Windows 7 crashes on startup, "Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed"

Anonymous
2009-11-03T13:00:54+00:00

Right, so I'm using an HP laptop, and it seems to be consistently crashing on startup, with a bunch of strange coloured lines and pixels before the login screen appears. I usually dont even get a BSOD, but I did just once, with the error code 0x000000001E and the error message "Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed".

I'd had this problem using Windows Vista as well, and thought an upgrade to 7 might fix it, but apparently not. Listing my computer specs below in case they're of any use.

HP Pavilion dv9830us

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit edition, formerly Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit edition

RAM: 4GB

Processor: Dual Core Intel T5550, its a 64 bit processor, I believe.

Video Card: Nvidia Geforce 8600GS (mobile), 512MB VRAM.

What I've tried so far:

Every edition of Nvidia drivers that I can find for my card, using 3dguru's driver sweeper each time I install a new one. I've used the new 195.39 beta drivers as well, and those did work for a few hours. However, when I shut my pc down it wouldnt start up again, reverting back to the same crashes.

Flashed my BIOS to the latest version as per HP's driver page for my laptop.

Checked that my chipset drivers are up to date.

Disabled all Aero effects (just in case that was the problem)

Basically, if my PC has an Nvidia driver installed on it, it crashes. If I go to safe mode, uninstall the video driver, it boots up fine in normal mode with the regular VGA driver. When I then install an Nvidia driver again, back to the crashes.

Since I do tend to use my PC quite a bit, any assistance is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2009-11-05T16:13:00+00:00

    Thanks for your reply, windowsfanny. Well, the symptoms I've had on my pc so far are:

    1. My pc did get a little slower at times, but I never paid much attention to it.
    2. It started crashing with BSOD's now and then.
    3. I now get BSODs on startup.

    So, hopefully it doesn't get any worse. I'll stick to the standard driver for a while and do my research, and hopefully this is just a driver issue and not a major hardware problem.

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  2. Anonymous
    2009-11-05T16:05:04+00:00

    well hopefully the new drivers will work for you. its probably a good idea, knowing that, to hang in there till the driver is released, and refrain from doing much to make the issue worse.

    i searched the net for a reasonable answer to this issue, and its a task to look at all the threads concerning this very subject. i am not running an nVidia on this machine, otherwise i may be able to help you much more. i have, however had plenty of them.

    if when the driver comes out, and by chance, doesnt cure your situation, i will leave this link so as to save the card from permanent damage. in the event the new driver doesnt work, you may wish to under-clock the card to hopefully save it from permanent damage. i only say this because i have seen the BSOD on the very same nVidia cards that revealed the BSOD scenario, and a short time after, the card burnt up.

    the sysmtoms where as follows:(steps are in sequence of occurrance)

    system begins to exibit serious slow downs under loads, artifacts begin appearing on the screen(display corruption), BSOD become more often and display recovery takes longer and longer, the system starts BSOD on startup, you can barely even access the nVidia control panel before another BSOD hits, BSOD almost every boot, screen goes black and never recovers, upon restart of system, motherboard sends beep-codes (video failure)  and the screen is blank, the monitor never even attempts to initialize(monitor standby light stays lit never turns green). system inoperable

    being you are using the standard driver, i would suggest keep with it until you can try the new driver. this has been a touch issue for nVidia to deal with in the past, not just on windows 7, so you can only wish for the best.

    heres a link to what is normally used to overclock a board, but can be used to underclock just the same. with the standard driver i would think you are ok, but just incase you feel you need it, you have it:

    http://downloads.guru3d.com/RivaTuner-v2.09-download-163.html

    and thanks Rain for helping out.

    Help others, let us know what fixes your issue. Click Vote Helpful for those whom help.

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  3. Anonymous
    2009-11-05T16:04:12+00:00

    Yeah, I updated DirectX from your link, I have the newest version now. And those chipset drivers are the default ones with my PC, so when I installed Windows 7, they automatically got installed.

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  4. Anonymous
    2009-11-05T16:02:36+00:00

    you installed ?

    ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp36001-36500/sp36491.exe

    before

    ?

    may be we should remove it!

    if you have installed this and crash happened  remove it!

    lets try it!

    so did you update direct x?

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  5. Anonymous
    2009-11-05T16:00:04+00:00

    Yeah I'm starting to think it may be a defective video card as well. Do you know of any way that I can check if my video card is working properly? I've been looking for an answer to this, but there seems to be no concrete way to make out if the card itself has a problem.

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