Serious NVIDIA Drivers Problems and Maybe RAM or CPU Issues as well - Page 2

No dice
Anyway, I already installed win7 x86 and i'm still getting everything set, idk if it really is that though, since i can still run 32-bit programs in win7 x64 i should be able to solve my RAM issues just by doing that right?
And I'm switching to the 301.24 driver(same as 301.42 but its a beta, i originally thought beta's were more buggy) I will report back if I get any BSODs in 32-bit

Also, after I screwed up Crysis somehow, I checked BL to see if it would work and another issue recurred with the NVIDIA drivers(you're probably right about 301.42 being buggy) the HD Audio driver crashed TWICE! Not only that but there was a strange performance decrease in the game as well, it wasn't unplayable like before, I was getting about 30fps(still almost half the performance of before) but the audio drivers kept crashing. Needless to say, I think I'm gonna stick with 32-bit and ignore these problems until I get my other 2 GB back.

I wish I could get those BSOD codes, I checked windows event viewer and found errors. The ones that seemed consistent with the BSODS were the 'bug checks' and some 'service' ones as well. Most of them were "windows shutdown unexpectedly blah blah blah..." or "windows is shutting down blah blah blah..." and that "a memory dump is located at C:\Windows\MEMORY.dmp" but I was unable to find any such files. Would the codes given in the event viewer be of any value? I've heard someone say that event viewer didn't bring up BSODs, but I got some errors and they have some codes. If you'd like, I can post a screen shot of some of them.

even with show hidden files and folders, I was unable to find the dump files. but i have disabled automatic restart on system failure, so if another BSOD comes up that does the same thing, I'll be able to see the stop code.

i'm going to attempt crysis in win7 32bit and see if adjusting the priority messes up again. hopefully not, then i'll try crysis(the 32bit app) in win7 64bit and see if there are any improvements and this is with driver 301.24. also, i'm gonna check prime95 for 32 bit at stock settings and at OC'd. Hopefully, instead of getting just a black screen, i'll get an actual BSOD if the tests fail.

So here's an update:

Win7 32 bit outperforms 64 bit with 2GB of RAM in all games. It seems, no matter what NVIDIA driver I choose, I still get the same problems(games keep freezing, crashing, and the drivers crash) so if anyone has anymore suggestions(I'm still in the process of running through different drivers, I'm on 301.24 right now)? Oh but switching to 32-bit fixed the problem where Crysis was unplayable just by changing the priority. In fact, it gave me more stability with the game, and there's no stuttering like in 64-bit. So I will stick to Win7 32-bit for now. I haven't had time to send the rma'd RAM stick to G.SKILL yet, hopefully I can do it tomorrow.

Regarding the BSODs, haven't had any what so ever since I removed the bad RAM. Testing out prime95 on 64-bit is useless, the computer crashes almost right away, but no BSOD, only a black screen. In 32-bit, prime95 works for a while, still trying to figure out what's causing the instability but in another stress test which involves prime95, but the crash isn't as fast as in 64-bit. This is at the OC'd settings btw. I have yet to try stock sets.

I have another question, why aren't I getting any BSODs if the CPU fails? I should right? I just get this black screen that leaves me wondering, and when I did get the BSODs, they flashed on the screen for a second.

Update: Okay guys, I did some research and experimenting. I figured out most of my problems, I just don't understand a couple things, allow me to explain...

The BSODs, as I found out, are BugChecks. The Stop Codes I was getting pointed to both CPU issues and GPU. I since discovered that my VCORE was WAY TOO HIGH! 1.347V is too much for just 3GHz. In fact, I found that increasing the CPU voltage made my system even more unstable. The reason why I couldn't get prime95 or IBT to work before was because I only have 2gb of RAM and that's the BARE MINIMUM for win7 64bit. I guess its just not enough RAM. So since switching to x86, I have been able to actually test the stability of my system. My current OC is at 2.7GHz(runs prime95 'small ffts' for 5 hours at least, i stopped it there), the RAM is giving me some issues, right now its relatively stable at 1200 MHz 8-8-8-22, I either need to raise the voltage or loosen the timings for stability(its only got 11 cycles of IBT). So right now I'm at comfortable-ish settings.

Now, here's the deal with the GPU. My games kept crashing, as soon as I started them. I assumed it was just a driver issue, but after my last post on this thread, I attempted to play a GC game with Dolphin Emulator, and guess what, it crashed. Once I rebooted, I received a notification that I just recovered from a BSOD, and checked the Event Viewer. I saw the stop code '0x00000124', so I googled it. Its more directly associated with OCing any piece of hardware than other problems(like a software bug). So then I ran into some problems with my GPU, it wasn't throttling down while it was idle, so it was getting hot(about 50 C), so I decided to reset the OC of my GPU and try it. After that, NO PROBLEMS WITH THE DRIVERS AT ALL! So my GPU was unstable, that's what was happening. All I needed to do was raise my GPU Voltage. Right now my GTX 550 ti is at 1000MHz core @ 1.087V, and it hasn't had any hiccups not even with 3 hours of NFSS or 1 hour of Dolphin(I love metroid prime ) Even BL is behaving itself now! Thanks for your input guys!

I would like to just leave this thread with some thoughts:

DON'T OVERLOOK ANYTHING! I thought my GPU was fine, and the drivers were bad(still don't understand why a BSOD ruins game performance though) but the underlying problem was the OC.

THE CPU VOLTAGE DOESN'T ALWAYS DETERMINE STABILITY! If you're crashing on Prime95 within 15-30 minutes, try Intel Burn Test for 5 cycles, if you crash before the first, you definitely have RAM
problems, and if you get unusual results, again RAM ISSUES. To test the RAM further, do memtest or win memory diagnostic.

ALWAYS CHECK STOCK SETTINGS AFTER RUNNING INTO PROBLEMS WITH AN OC!!!! This should be a golden rule for OCing!