exxos blog - random goings on

[exxos]

rebooted pc several times today and it's been fine. Left it off half hour, turned it back on, now back to black screen again. I don't get it

It was off all night and it started up fine this morning.

I rebooted twice, same problem, rebooted the 3rd time but yanked the sata cable out of the Linux drive and windows booted up. So will leave that unplugged for now and see if that changes anything.

[exxos]

Been spracackly rebooting and shutting down again all day. Left it half hour off, rebooted, repeated 3 things and it's behave perfectly each time. I need to run a few more days to see if it trips up again..

Currently it's looking like the Linux drive is causing the issues. I don't know if it's simply because windows doesn't like the format or the drive is bad.

It makes me wonder though as a while back I had odd issues with one of the Samsung evo drives. It was either the 860 or 870. Where I suspected when saving a lot of files it some how froze up. I thought it was the 870 but not sure now since I've been saving my backups on it for ages without issue.

I can't see the data on the drive causing windows not to boot though. So I'm wondering if it's some hardware issue with the 860 drive. Also I'm getting odd problems in Linux which could be related as it's the same drive.

Got van back this afternoon. Bill went from almost £400 to £61! A nice suprise. Wasn't really sure what guy was on about but sounds like some guide bearing for the steering rods was jamming up. Now it hasn't got power steering so its very heavy to drive. But I swear it's like 50% lighter now. I have to do U-turns to get in and out of the drive and it was a lot less effort today.

I've also been fixing links on my site. Nginx was blocking some download folders which are fixed now. In fact out of 16,443 download links , there's only 5 now not working AFAIK. There was various typos all over the place stopping random stuff from working. All that is fixed now.

Had enough of computers these past 2 weeks. Though I've got work coming in again so won't have much time for much else over the next 3 weeks now. I need a break from it it.

Edit:
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1789&p=74333&hilit=Samsung#p74333

I mentioned the 870 there..

Evo 850 here
viewtopic.php?p=46565#p46565

I'm sure I took one to bits at some point..

[exxos]

PC was off for about an hour and I turned it back on to look on my cam to see what drive I took to bits as doesn't look like I posted them on the forum.. and PC black screen again!

So I have uninstalled all 47 office updates (and removed office totally), as they were installed on the 14th, which was about the time things started going bad.

There is a acrobat reader update and 2 dot net updates installed at the same time, but left those in for now.

I guess it rules out the LInux drive at least now.

[exxos]

Left pc for another hour and back screen on boot again

The only thing I can do really is swap out the graphics card. Though I don't think it's simply a graphics problem as I don't think anything is running at all, other than mouse. I can't get task manager up to run explorer. I don't think it's even getting that far. It just hangs on "preparing desktop" for about 20 second the black screens. Normally it's straight into the desktop.

I could copy windows from my nvme to a sata drive. Though there's a test in the bios for nvme drives and it passes.

I'm getting a "feel" something is acting up when the pc has cooled down. But odd as it's been generally ok in the mornings.

My only other thought is to install a fresh copy of windows onto a spare drive and see if I can replicate the issue. Currently there's just no well to tell if it's a hardware or software fault

I guess I could try uninstalling my anti virus totally to see if that changes anything.

[exxos]

Wrote a longer post last night but it vanished

I left mother turning on/off my PC over weekend and so far so good. BUT, I have unplugged the LAN cable. I want to rule out any internet related attacks etc.

Now, because its intermittent in not booting its making stuff hard to diagnose Currently its either, not having LAN plugged in has made it work. Or its because the PC hasn't been on for some hours before rebooting. When I get home tonight I plan to run 3Dmark to warm up the system (mainly the graphics card) and then power down for half hour, then reboot, as that currently seems to be the "theme" to it failing. Running fine for some hours, then power off half hour, then it fails to reboot again.

I haven't ruled out a malware attack (no idea how that could be possible) BUT I have noticed some odd sh*t appearing in the ESET log..

Code: Select all

 <RECORD>
      <COLUMN NAME="Time">21/07/2023 17:03:19</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Component">ESET Kernel</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Event">File 'SystemStateExceededVertexThreshold.bdot' was sent to ESET Virus Lab for analysis.</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="User">SYSTEM</COLUMN>
    </RECORD>
    <RECORD>
      <COLUMN NAME="Time">21/07/2023 17:03:36</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Component">ESET Kernel</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Event">File 'SystemStateExceededVertexThreshold.bdot' was sent to ESET Virus Lab for analysis.</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="User">SYSTEM</COLUMN>
    </RECORD>
    <RECORD>
      <COLUMN NAME="Time">21/07/2023 17:03:52</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Component">ESET Kernel</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Event">File 'SystemStateExceededVertexThreshold.bdot' was sent to ESET Virus Lab for analysis.</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="User">SYSTEM</COLUMN>
    </RECORD>
    <RECORD>
      <COLUMN NAME="Time">21/07/2023 17:04:07</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Component">ESET Kernel</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Event">File 'SystemStateExceededVertexThreshold.bdot' was sent to ESET Virus Lab for analysis.</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="User">SYSTEM</COLUMN>
    </RECORD>
    <RECORD>
      <COLUMN NAME="Time">21/07/2023 17:04:24</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Component">ESET Kernel</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Event">File 'SystemStateExceededVertexThreshold.bdot' was sent to ESET Virus Lab for analysis.</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="User">SYSTEM</COLUMN>
    </RECORD>
    <RECORD>
      <COLUMN NAME="Time">21/07/2023 17:04:39</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Component">ESET Kernel</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Event">File 'SystemStateExceededVertexThreshold.bdot' was sent to ESET Virus Lab for analysis.</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="User">SYSTEM</COLUMN>
    </RECORD>
    <RECORD>
      <COLUMN NAME="Time">21/07/2023 19:04:55</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Component">ESET Kernel</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Event">File 'SystemStateExceededVertexThreshold.bdot' was sent to ESET Virus Lab for analysis.</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="User">SYSTEM</COLUMN>
    </RECORD>
    <RECORD>
      <COLUMN NAME="Time">21/07/2023 19:05:10</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Component">ESET Kernel</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Event">File 'SystemStateExceededVertexThreshold.bdot' was sent to ESET Virus Lab for analysis.</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="User">SYSTEM</COLUMN>
    </RECORD>
    <RECORD>
      <COLUMN NAME="Time">21/07/2023 19:05:25</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Component">ESET Kernel</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Event">File 'SystemStateExceededVertexThreshold.bdot' was sent to ESET Virus Lab for analysis.</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="User">SYSTEM</COLUMN>
    </RECORD>
    <RECORD>
      <COLUMN NAME="Time">21/07/2023 19:05:40</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Component">ESET Kernel</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="Event">File 'SystemStateExceededVertexThreshold.bdot' was sent to ESET Virus Lab for analysis.</COLUMN>
      <COLUMN NAME="User">SYSTEM</COLUMN>
    </RECORD>

I have found literally ZERO information about that error. I have tried all the search engines I can think of. That error doesn't not exist!

When I restore my backups, that error is not in the log. But that error appears 3 times during the day. Then after rebooting, it fails to start up. So I am wondering if those 2 are connected. ESET I think deleted the file, but I have contacted ESET to ask what the file actually is. My girlfriends PC is working fine and she hasn't got that error.

I am also thinking maybe my IP address has been targeted since mothers bank scam. Likely they got my IP address. It could help to explain why my girlfriends PC hasn't (yet) got that problem.

Next I will put my laptop on the internet overnight as its a minimal setup with ESET, and see if that error appears on there as well. If it does, then it hints to I am being targeted as having 2 totally separate machines with the same problem I think is unlikely.

If this is a security vulnerability, then its a concern as a lot of other people on the net, even win10, win11 are saying they get the black screen with mouse. It may or may not be related to my issue but its worth keeping in mind this might be some currently unknown attack.

I also asked the A.I. about the black screen problem and it said this :

Yes, a faulty graphics card in Windows can potentially result in a black screen with a visible white mouse pointer. When a graphics card is malfunctioning or experiencing hardware issues, it may fail to display the normal desktop or graphical interface correctly, leading to a black screen.

However, the mouse pointer is often managed by the basic display driver provided by the operating system. This driver operates independently of the graphics card's main driver and is designed to provide basic display functionality, including showing the mouse pointer even if the primary graphics driver is not functioning correctly.

"guides" on the net to solve this problem are useless. Most are confusing a totally black screen with a black screen with mouse

The A.I. mentioned a snippet which I haven't seen anywhere else. "the mouse pointer is often managed by the basic display driver provided by the operating system. This driver operates independently of the graphics card's main driver " which then leans towards a graphics driver problem. But I updated that and it didn't help.

BUT, even though I am new to Linux, I posted in my other blog about odd screen flickering issues on some graphics. This may or may not be related to the windows graphics problems. Theres no way to tell. But I do have a second graphics card (still the same GTX1060 IIRC) so a straight swap would rule out a hardware problem with the GFX card.

Its odd though as in Linux the game I play runs at like 5FPS when its malfunctioning. It only did that when the graphics card drivers were not installed. However after a reboot, it tends to work fine afterwards. Though I don't know if thats some Linux bug, or a graphics card hardware failure. Though as the A.I. mentions black screen is graphics failure...

But if the graphics card is failing. How can it run games apparently fine ? I have always seen "bad pixels" or lines/blocks screwing up the graphics in games when the card is failing. I don't see any of that. I can play games for a hour and nothing seems amiss.

So when I get home, I am going to run 3Dmark to hammer the graphics card (this will simulate the PC being on all day) then power off for half hour and reboot and see if I get the black screen. The LAN cable will remain unplugged until I can prove its not the internet at fault.

Again, I find it odd about that error I get in ESET. Its like after the PC has been online for 3+ hours that error starts appearing. It has to be some attack or thermal hardware failure I think. If my laptop can remain online overnight without having that error, then I would tend to side with its not internet related but limited to my PC only.

I think this problem may end up being one which beats me . Though without my PC functioning properly (in either windows or Linux) this means my time on the forum will be limited (I use my girlfriends pc or my slow Android tablet) , I won't be able to do any Atari work at all, or do an updates on the server etc. These problems could take some weeks or months to resolve and I am getting busy with work now for the next few weeks. So if I vanish for periods of time, then people know why.

[Steve]

Graphics cards are leaps and bounds more complex than they were 'back in the day' when some dots or lines on the screen meant there was an issue. Graphics cards aren't a simple framebuffer as they once were. It could be something very strange, it could be heat related too. I think it makes sense for you to try another graphics card in your system to rule it out.

[exxos]

Graphics cards are leaps and bounds more complex than they were 'back in the day' when some dots or lines on the screen meant there was an issue. Graphics cards aren't a simple framebuffer as they once were. It could be something very strange, it could be heat related too. I think it makes sense for you to try another graphics card in your system to rule it out.

Yeah thats another good point. I have had every problem under the sun in 98,XP days. Though these are going back to like 20 years ago now when I was dealing with all this stuff basically full time. As you say, tech has moved on which pretty much invalidates whatever I can remember from all those years ago.

It could still be some CPU malfunction. a bad connection on it etc. But if that was the case, why haven't I seen any bluescreens by now. I am getting to the point of building a new PC to try and rule out the motherboard and CPU.. very time consuming and expensive method

I could understand it if the GFX card wasn't resetting. Though why would Linux still display the desktop.. Though as Windows and Linux are basically acting like there is no graphics driver installed... That by itself is bizzare. The driver should load in both cases, which only leaves a hardware failure. Where windows gives black screen with mouse. Linux has flicking screen and acts like the driver isn't loaded.

Also I tend to believe safemode works in windows. It wouldn't load the graphics drivers, But again, as the problem is intermittent , its hard to tell. Normally after a couple of resets, it tends to start booting fine. Though it may not be the graphics card, it could be something on the motherboard screwing up.

It would be like the graphics driver asks the card if its alive, is not, load default drivers. But then why doesn't windows boot with standard drivers instead. Also its not totally true about the Linux issue either. As when the graphics driver wasn't loaded. I didn't get a animated background while loading steem. So its like something only half loaded in the driver.

I have taken the graphics card out and cleaned it with IPA wipes. Will be mad if it is the graphics card. Its had an easy life.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention I get the BIOS boot screen, Windows loading screen, the welcome screen.. Then it goes black. But maybe during all those points the proper NVIDIA driver hasn't loaded yet.

Also people on the internet mostly seem to mention the issue after a windows update. That is what seemed to happen to me. Though I did rollback all the office updates and remove it. Made no odds. Others said similar as well. It be like windows updates bricked the graphics card almost. Though in my case, after a couple PC resets, it tends to work fine again.

[Steve]

Yeah as far as I know on windows the graphics driver only 'kicks in' as soon as the boot screen disappears and the desktop screen comes up. In safe mode it doesn't load the driver at all, it runs a software rendered desktop. Same with Linux, it will run software rendered desktop if the graphics driver fails to load.

[exxos]

Even though this is on my girlfriends PC. I am searching the entire C: drive for that error in every file. Assumption is as its English text, it might be listed as a string in some dll or exe etc. Though I searched windows folder only and it didn't find anything. So I am not hopeful. But will repeat the search on my own PC when I get home.

Capture.PNG (109.59 KiB) Viewed 666 times

[exxos]

Yeah as far as I know on windows the graphics driver only 'kicks in' as soon as the boot screen disappears and the desktop screen comes up. In safe mode it doesn't load the driver at all, it runs a software rendered desktop. Same with Linux, it will run software rendered desktop if the graphics driver fails to load.

Yep agreed. Even though I reinstalled the graphics driver in windows, I didn't do a clean install. I could try that, but having issues in linux as well anyway..

I might have a older gen card somewhere still. I could try that so its new hardware and (hopefully) installs a different driver as well.