# [SOLVED] Display driver stopped responding and has recovered



## Lopi (May 26, 2013)

"Display driver NVIDIA Windows Kernal Mode Driver, Version 320.18 stopped responding and has successfully recovered."

Currently using Windows 7 Home, and a Geforce GTX 560 TI. i5-3550, 8 gbs ram. I was playing Garry's mod earlier and left my computer for 10 minutes. I came back and everything was frozen. I ended the process trees and everything seemed OK until my screen flashed black and clusters of green pixels appeared all over my desktop. The screen flashes and videos don't play properly no matter what the resolution (although higher resolution results in a worse quality, lagging, extreme pixelation, choppy etc). When I try to play YouTube videos it lags hard and then the screen flashes black and I get a message from my task bar that says "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered... Display driver NVIDIA Windows Kernal Mode Driver, Version 320.18 stopped responding and has successfully recovered." I have tried defragmenting, scanning for viruses, updating drivers, rolling back drivers, resetting HDMI cables, air-dusting my GPU and HDMI ports and ends, hard shutting down, restarting, talking to an NVIDIA chat guy who told me to check the heat and load of the gpu, (running at 40 degrees consistently and not going above 10% watching movies). He told me to download a video card stability test (but it was a 404 link and couldn't be opened from Firefox or Chrome). I tried resetting the drivers to the earliest version (285) that came with the disk, and that did nothing to help. When I open any program, small squarish clusters of green pixels flash, and when I move the transparent borders to windows, like Firefox, I can see larger clusters in the background but when I minimize they aren't there. My icons and task bar occasionally disappear until I mouse-over them and they reappear. Sometimes when there is a video playing, or a Skype call, my screen gets this weird black and white checkerboard pattern that covered it all and goes away after 15 or so seconds. All this only happened today, in the last couple hours and I don't think it's a virus. When I start my computer in safe mode with networking, any of these issues do not present themselves, and I can watch HD videos without a problem, and there are no clusters of green pixels. Does anyone have advice for what I can do, or try to troubleshoot this problem? Help would be greatly appreciated. Also Firefox is crashing frequently, and any picture or animation looks as if it is selecting it self, as in left-click on a window and then deselecting right after, and goes on and on really quickly. I reinstalled Windows 7, went into MSCONFIG, turned off all the programs on start up, but the issues still present themselves. In safe mode with networking none of the issues are present. I don't know if it is my drivers, gpu hardware, screen, hdmi cable, or a program that's messing with my computer. I am clueless


----------



## makinu1der2 (Jan 1, 2008)

*Re: Display driver stopped responding and has recovered*

Hello,

Post the rest of your specs: Motherboard-CPU-Power Supply brand/wattage

Did you complete uninstall the driver before attempting to update it?

If possible test the graphics card in another PC.

From what you described it seems likely there is a problem with the graphics card.


----------



## Lopi (May 26, 2013)

*Re: Display driver stopped responding and has recovered*

Operating system: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU: Intel Core i5 3550 @ 3.30GHz Ivy Bridge 22nm Technology
Ram: 8.0 GB DDR3 @ 801MHz
Motherboard: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. P8Z77-V LK (LGA1155)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeFroce GTX 560 Ti, running on an Asus VS248 Screen
Hard Drives: 932GB Western Digital 
Power Supply: Cooler Master 700W Silent Pro

I don't have any other computer that I can test the GPU in, and no other GPUs available to test in the computer unfortunately.


----------



## Lopi (May 26, 2013)

*Re: Display driver stopped responding and has recovered*

When I uninstalled the drivers, the screen resolution went down, and all the issues disappeared before I restarted the computer. When I restarted the computer, windows automatically updated the drivers, and as soon as that finished, the problems were back. Apparently it doesn't matter what driver I have installed. Windows installed 314, and the current version is 320, but I got the same error message with both drivers.


----------



## makinu1der2 (Jan 1, 2008)

*Re: Display driver stopped responding and has recovered*

Try completely uninstalling the driver:
-Download Driver Sweeper and install it. Don't run the program yet
- First, Uninstall the NVidia driver/software from Control Panel > Uninstall a program and restart
-Now run Driver Fusion, select *Nvidia Display only* and then select Clean
-After complete restart the PC then install the a latest version of the Graphics driver.

It is possible that the card is faulty and needs to be replaced.


----------



## Lopi (May 26, 2013)

*Re: Display driver stopped responding and has recovered*

I went into control panel and uninstalled the driver. I restarted the computer but it auto-updated the driver again. What do you mean by Driver Fusion? I ran the DriverSweeper that you linked me, selected Nvidia Display, and pressed Clean. Reinstalled current drivers from Nvidia website but problems still there. How can I stop windows updater from installing the drivers automatically after I restart? A message comes up that they're installing and I don't have an option weather to stop it or not. Not even ending the update process stops it.
Thanks for your continuous help by the way.


----------



## Rich-M (May 2, 2007)

*Re: Display driver stopped responding and has recovered*

Really poor quality Psu could be the problem, how old is it?


----------



## Lopi (May 26, 2013)

*Re: Display driver stopped responding and has recovered*

The PSU was bought new in august 2012


----------



## Rich-M (May 2, 2007)

*Re: Display driver stopped responding and has recovered*

Well a year is about all I would expect out of a Cooler master made by "Enhance".


----------



## makinu1der2 (Jan 1, 2008)

*Re: Display driver stopped responding and has recovered*



Lopi said:


> I went into control panel and uninstalled the driver. I restarted the computer but it auto-updated the driver again. What do you mean by Driver Fusion? I ran the DriverSweeper that you linked me, selected Nvidia Display, and pressed Clean. Reinstalled current drivers from Nvidia website but problems still there. How can I stop windows updater from installing the drivers automatically after I restart? A message comes up that they're installing and I don't have an option weather to stop it or not. Not even ending the update process stops it.
> Thanks for your continuous help by the way.


Sorry for the confusion Driver Sweeper and Driver Fusion are the same program.

After fully uninstalling the driver and running Sweeper the basic Windows driver should be installed after rebooting.

Once the basic driver is installed you can then update from the Nvidia site.

The easiest way to find the culprit is to test the graphics card outside this system. Maybe use a friends PC to see if you get the same problem.

If you have successfully uninstalled the drivers and re-installed then you may be looking at a hardware fault with the graphics card.


----------



## Lopi (May 26, 2013)

*Re: Display driver stopped responding and has recovered*

I tried everything, but in the end I had to bring it in to a computer store. Turns out both the GPU and the PSU had hardware issues and are discontinued products, so I got free upgrade to a corsair 750w professional series, and a geforce gtx 660ti 3gb gpu. Thanks for all the suggestions and help along the way


----------



## makinu1der2 (Jan 1, 2008)

*Re: Display driver stopped responding and has recovered*

Thanks for the update and glad you were able to get it resolved.


----------

