Error-Full GeForce Disappointing Performance of GTX-720

Client is using an old Lenovo Thinkcentre Edge computer and since her needs aren't heavy, when the system was due for upgrade, we upgraded Memory to 4-GB on Windows 7 Pro 32-bit, we changed the disk to a Samsung EVO 850 500GB SSD, and we also changed the graphic card/controller from it's old on-board GT-720...

viola, we had BSOD crashes with DirectX driver, Geforce reported failure and crashes from it's console and plentifull of errors.


Oh well, I really didn't know the whole-load-of-crashes :( :(
- https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/886609/geforce-drivers/358-50-kernel-mode-driver-crash-/4/
- http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2747382/nvidia-driver-353-crashing.html
- my google search

So what's the summary of the fix? I still have to fix the issue since my client is desperate to use the system in a stable manner...

We want to do the following:

1) downgrade driver to 352.86

2) do not install 3D Vision and PhysX drivers components

3) STOP AUTO updates and updating on the application.

4) Use SOFTWARE Rendering for IE instead of GPU rendering (We go IE option and tick the button)

UPDATE – we didn’t manage to downgrade the driver version.

We are now monitoring the status for a week, to see if the crashes - Kernel Mode Driver crashes and the message "Display driver NVIDIA windows kernel mode driver stopped responding and successfully recovered." will permanently disappear!

Oh yes, since there's no need for IE to be on GPU power, we decided to use the software based graphic acceleration too.

What we didn't do is to down-scale the PCI-E version to 2.0 instead of Auto in the BIOS. Oh well, it's a core-2-duo PC, I don't think it's any advanced version anyway...

 

 

Running a Hyper-V VHD file on Virtual Box

We set-up a hyper-v based server in our office here in Singapore.
From time to time, we do get our free-lancers to manage and configure patches etc-etc-etc.


There is this one case where our dear Bangladeshi partner requires access to the Virtual Machine and for weird reasons, need the entire VHD file to do the necessary configuration.

Well, the overall VHD is 40GB, and it'll take days to get it across the WAN lines even with fiber.
So, we decided to ship it in a 64GB Thumbdrive so that it can be sent over quickly.

My colleague was concerned that it might not run properly once it's sent over, as such, she wanted me to verify if the VHD file and the OS is valid.

My quickest way of verifying the set-up would be to use the Virtual Box, and in this case, a VirtualBox Ver 5.0.6r103037

I simply created a VM, set it to Windows Server 2008r2, I did disable the Audio drivers, set the LAN to NAT... and without much thinking, left the processor settings and disk settings as they are.

Windows did not boot. Blue-screen Error with 0x00000007B

Upon google-ing, I realized it's related to the disk controller -
Proceeded to change the Disk from SATA with AHCI mode to IDE with PIIX4 mode.

That solved the problem Immediately and Windows boot.

I wanted better performance on the VM, as such, I decided to change the following configuration on the:
1) motherboard - unticked the ICH9 and enable I/O APIC
2) acceleration - Paravirtualization Interface (Hyper-V), maintained VT-X and Nested Paging

Done!

The Virtual Machine should be happily making its way to Bangladesh now....