How do Drivers break

[mogmoogle]

Hello,

I have recently run into a problem I haven't run into before which is confusing, 3 weeks ago I installed a new graphics card, and clean installed the drivers, last night I was playing Grand theft auto 4 and my computer froze, after I reset the computer it froze again instantly when I loaded it. so I gave up for the night, the next day I tried again and it ran for 5 mins and started freezing, so I reset when I came back to windows the mouse wasn't moving around the screen properly so I guided with the keyboard, after which the display adapter stopped responding twice and eventually froze. so I reset went to safe mode, checked for viruses, malware, all the programs turned up nothing I cleaned my registry had like 3 or for errors, and reinstalled my nvidia drivers and reset, now it works again. I mean I know how to fix crap when it screws up but how did the driver break in the first place, I didn't install any software, or updates or anything since I installed the new graphics card, I've been playing starcraft 2 and GTA4 on and off but that's it so I don't get how a driver can just decide to kill itself, anyone know?

**Edit**

I checked the temperature and it was at 25 while Idle which I assume is good for a graphics card from what I've seen.
I've run memory diagnostics and nothing either, so I don't get it

 

[Kewlx25]

make sure you have the newest drivers

 

[bdcrlsn]

It happens more often than you think. Any number of things could corrupt the drivers, I know that I had an issue where I didn't fully remove my nVidia drivers when I bought an ATI card and had all kinds of issues. When uninstalling with GPU drivers, you need to also use a driver removing program such as Driver Sweeper, since even if you uninstall the drivers, they tend to leave remnants that can interfere with new drivers.

 

[mogmoogle]

Kelx25 > actually I whenever I buy a new video card I get the oldest possible driver for it and use that.

Bdcrisn > ya thats what I'm saying I did a clean install of the latest Nvidia drivers and then 3 weeks later it just started screwing up. out of the blue, its weird I'm just wondering what can cause a driver to spontaneously combust. Like right now I have GTA4 on full graphics my CPU is at 49 degreese and my GPU is 36, the rest of my computer is between 25 - 35 degrees, so I know its not heat, and normally if the fan fails you get lock up pixal barf, which has happened to me a few times, of course its most likely windows

 

[vegettonox]

You may be ignoring another possible problem, are you sure your power supply is adequate for your video card and it could possibly be faulty as well. Do you have a friend who could try your graphics card in his system for some tests or possibly swap out a power supply to test. What are the models of your video cards, did you go from a dedicated graphics card to another one or from on-board to dedicated. Please let me know what the models are and I can look into what the power requirements are plus what model is your power supply or at least what is it rated at in wattage.