BSOD on Windows 7 and currently Windows 10 while playing Dota2

Hi,

when i start Dota2 (which runs with the -dx9 parameter by default) the game and Windows crash fight after the main menu loads. For this crash i have attached the file generated by the log collecotor.

I have had this problem with Windows 7 and currently with Windows 10. I have tried various drivers and currently was using the old ones which i downloaded from the vendor (acer) website. But the exact same error happens with newer drivers as well. I reinstalled WIndows several times, replaced the HDD, installed various drivers for different components, nothing helped. Also, i used to install Ubuntu on a separate partition, i remember the game crashing there too, but that was long ago. Maybe i'll try it again tomorrow.

The Laptop had overheating problems (it never turned off due to that though, it was just really hot with over 90° most of the time while playing), currently its barely over 80°.

Now the other part of the problem (and the reason why i could live with the first problem for so long) is, that when i start the game with the -dx11 parameter, the game does not crash right after the start. It crashes while i play the game, sometimes not in days and sometimes all the time. Of course right now it doesnt want to crash, so ill upload the dump as soon as the game crashes. Although i have to say, that i need to use newer drivers for -dx11 to work, and the newer drivers dont cause Windows to crash, only the game. So ill upload the crash dumps from the game instead.

Sorry for the wall of text, i hope that someone can take a look at the dump from the first problem (with -dx9).Attachment 58578

Thanks

axe0 said:

It seems the crashes are GPU related, specifically the Nvidia one.

It also appears Acer doesn't have drivers for your laptop and some drivers are very old.
I suggest to revert back to Windows 7 and reinstall the nvidia drivers.

While that is true, i did have the same bluescreens even on Windows 7, but often times (iirc) the error was not TDR but somehing like IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Since im trying to troubleshoot this i am reinstalling Windows every few days, i don't mind installing Windows 7 again to try it out.

Would you kindly look at the dump file from Windows 7 if the error occurs again? I would upload it here when i'm done.

Ill try Windows7 + Acer drivers and Windows 7 + newest NVidia drivers.

Hi,

i ran memtest over the night, no errors. After i freshly installed Windows 7 yesterday (and installed all of the acer drivers), i could play with no issues and was almost thinking that the problem was solved. But right now, after i started the game with the dx9 parameter, it crashed at the same place in the main menu like in Windows 10. Maybe i played yesterday with the -dx11 parameter, ill try that out now and see how it goes. But it definitely crashes with dx9 just like in Windows 10.

Here is the dump:
Attachment 58789

Edit: i just had another BSOD while playing with -dx11

Hi and thanks.

I am using the latest NVidia and Intel driver listed on the page. Also there is a separate download for the PhysiX driver, i have installed that one too.

I still cant quite recall why i could play a day before without issues. I just reinstalled Windows 7 because i had downloaded the wrong Iso before and thus could not activate. Now i installed Home Premium, installed the drivers just like yesterday and am going to play again now and see if it crashes. Currently ill disable windows update, since i think that was the only differnce between the two days, after the first day i think windows installed some updates.

Next step, if i get the BSOD again with this driver constellation, ill install the newest driver from the NVidia page.

Thanks for your time, ill bump the thread as soon as i get another crash with additional informations. If you need other informations in the meantime just ask.

One question though:
Since i had some heat issues from time to time with this laptop, do you think its possible that this issues are the result of damaged hardware? What i fing so odd is that all of the GPU stress test software never had any BSODs...

I think i didnt document well enough what i tried after the last time. Currently im systematically starting the game with different options etc. so i can see when the game gets playable again. Currently, with -dx9, it does crash every single time right after the start. So probably, i somehow changed to dx11 right away and could play with that the day. It seems that -dx9 doesnt work in any case (any windows version, any driver).

To answer your question:
I dont switch manually. I have configured in the nvidia control center that for dota2.exe it should use the NVidia card, and that apparently works because when i first started the game (and didnt have this setting on) it didnt crash but was very slow so im sure it was using the Intel card there. Now it uses NVidia the whole time and crashes.

I have tried several things now, like using only external monitor, disconnecting any usb drives, etc. it still crashes every time with -dx9.

So now ill start testing with -dx11. Here are the recent dumps, i suppose they are same as the other ones.