After installing Nvidia drivers, Windows won't boot

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
R

RikdeVos

Honorable
Jan 29, 2014
1
0
10,510
I'm using an Nvidia GTX 470. When I install the Nvidia driver for this card, every time I start my pc it won't get past the starting windows screen as a blue screen of death occurs. Booting in safe-mode works fine, and if I then remove the Nvidia driver Windows will boot just fine. I have tried it with a fresh install of Windows 7, and a fresh install op Windows 8, but both without any success. Using an older version (current stable is 332.21) of the Nvidia driver won't work, I've tried a couple of older versions already.

Has anyone got any ideas? Thanks!
 
Sort by date Sort by votes


I am having this EXACT same issue. I use a GTX 470. Since I updated to their latest drivers, the exact same issues happen. I have changed BIOS settings, including voltage to my PCIe slots, tried every driver back to a year ago. Each time I try a new driver I make sure to use DriverFusion to remove any and all instance of the previous driver family. The Windows VGA driver boots fine, the Nvidia driver loads the the first animated splash screen, and it has little Matrix-esque lines occasionally, then when the animation for the splash stops, it garbles slightly and then doesn't boot.

Mind you, I've tried about 50 times different driver combinations and tests, sometimes it did load into Windows, but the driver never took. Still showed an issue in Device Manager and had the same VGA resolution, etc. Before this update, my card was 100% fine. Memory tests for it show OK. Power tests show OK. Temperature tests show OK. The only thing that changed was the driver. And now, no driver works. Very frustrating, but I am at least glad I am not the only one. Hoping for some type of solution.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I have the same problem too, except with a 9800 gt. reinstalling windows did not resolve the issue.

most importantly, i get the same problem with a different nvidia video card, but with a non-nvidia video card the problem goes away!
so i suspect it is the motherboard, but i can't say for sure...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

I was having the same problem It would work with Microsoft standard video drivers Rma video card installed new one then the driver everything works fine I suspect your video card died like mine

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I was having the same problem It would work with Microsoft standard video drivers Rma video card installed new one then the driver everything works fine I suspect your video card died like mine
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hey guys,

I have an almost identical problem with my GTX760 (Gigabyte). There are literally thousands of people with the EXACT same problem, just labeled differently. To me, if it's not a broken card, it's most likely a TDR problem, and the cause of that problem is hard to isolate. (but I am far from knowledgeable on this kind of stuff)

The only way I have gotten it to work is by installing the 322.21 NVIDIA drivers AND increasing the TDR delay time to 8 seconds. Even then, this solution works for about a month, then my drivers start crashing again and I have to spend a day or so repeatedly reinstalling drivers until the computer runs again. I have tried literally every version of the drivers and only 322.21 works for me. I also found not included the HD sound drivers in the installation helped sometimes, but other times it didn't. My last crash occurred after playing BF4 for a few hours, then having an hour break and playing CS:GO. Again this is most likely a coincidence, but last crash I had was a few months ago, after I had been playing BF4 for a while. (In between these two crashes I had not played BF4, because it sucks)

I've contacted both Gigabyte and NVIDIA support, NVIDIA says its Gigabytes fault and all they really said was to replace the card, Gigabyte says it's NVIDIA's fault and to contact them.

I have tried every suggestion I have found online and the only things that have worked are those I mentioned above. There are some other possible sources of the problem which I have read online. (Note these are not my suggestions, I don't know if they're even relevant but when you're trying to fix your computer it's worth a shot).

Some people have said Daemon tools can cause TDR problems. Transparently there is some malware going around which can also cause TDR issues. I have uninstalled Daemon tools, but my computer was already stable when I did, so I can't say if it made a difference.

I have seen someone say it was because they overloaded their power adapter. They solved their problem by plugging the computer straight into the wall.
It's probably not true in my case, but I noticed a bit of freezing if I overloaded my adapter. I didn't properly test this, I just accidentally had a whole lot of things on at once and notice the computer was frozen on startup.

Some people have replaced their cards to find they still have the problem.

Many people have reformatted there computers and had no improvement.

There are a bunch of TDR fixes, the important one is TdrDelay, Microsoft has released a quick 'fix' which sets this delay to 8 seconds. You can find this fix online, or just add the registry entry yourself, there's a bunch of guides on youtube for it.

To check if it is the drivers:
Boot in safe mode, go into event viewer and then search through the logs right before the crash. You may see some critical errors from the NVIDIA dlls, and some system errors saying they're trying to reboot the device. That being said, I have only really seen these errors when I have actually made it to desktop, OR:

Boot in safe mode
uninstall drivers using DDU.
Reboot normally. Your system should run fine.

Install NVIDIA drivers now a few things can happen:
Crash right after the display drivers are installed.
Constant freezing after the display drivers are installed.
Constant freezing towards the end of the installation.
Runs fine after installation but after rebooting you get freezing/crashing.
Runs fine after installation but after attempting to play a game you get freezing/crashing.

In any of these cases you should see driver crash logs in the windows event viewer. In this case increasing the TdrDelay might solve your problem.

Where I am at right now, before I get the card replaced, I'm going to buy a second hard drive (was gonna get one anyway) and install a fresh copy of windows on it, one by one install my drivers (NVIDIA last) and see if it breaks. If it doesn't, then I guess it was a software issue.

Note:
Most of the information I have seen about these issues have been from NVIDIA/Steam forums. There have been some good threads on other gaming forums, but in most cases their solutions are the TdrDelay fix.

Hope this helps at least a little,

Thanks.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
i have exactly the same problem, cannot boot into window7 without uninstalling driver from safemode. my gpu is a GTX590. i've even tried reset bios, remove ram sticks, i tried using another hardrive with win7, doesnt help. and i just tried DTRdelay 10 seconds, still the same problem.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hey Guys, I don't know if this works for you but I actually solved the exact problem just by pulling out my HDMI cable from the graphics card. Then I have no problem booting my win7 and installing the latest NVIDIA drivers. Hope this solve your problems.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Did not help in my case, thanks anyway!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I also have the same problem but my card is the GT 740 SC, but my problem started recently with the new Windows 10 November Update. The only thing I've successfully done is keep my windows at 8.1 and after a clean install keep it from installing the new drivers. I am also trying to see if I install the drivers from my EVGA disc if that is an exception to the driver issue, because I know that at one point the drivers on my disc had no issues with my version of Windows.
UPDATE:
The disc file did not work I ran into the same error again, with no avail I am ready to give up. My next step is probably to hope that a new graphics card (preferably AMD) will fix this problem because of the lack of using the nvidia driver. My other assumption is maybe even a new nvidia graphics card may work because all of the people here including myself are using older cards, maybe the 900 series my be the key.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I updated Windows to the latest Redstone beta and started installing the updated NVIDIA drivers with the Vulkan APIs, and bam - black screen and hang. Windows won't boot anymore, just hangs before the logon screen.

Turns out unplugging HDMI and staying with just DisplayPort fixes the hang. I have a GTX 760 btw.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I have had this issue myself just today, I have a GTX970 and 3 monitors. I unplugged 2 of them to find that my PC started to work once again! It turned out to be the monitor running off HDMI for me, but could be any for you. I am going to be contacting NVIDIA for a refund/replacement!
 
Upvote -1 Downvote


 
Upvote 0 Downvote
i got the same issue last week, last friday got updates but not sure what is that but might be the aniversary updates for my windows 7. while playing dota, the screen goes blank and stuck in the boot loop. half of the day trying to reinstal driver, windows and everything. none of them working. Please help!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I am currently working on the same problem with bsod error after Nvidia latest update. I've finished my pc build just a week and a half ago, got evga gtx 1070 ftw and windows 10 home edition 64 bit. After the last nvidia update Oct 9th, I got my first bsod error while playing Rome total war 2. I tried reinstalling windows after a couple of attempts to uninstall driver and install older version and that didn't work. After three windows reinstalls, five different drivers newer and older versions of it, couldn't find a solution. At this point, it's not even letting me run the installation setup for driver, regardless of version. So i will take my pc to Geek squad to see what they come up with and will post an update as soon as i get a result from them.. Hope to fix this problem soon!

 
Upvote 0 Downvote



Any solutoin to this yet? I have exactly same sympthoms as you. Installed Oct 9th drivers and my PC can't boot with Nvidia drivers installed. I'm thinking of sending my GPU to manufacturer for warranty services.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Nothing yet. As far as the windows not booting, do you have a ssd and a hdd? Someone told me the windows isn't booting because I had both drivers connected when I installed windows. Even if you select the install on the ssd windows will install the boot on your hard drive, or so he claimed... the pc is still in repairs right now I'm waiting for the diagnosis from these guys. Will post update as soon as I hear from them
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


I have a single drive which is HDD. I'm currently speaking with my friend who's kinda software/hardware geek. Will update if I know something new to share with you.

Also, my PC is booting normally with Microsoft Basic Display Adapter.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote



Same thing that happened to me. After the new driver was installed I couldn't boot windows. If you can boot into safe mode and uninstall the driver it should boot. I guess it's a trial and error thing until you find a driver that will be stable
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom