience and updated gpu drivers, but that didn't fix the issue. The error is still there although the code it gives slightly changes. EDIT: I started uninstalling Nvidia display drivers under Normal Startup. Whenever the latest version would uninstall, there'd be an older Nvidia Display Driver installed after that. This thing repeated basically until I went into Diagnostic startup and uninstalled everything Nvidia related. Without reverting to Normal Startup Windows gives an error upon loading connected with Windows update functions being disabled. I am guessing that it wants to automatically install some form of Nvidia display driver. The error given on restart is gone. If I am reading the issue correctly - for I very well may not, Nvidia drivers are having some form of a problem with some of the laptop's drivers and firmware.

Yeah, I will do that tomorrow

Small update. This advise was next on the list of things to do. I did get one about reinstalling the ''latest DirecX redistributable'' before that. Being bad with PC specifics I went online and looked what the ''latest redistributable'' might be but couldn't find anything I could go by. I started the new Windows installation(the one I installed from USB on top of the old one) under Diagnostic Startup and uninstalled the Video Adapter driver via Device Manager. I installed DirectX 11 after that and put it under Normal Startup. DxDiag still shows DirectX 12 is installed, but Windows has ran for a few hours now without issue. I've disabled updates for now.

Thanks for the tip!

The trouble of removing both the SSD and HDD on this laptop notwithstanding, I will look into it tomorrow

Can't blame you :D. Thanks for trying anyways, man. Appreciate it. I am literally piling a report for them, atm. I called them today and I spoke with a different person - I have a 3 months extended warranty only for the changed part, and I told him most of what's going on. He was very, very puzzled. However, they are also looking into software issues, and I will get a discount for transportation. I wish I could reset this thing to factory setting and try that, but alas, nope. EDIT: just finished a fresh Windows install form USB made on the other laptop. It went to BSOD withing 5 minutes of running.

http://www.vgchartz.com/ has some info on F:NV and cursory glance over the wiki and google reveal higher sales number over time than on release. Arcanum actually looks like it's in the same boat... Not that I looked it up in the date sites, but another cursory look over the wiki and google suggest higher numbers over time. It seems that PoE is about 50/50 in this regard. Tyranny has definitely sold less over time than on release... Bloodlines is infamous for selling over time. The Baldur's Gates and the Fallouts were looked up at date sites for American and European sales back then, and people were comparing the games' sales on older message boards. I don't think you can get the same information for those as you can for the newer games. The Baldur Gates have sold in the millions over the years. The Fallouts not so great with about 100k for the first 12 months, but continuing to sell over time, as well. For the smaller games you can actually ask yourself over their message boards - with ATOM rpg and Underrail in particular you'll probably get the devs replying, although if you read their dev blogs the information basically is there. Can do the same for the Avernum titles, or any other title in the same boat.

Err... toss in the non-Beth Fallouts and with the rest that's more than five... Pretty much most of these types of games follow the same pattern - Avernum series, Shadowrun series, ATOM rpg, Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark(not a crpg per se, but beloved by the crpg fans). Haven't looked at Arcanum, but I'd suspect it's the same. I even think PoE might have sold more over time than on release, to be honest. Only Deadfire's creators don't like it enough.

Started it up under Ubuntu from flashdrive and it has ran for hours, plugged in and without issue. I called MSI, as well. I wanted to try and restore through the factory image, but it wasn't working. Instead they said that because I've shipped the unit recently for inspection I am entitled to a 3 months extended warranty period for free. They have stated somewhere in their documents that they do not handle software problems, although I do not know how the issue would be classified. Opinions?

Final Fantasy, BG Series and Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines are just some of the titles that have made more money for their proprietor over their lifetime than their first week of release. Granted - you might say that Troika is no more, but their attention and resources were split in many directions at the time. Underrail is one modern example of an extremely small cRPG - the base game was drawn in MS Paint by one man, that has garnered fan support for 3 years into a financially successful Expansion, only to have the devs announce another unexpected - even for the devs - expansion, precisely because they were so successful. The whole idea of an RPG HAVING to be successful on it's first week is, in my opinion, destructive, because these games thrive off community just as much as they do from sales. But community = sales over time, and you do not suddenly build community, you foster that - gently, slowly, methodically. As much as Josh and Obsidian want to be Cash McGoldnuggetngton, they're not. If they want to be, they have to make a different product. Ones that won't interest you or the rest of the people posting in this thread. To cut all the ramblings out - they're trying to serve the contents of a Michelin medium fillet mignon with the speed of a minute steak down at the bistro. Ain't no body who can do that. Not even Elon ''Broken Glass'' Musk. Now, I am not particularly attached to this opinion, but I just want to make an observation from reading this thread that maybe people are defending Obsidian a bit too much. Reminds me in part of the latest CDPR thing where people are saying that CD will never have microtransactions in their mp games, while CDPR have already put lootboxes in their 2018 mp game.

I believe the fault lies with Obsidian. Role-Playing games for the PC have consistently shown that they accrue success over time rather than being big trendy hits over the week. That has only somewhat been disproven by DOS2, which, by itself, is not actually that good of a role-playing game, but rather relies more heavily on it's presentation, which for a cRPG is awesome. I would never want anything more in terms of graphics or sound design in a role-playing than what DOS2 did... but gameplay is a different story. In addition, DOS2 did not have any competition when it released and people were damn hungry for a cRPG at the time. Putting that aside, I also compare how smaller modern cRPGs have evolved over time and look at Deadfire... and I think Obsidian have lost vision for that game. The atmosphere and tone of the first Pillars was more consistent. Gameplay was not so grindy and slow. Ultimate Achievement felt like an adventure rather than chore-work. I think Obsidian have gone through a lot of changes since F:NV, and Deadfire got treated as a CoD release rather than a continuation of a cRPG - ''If we put these features in the game it should work.'' The first time I saw that Outer World commercial after 76 released, I knew that the mentality that has created Fallout 1 has shifted.

Slight update. It has ran for about 4 hours now under Diagnostic Startup. Slight caveat - I can't set sleep off under this setup and it goes to sleep every now and again. I don't know if that's significant in any way but it hasn't given any blue screens. I was about to make a Windows usb image when I ran into some write protect issues with my 125 gb pen drive. Ordered a new one for tomorrow.

The thing is almost 3 years old and out of warranty Anyways... It is running under Diagnostic Startup atm, and that driver verifier is a thing I'll check out.

Yes it does. Usually it only needs Nvidia Experience and it's good to go. I will need to do some browsing... x) EDIT: Jebus... scratch that, as I was literally about to hit the Win + R button the thing BSOD again while in safe mode... IRQL error. Plugged in.

I actually literally put it in safe mode about half an hour ago, plugged in. Have the bluescreenviewer on and it has been running without issue. This is something that is coming from Tom's Hardware: I suspect a driver issue. Most common might be the graphics driver.Windows has been known to update graphics drivers to less than optimal versions.In a gaming laptop you have both integrated and discrete adapters.I might try reinstalling the graphics drivers for your laptop directly from asus.I note that the driver available seems to be old, released on 8/2016Alternately, install the mobile graphics driver directly from nvidia.If you can access the desktop, select to run using the integrated adapter.That will be the default when running on battery.Plugged in, the default will be the discrete adapter.Look through your dumps and google any code that looks involved; that might give you a clue as too what is involved.

Managed to open bluescreenviewer in windows unplugged. It froze once in between but did not produce a dmp file. This what I managed to take: https://i.imgur.com/MWIfXfb.png https://i.imgur.com/8C86zTe.png https://i.imgur.com/K2jjkfa.png https://i.imgur.com/oVbnx7W.png https://i.imgur.com/xvcDYqv.png On first glance they all look like driver related issues. Will try safe mode some time later on. If anything rings a bell...

Ok, so setting maximum processor state at 5% while unplugged and Windows froze again after about 2 minutes No BSOD, though. Looking into BlueScreen Viewer.

Actually, I was always using the in-build reset function of the laptop - it has an image of Windows there somewhere but when it installs it always does with all the firmware on, plus all the updates. In other words that Windows reset option keeps itself updated. When this whole BSOD thing started I looked up a few things online, and apparently there has been a small upsurge with BS all over the net over the latest(then) Windows update. I didn't really think too much of it then, but when the next update rolled out and it didn't fix my issue I shipped it back, ect., ect. On the other hand Memtest86 returned 0 errors and was on for more than 6 hours while plugged in. It's WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR the vast majority of the time. I can remember seeing IRQL appearing only once so far. I will check different performance setups today.

It froze after I entered control panel :). I am running memtest86 literally now - it's on it's 4th hour and nearly done with the 3 check, one more to go. I am doing the test while plugged in, and so far it hasn't shown any problems, and the test has given 0 errors, as well. Could that be important somehow? I also notice that the memtest has a temp check for the CPU which shows stable 55-60 centigrade. That I will. I've heard of Ubuntu boot from USB. Perhaps a stupid question, but is it free ;)?