Win 10 Msconfig/safe Mode/system Restore

[Old_Geezer]

To be as brief as possible, I need to attempt to restore a checkpoint to reverse driver updates that seem to be the cause of problems.

PC made some ludicrous excuse if not being able to as it had no access to some file. Decided to boot into safe mode and try again.

Used msconfig to set safe mode boot. Got into safe mode.

In safe mode no sign of restore can be found ! Neither does the search work so I can't access msconfig to reset to normal boot. Nor can I find a dos window command.

Stuck and can't seem to find the way out. Suggestions please ?

TIA

[Old_Geezer]

I have Experience installed. I tend not to use it so much these days because I've had issues with the game and their driver for some time; but I thought I'd changed enough to minimise the errors. I suspect half my problems now is down to Experience thinking it knows what the 'optimum' settings are and setting them.

It was a 3rd party driver monitor that suggested I was out of date (Experience no longer running to tell me) and I was foolish enough to get Experience to install the latest. Clearly I don't learn quickly.

I've just been out gardening for 2 to 3 hours, get back in, and back to the game, and it has crashed within 20 minutes; but again this time not the whole PC.

It has told me that the driver stopped working and recovered. The game has been denied access to the graphics system though, so it is the only remaining affected programme, and I shall have to end the task using the Task Manager. This is not unknown, but I had got the occurrence down to, oh, once every few days maybe ? Once a day at worst.

Appreciate the original question was related but not about why the crash occurs, but concerned restoring drivers and how the heck to get out of Safe Mode, but if anyone has an insight on how to stop the driver ceasing to work at certain points in the game, it'd sure be useful.

[SlackAlice]

What's the game?

[Old_Geezer]

Dragon Age Inquisition.
(DAI)

[SlackAlice]

Dragon Age Inquisition

You start the the game via Origin? Have you verified the gamefiles, it's an option in Origins Game window (right click on the game icon).

Scroll down to the last post on here, may help

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Dragon-Age-Inquisition/INFO-DA-I-Troubleshooting-amp-Workarounds/td-p/4012827

[SlackAlice]

Also, you have checked to make sure your graphics card isn't overheating?

[pinkyboyid]

Worth a try, create a new Windows 10 User account and play the game logged on as the new user and also close any other unnecessary running programs. If that works (by some miracle!) then your current user account profile is the most likely culprit.

[Old_Geezer]

I rarely start the game via Origin (I dislike the arrangement where they have to be involved) but it makes little odds. When I do it exhibits the same problem, and if I start the game directly Origin triggers anyway.

One apparent improvement I found a while ago was to untick enabling Origin in game (Heck ! Just discovered something has reticked it !)

I don't see the check but I do see the repair game option. Done that.

Thanks for the ea link. I have been to that site, although not read that particular thread.

"We are aware of issues with certain NVidia graphic cards and we are working with NVIDIA on a solution." Hmm ... not quickly enough.

In fairness this was an issue with Win 7 also, and didn't change on upversioning to Win 10, until I updated the drivers at which point it went back to it's worst ever crashing frequency/severity.

I'm beginning to think it may have been successful at the restore after all since (touch wood) the crashes have all been recoverable (apart from the game) since then.

I could give it a try but suspect I'm opening myself up to a return to the total PC crash scenario again. I'm unsure which driver version works least badly but I'm hoping I'm back to it.

Oh that's interesting, just tried to start Experience and all I get is "The system can not find the path specified" !? Came in ok up to now. Maybe I need to reinstall it. Was only going to use it to check their driver version number.

10.18.13.5382 according to Speccy

Nothing is overheating as far as I can tell. I occasionally use Speedfan to check. Have also ensured no dust anywhere, just in case.

I may well try the new user suggestion. I'll let folk know how it goes. But first I'd like to become familiar with the present state.

[SlackAlice]

//[PC] Upgraded to Windows 10? Update your graphics drivers!


‎08-03-2015 02:27 AM

With the release of Windows 10, we see more issues related to graphics drivers. It is recommended to completely remove your Windows 7/8 graphics drivers and install the latest Windows 10 drivers from the website of your GPU manufacturer.

To perform a clean install, go to the control panel by right clicking the start menu button and clicking 'control panel'. Then go to 'uninstall a program' and uninstall all software from either Nvidia or AMD (depending on what you have).

Then install the latest Windows 10 drivers for your GPU.

Nvidia driver download page
AMD driver download page

More info here: http://answers.ea.com/t5/Origin/Info-Your-games-and-the-Windows-10-upgrade/m-p/4697286#M160467
//

This is a Copy and Paste of the forum item mentioned in my 15.31 post

[Old_Geezer]

Aye, I recognise it :-)
Thanks.

[Old_Geezer]

Hmm... never goes right does it.

I remove the first NVidia driver in the list and that seems fine. Then every other one claims it can not find the NV12.DLL module, so it failed. So much for a clean install. Existing ones can not be removed.

Oh well, pressing on.

[Old_Geezer]

Oh goodie. Installation failed. No mention of why.
system check
license agreement
options install
nvidia installer failed

[Old_Geezer]

Oh goodie. Installation failed. No mention of why.
system check
license agreement
options
install
nvidia installer failed

[Old_Geezer]

Interesting. Downloaded and installed Experience. It has downloaded the same drivers and claims it managed to install them. So the driver executable makes a hash of it, but the programme that likes to fiddle with the game settings manages it ! (Hopefully)

[Old_Geezer]

Oh dear. Win 10 drivers and I'm back to the whole PC crash / power cycle. I'll see how it goes but may need to try to get the old ones back. At least that only crashed the game because all else were allowed to use the restarted driver.

[Old_Geezer]

And another 15 minutes later. Give it one more chance and then I'll try to work out how to get the Win 7 old ones back.

[Old_Geezer]

10 minutes, and crashed out again. And on restart it asked for a password (?!?) and took ages.

'Video Scheduler Internal Error' apparently. Worth mentioning I've run video card test programmes in the past and they caused no issues.

[Old_Geezer]

Oh great, it's now pretending there are no restore points saved, so I can't return to the one I returned to last time ! Lying OS !

The Nvidia site doesn't go back far enough to find the one I was getting some success with. Seems I'm stuck with the regular 10 minute complete PC crash. Why the heck did I ever choose to upversion the drivers ?

[Old_Geezer]

Thanks to all. I'll look back from time to time in case someone has come across a probable solution to the real issue; but everything I've done just seems to have made it worse.

Realising I could not go back to the drivers where the crashes were far between, and tended to be game crashes only, I opted to use DDU to remove the drivers and GeForce Experience to bring in the recommended ones again. It now crashes the whole PC within a few minutes of reloading the game.

Apart from paying out money I can't justify on a new top-of-the-range video card (and that's extremely unlikely) I feel I'm stumped. I could try the new account suggestion but to be honest I reckon I'd be stuck with a new account, maybe passwords to recall, and can't see how that should affect the game and nothing else. It's all very depressing.

[CrapAtCryptics]

Would it be worth going back to the games website and looking through the forum for a fix or patch - as its Win 10 I doubt you will be the first to encounter it. 10 is not great with older programs but a little fiddling and reading got my older preferred ones ie Microsoft Money working properly.

[Old_Geezer]

It's not a bad suggestion. When I feel up to it I may do so. Problem is that there were crashes prior to the Windows upversion; in fact I'd not have upversioned Windows yet were it not for trying to fix that. And it was the same after the upversion, until I was informed there was a new driver and I was daft enough to upversion that also.

I feel I've been a long time at EA games sites, NVidia sites, general help sites, and probably come across most posts of having a similar issue. But yes, you are quite right, Win 10 is a change and there may well be more out there. If only I could go back to driver versions 353.82 for the GTX 470 I might be able at least to get back to where I was.