Nvidia Drivers Crashing, Sometimes Computer Crashes

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Zyphxion

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Apr 4, 2014
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Specs:
Windows 7 64-bit
Service Pack 1
CPU: i5-760 2.8GHz
GPU: GTX 660 Nvidia Driver: 335.23
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W
Mobo: ASUS Maximus III GENE
Boot HDD: SAMSUNG 830 Series SSD

Basic Explanation of the Problem: When I'm playing games, no matter the graphical intensity (though I've been noticing it happen more frequently on high intensity games), my display will randomly shut off and audio will duck out. It stays like this for about 5 seconds then everything comes back online, with an error popup bubble from the system tray that says something along the lines of "Nvidia display drivers crashed and have recovered." Sometimes this happens very often, sometimes I can go for a few hours without it happening. Sometimes when my display ducks out, instead of a black screen it will be pure magenta, or pure yellow, or pure green, and the audio instead of ducking will hang. It doesn't recover from this state and I have to hard restart my computer. Sometimes the system just crashes entirely and automatically restarts. These latter two issues happen more rarely, the "display driver crashing and restarting" error is by far more common.

Details and What I've Done Already:
This is an issue that's plagued me for about 3/4 a year now. I originally RMA'd the card, but the one they sent back was also having this issue. I thought I solved it by using an older video card I had (a GTX 460). Everything was going fine with my 460 except sometimes I would boot my computer up and everything that used the GPU would run at like 2 fps. I'm talking games, Windows Aero fades and window size changes, it would all look like it was in slow motion. This issue would fix itself after a few restarts, and would only happen like twice a month. But about a week ago I started experiencing the same "driver" shutdown and recovery as I'm now experiencing with my GTX 660. After this started happening, my computer eventually had trouble booting up, and would sometimes get to the Windows loading screen then everything would go blank, with an audible whining sound coming from somewhere inside my case. I determined that sound to be coming from my GTX 460, and eventually the only way I could even boot without crashing was to swap in my GTX 660, the card I'm currently using. I consider my 460 to be dead. So far, I've tried both PCI Express ports on my motherboard, with the same result. I've gone into Safe Mode and did a clean Nvidia driver install, using a 3rd party tool to remove all traces of the old drivers beforehand. I've installed older, "more stable" drivers. I've reset my BIOS settings to default and even cleared the CMOS. I've quadruple-checked that everything is seated properly. Nothing has helped. I've looked a the most recent .dmp file and the name of the file causing the crash is nvlddmkm.sys which not surprisingly is Nvidia related, so that didn't tell me much.

I've been told that it might be a PSU issue since it happened on both video cards. However I don't know for sure, or know how I could know for sure, or if I could be totally off base, so that's why I'm here. I hope you guys can help.

Thanks in advance!
 
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jjphillips002

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Nov 20, 2013
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In order to test the PSU, you'd just need to use another and see what happens.

If your HDD was a disk drive, I'd say consider it is failing and not reading driver files properly sometimes, but I don't know if that's possible in an SSD.

What brand/model of GTX 660 do you have? What games are you playing that it crashes on? Does it crash even when not playing game? What about movies?

Lots of people a few years back was having this issue and staying on 306.97 helped.
 
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Zyphxion

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Apr 4, 2014
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If only it were that easy. And my i5 and mobo I both purchased in October of 2010.



Yes, I said as much in my OP. I think I rolled back to 314.22 per recommendation from a Google search.



I'll give those drivers a shot. The games I'm playing where I'm noticing a crash are: FFXIV: A Realm Reborn (max settings), World of Warcraft (max settings), Bioshock Infinite (high settings), Minecraft (max settings), Dark Souls. Games I've been playing where it's not crashing: South Park: The Stick of Truth, Hearthstone, and Audiosurf, neither of which are very graphically intensive games. So far I haven't noticed it crashing when I'm not playing a game.

The brand of 660 is linked in the OP.
 
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jjphillips002

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Nov 20, 2013
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Sorry, didn't see it. Since your GPU is OC'd from factory (not that I think OC is bad) it seems like others have had equal success in underclocking by ~5% to around reference. But that's not really solving the issue.

I didn't know anyone enjoyed WoW anymore. =P

Also, would you care to play to a crash point maybe while monitoring your temps? Hardly likely any of these games are pushing your card hard, but it's still worth checking out.

Like I said, much of the internet seems to agree the first set of drivers has solved their problems.

 
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Zyphxion

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Yeah, I've monitored my temps, nothing seems to go over 50 degrees Celsius. Drivers are downloading right now, I'll do a clean install and see how it goes
 
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Zyphxion

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Drivers installed after a clean wipe of the old ones and still crashing.

I'm going to go ahead and order a new PSU to test. I know this isn't the right sub forum but any recommendations for <$100? I'm looking for one with modular cables, it doesn't need to have the same wattage as my current one, I don't think I was fully utilizing the 850w anyway.
 
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Zyphxion

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I might be able to arrange something with a friend of mine. For now, I downloaded EVGA Precision X and set the clock offset to -8 MHz and the Power Target to 95%, and it didn't do anything differently.

RMA'd another dud? After having this same issue with my 460 and now my 660, if it turns out to be a card issue then I'm never buying an EVGA product again.
 
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jjphillips002

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Nov 20, 2013
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Hmm. I'm just as clueless as you are. And EVGA is normally a pretty solid brand. They stood by one of my cards for 10 years, so they have to believe they make good stuff at least. I'm like you, I don't think it's a dud, but it's possible. Only a system swap would tell you. Let's recap though

306 drivers didn't help
Underclocking did not help
Issue persists through GPU swap
Card has been RMA'd
PCI-E port doesn't seem to be faulty
Card is not overheating

These are my only next possible solutions and they're totally shooting in the wind but:

Check to see if any Intel or AMD graphics drivers are on your computer. I have no idea why they might be, but Windows is dumb sometimes and plays tricks on you.

Uninstall any nVidia 3D drivers if you don't use them, and they are installed. nVidia also has some sound drivers, but I've never heard of any issues with them.

Try a registry cleaner if you haven't. http://pcsupport.about.com/od/registry-cleaner/fr/ccleaner.htm This is pretty good.

If the game lets you (I know WoW does), try DX9 if you're commonly using DX11. DX11 if you commonly use DX9. Go to Microsoft and make sure you're running the LATEST LATEST LATEST DX version update you can possibly have. If you want to know for sure what you have, go to start > run > dxdiag.

ASUS has BIOS updates from 2012. If your version is outdated, try updating the BIOS.

Some one also said in another forum like this to make sure your SSD is using AHCI.

Last, and FINALLY, if NOTHING works, a clean install of Windows might surprise you.

I hope you get this sorted out. Sucks not being able to enjoy games or even predict when you get kicked off.

 
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aclarkgraphics

aclarkgraphics

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I have an evga 650ti and have had the EXACT same issues as you described in your first post. Trouble on boot ups, 3-5 second screen freezes along with the display driver popup message. I used Driver Sweeper and Display Driver Uninstaller to completely remove drivers and am currently rolled back to 331.58. I was really close to RMAing the GPU but then someone in this forum also recommended I try a different PSU. That is where I am at right now and I will test and see how it goes. Very curious to see if this works for you. Good luck!
 
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Zyphxion

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Tried everything suggested, still happening. I'm wanting to try a new PSU but I'm hesitant still, I'm trying to determine if there's a way I can rule out the PSU being an issue without using another PC. I think I'm going to go out and get another PSU and if that doesn't fix it I'll at least have the option to return it.
 
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Zyphxion

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I replaced my PSU with this one.

Still crashing. At least I've narrowed it down to it being likely a mobo issue (I'm still not convinced it's the card).

I'm going to try and clean install Windows, just to absolutely 100% narrow this down.
 
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jjphillips002

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Nov 20, 2013
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Yes, he said he did in the OP.

You might be able to change the PCI-E bandwidth in the BIOS to a lower value like x8 or x4 to test then.

Hopefully the reinstall helps.

Only other thing I can think of is that the card is getting extremely hot spikes and you don't see it. The best way to observe that is to play a game and read the max value when it crashes and hope system doesn't. I don't think it's any of those, and I'm still betting on a driver issue instead of a motherboard issue.

Let us know.


 
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