Interesting....this sounds like a display driver issue.  Based on your description, you're hitting user-mode driver crashes.  What are the steps that you go through that reproduce this?  Is it just normal use?

In the meantime, you can try disabling DWM by turning off Aero Glass...

Phil,
I leave my Win7 PC on 24/7. I never use hibernate or sleep. This normally happens around 04:30 hrs when no one is using the PC. It occasionally happens at other times. I only use this PC for Media Centre. If it happens when we are watching TV, the WAF goes right down!.

This is my biggest problem with Win7. I really hope a solution can be found. I will try turning off Aero glass. But shouldn't my Nvidia 9400 GT be able to handle Aero?

Please watch this space, it sometimes takes a couple of days before I see this issue.

Thanks

Ben

Ben

Yes, your 9400GT should handle aero...I've read postings in on other threads about some issues with the 185.85 driver and to revert back to the 182.xx driver...you may also want to try that.

I had this problem repeatedly with Vista. Changed video cards, added memory, nothing helped. Then turned off screen saver and problem stopped.

Do you have screen saver enabled?

John

Phil,

I have been having this problem with the Beta and RC build of Win 7 and with whatever nvidia drivers I use, 182.xx, 185.x and now 186.06.

John,

I have had the screensaver disable since I installed but this does not help.

 

At the moment I am hoping that Phil's suggestion of turning off Aero will be a work-round for the time being. It is worth pointing out that I have seen on other forums that this type of problem - that often manifests itself with pop-up messages saying the graphics driver has recovered from a crash, with multiple Video Hardware Errors shown in Reliability Monior - has been around since Vista.

Is it to do with the driver timing out when polled by Windows? Could the timeout be due to something else hogging the processor for too long? Why does it happen so often for me at around 04:30 hrs, give or take 20 mins? Does something else happen at this time that could cause it? Is there something I could look for in the logs that may help diagnosis?

Incidentally, I don't have many applications installed, just 7MC related stuff like media browser. Oh and WHS connector. No odd CODECS or anything. I have even seen this problem within a few minutes of a clean install before I had time to install anything else.

I also saw this problem when I first tried Win 7 Beta when I was using the on-board Intel G35 GPU. Becasue of this I fitted a new Nvidia 9400 GT. But same problem.

Any ideas?

Ben

Interesting...it could be some background or startup program causing issues.

 

see the following post:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistaperformance/thread/b97ac5ac-60ea-4623-9a06-271abe723e41

Ben,

My video driver re-start problems were solved with the new video card with more memory (and faster memory). The card drives both a DVI and HDMI out in extended desktop. In my case, the system often would not recover and go into a blue screen (system shut down for your protection) and reboot. The new card solved that problem but the event 500 heavy contention continued until I shut down the screen saver. The event 500 didn't cause any damage and only lasted a few seconds, but reported it as a problem and logged it in the event manager so I just shut down the screen saver.

See if you can find anything that's running or starting when the error is reported (such as a system scan or the like). I personally have stopped updating my ATI video drivers since I've got it working and every update usually takes time to tweak for Media Center and it's just not worth the time.

John,

Thanks for the comments. I have 3GB of RAM and a Q6600 CPU. The graphics card is a new Nvidia 9400GT. I also saw the problem with the on-board Intel G35 when I first started trying Win7 Beta. It was becasue of this problem with the G35 that I got the new nvidia card.

One of the first things I tried was turning off screensaver. It is now always off. I have also diabled sleep and hibernate etc.

 

Phil,

I have looked at the post you suggested. When I run Reliability Monitor (which I do every day!) it shows loads of Video Hardware Errors. They come every minute or two for several hours at a time. It normally stops eventually without any user intervention. This normally starts around 4:30 am, give or take 30 mins, but can happen at other times. This doesn't happen every day. I may go for up to four days without an issue. Somtimes it recovers completely after the Video Hardware Errors have stopped. Somethimes the system needs a re-boot to get normal performance back.

Maybe tonight I will look through the logs to see if there is any correlation with something starting in the background and take it from there.

Ben

Phil,

OK. I've been running for a few days now with Aero Glass dissabled (by selecting a non-Aero (classic) theme in the display control panel - is this the right way to disable Aero?). Yesterday, I got a repeat of the problem - repeated Video Hardware Errors over several hours throughout the day.

Ben

EBH:

Phil,

OK. I've been running for a few days now with Aero Glass dissabled (by selecting a non-Aero (classic) theme in the display control panel - is this the right way to disable Aero?). Yesterday, I got a repeat of the problem - repeated Video Hardware Errors over several hours throughout the day.

Ben

Hi Ben,

Choosing a Windows Classic theme or just making sure Aero Glass is not enabled will disable DWM.  Also just to clarify, you are running the PC constantly with Live TV playing over several days? 

Thanks

Phil,

The PC is switched on 24/7.Live TV is used intermittently during the evenings mainly. it is never left playing for long periods unwatched. e.g. I always stop live or recorded TV playback when I go to bed.

Most of the time the PC is idle waiting for scheduled recordings etc.

Ben

Phil,

It looks like every time I have a video hardware error reported in Reliability monitor I have an event in the event log saying:

Log Name: Application
Source: Desktop Window Manager
Date: 24/06/2009 04:24:11
Event ID: 9010
Task Category: None
Level: Information
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: 7100-PC
Description:
A request to disable the Desktop Window Manager was made by process (4)
Event Xml:



9010
4
0
0x80000000000000

4258
Application
7100-PC



4




Folwed by one or more of these:

Log Name: Application
Source: Windows Error Reporting
Date: 24/06/2009 04:24:12
Event ID: 1001
Task Category: None
Level: Information
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: 7100-PC
Description:
Fault bucket , type 0
Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1:
P2:
P3:
P4:
P5:
P6:
P7:
P8:
P9:
P10:

Attached files:
C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports\WATCHDOG\WD-20090624-0424.dmp
C:\Windows\Temp\WER-21653032-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Windows\Temp\WER67FC.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml

These files may be available here:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue\Kernel_0_0_cab_165267fc

Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: 7c26ff8c-606e-11de-b595-001e8cc386b6
Report Status: 20
Event Xml:



1001
4
0
0x80000000000000

4259
Application
7100-PC





0
LiveKernelEvent
Not available
0





















C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports\WATCHDOG\WD-20090624-0424.dmp
C:\Windows\Temp\WER-21653032-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Windows\Temp\WER67FC.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue\Kernel_0_0_cab_165267fc


0
7c26ff8c-606e-11de-b595-001e8cc386b6
20



Each occurance of the second event is accompanied by a Video Hardware Error logged in Reliability Monitor.

I thought I had disabled DWM by chosing a non-aero theme.

Any ideas?

Ben

Hmm... Yes, DWM should be disabled when turning off the transparency.  Also, it's disabled when running WMC in fullscreen mode.

I believe there was once issue in Win7 RC (that I believe we fixed) where if WMC was initially in fullscreen, then memory and CPU utilization spike..then once you minimize WMC and restore (to fullscreen), the CPU utilization spike goes away.  Maybe this is what you're hitting?

Phil,

I get this even if WMC is not running.

Ben