Display driver stopped responding?? My PC has been fine for 2 months until now

[Sir_Chris]

Hello all,

A mighty confusing problem has arisen today while I was watching videos on my PC. I get error messages saying that "Display Driver NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver. Version 290.36" bla bla bla stopped responding. My computer has had no problems up until now. I have not updated anything or done anything at all. It does not seem to crash during gaming just when I watch Youtube or movies. I upgraded the latest nvidia drivers from Nov. 2011 still no use.

Just now while im typing this, my VLC player crashed and the movie i was watching was paused.

Anybody know what the hecks going on? This is the last thing I need right before SWTOR comes out. Is this a Hardware problem ?

Thanks,
Chris

[Stringy31]

Thousands are having this problem, I had it when I updated my drivers as well... I re-installed my old drives and sacrificed graphics settings in my games to stop this issue (hopefully for good though it seems to come on at random times.) Its an NVIDIA problem.

[sennevdb]

It's an issue with the nVidia function called "PowerMizer". It lowers your clock speed and voltage when your laptop is in idle state, and raises it in-game. That's why it won't crash in-game: your clocks and voltage are high enough when gaming. But when watching flash video's or stuff like that, it tends to crash because it needs more voltage to the graphics adapter. All you've got to do is download the PowerMizer Switch, which is a little tool to turn it off.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gami...ideo-card.html

[Howlingmine]

I'm having the same problem with my build (see my sig). the machine has been running fine since the 1st day I built it up until about 2 weeks ago. Although my display driver will stop responding at any time, not just in games. Reinstalling the video drivers helped a bit, it doesn't happen as often now, but it still happens. I've also tried the latest beta drivers and rolled back to the original ones. Nothing seems to help.

the problem would make a bit more sense if it was a laptop, but this is my desktop with all power saving features turned off.

[MarshallR@ASUS]

I'm having the same problem with my build (see my sig). the machine has been running fine since the 1st day I built it up until about 2 weeks ago. Although my display driver will stop responding at any time, not just in games. Reinstalling the video drivers helped a bit, it doesn't happen as often now, but it still happens. I've also tried the latest beta drivers and rolled back to the original ones. Nothing seems to help.

the problem would make a bit more sense if it was a laptop, but this is my desktop with all power saving features turned off.

Try turning the default settings back on? Have you don't anything to the Windows install recently?

[Howlingmine]

Nothing new installed in quite some time (besides Windows updates)

I'm not sure what you mean by "default settings". Default settings on what? The vid card? Motherboard? There has been no overclocking done to either.

[MarshallR@ASUS]

Sorry - you said you've changed it to maximum performance mode in Windows, maybe changing it back to balanced?
Can you try the card in another system (or another Nvidia card in your system) to see if it causes the same effect there? Since it's not outright crashing/bluescreening it's difficult to diagnose whether it's a hardware or Windows issue.

[WolfSoul]

Well from what I've heard setting the 3D power option in Nvida panel to Maximum performance seems to stop the error from occuring

[Howlingmine]

@MarshallR - I tried putting this card into another machine, same problem. I've also swapped in an old GTX470 into this machine, same problem.

@Wolfsoul - I've tried maximum perf, balanced, single monitor, dual monitor, I've tried every setting I can think of and it still occurs.

I'm beginning to think it is a driver issue and I'll just have to wait for a new one to be released. It's just odd that everything was fine for 2 months before the problem started.

[RoG]

@MarshallR - I tried putting this card into another machine, same problem. I've also swapped in an old GTX470 into this machine, same problem.

@Wolfsoul - I've tried maximum perf, balanced, single monitor, dual monitor, I've tried every setting I can think of and it still occurs.

I'm beginning to think it is a driver issue and I'll just have to wait for a new one to be released. It's just odd that everything was fine for 2 months before the problem started.

There is already a new driver out, do a clean uninstall of the .36 driver, it is .... your system!Reboot & Thene install the latest on "geforce.com" & it should be running smooth again! It also beta, but you can see in the info that they fixed almost everything...Hopes this hellps you out... I don't have any probs so far!