Black Screen Flickering on Nvidia

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OmiRed

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Feb 12, 2013
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Hello, I apologize if this is mentioned elsewhere but please try and help me and anyone else with this issue. I am pretty tech savvy (but not edit the registry savvy!)

I have recently been experiencing persistent issues with a short, random black screen flicker on my system. Most of the time this happens it is during a game or watching a video. I have even run the 3DMark graphics test and have confirmed the problem persists during the test. My specs are...

Windows 8 64bit
Gigabyte Z77X-D3H rev 1.0 mobo
Intel 3770K
8 GB G.Skill Vengeance Ram
Nvidia (MSI) 660 card

I first noticed the issue running Nvidia's 310.90 drivers and spent all day trying to sort it out. I reinstalled (cleanly) the 310.90 drivers, no success. I ended up trying a system restore, and even did a complete CLEAN install of the Nvidia drivers back to 310.70. The problem still persists. Nvidia mentions in the release notes (here: http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/310.90/310.90-win8-win7-winvista-desktop-release-notes-whql.pdf on page 0) that the recent R310 driver has flickering issues with windows 8, and that special notice and install procedures be taken. I have followed Nvidia's procedure to no success, scurried around nearly everywhere. restored my system back nearly two weeks (I'm OCD with system restore :) ).

Can someone guide me as to how to fix this dang annoyance? I looked back in my Windows update history and the problem seems to correspond to a DirectX 11 update windows performed. Additonally I noticed Nvidia released there 313.96 Beta driver. Would someone backup a claim that would say this new driver would solve the issue? I'm out of ideas here...
 
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OmiRed

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Feb 12, 2013
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I spent a few hours on the nvidia forums last night, and you seem to have the best solution right there. It seems most people successfully reverted back to 306.97 after nvidia/microsoft's complete mess.

I'm going to give 306.97 a go today and ill report back with my results. If this doesn't work, and even if it does work... I might go ahead with a complete clean install of windows 8. I'm dealing with bad drivers from a motionjoy install not to long ago as we'll. A clean OS install will put my mind at ease.

Maybe I'm just paranoid haha
 
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warezme

warezme

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Dec 18, 2006
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I just reinstalled the OS on new HD of Alienware M14x R2. I noticed that with the factory drivers for Nvidia the screen flickered to black and then back to desktop as soon as I moved my mouse over any active desktop object. After that it just kept flickering to black constantly on a cycle. I switched to the built in video and it stopped so I knew it was the Nvidia driver. I just upgraded the driver to the latest 310.7 I believe and it stopped there after when I went back to the Nvidia GPU set as default.
 
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Maziar

Maziar

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Jul 20, 2007
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Yep,I also read that many people suffer from the same problems as I do.I don't know what Nvidia did with newer drivers but it's not anything good.
Anyway,make sure you install 306.97 drivers even if you decided to do a clean install of W8
 
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OmiRed

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Feb 12, 2013
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As an update, I have successfully performed a clean re-install of Windows 8. After succesfully dealing with my second hard drive (Data Drive) not showing up (neither in the OS nor the BIOS), I finally got things working and it looks stable. This PC is less than a month old and I've already done a clean OS install, I'm so ashamed...

I'm running 306.97 and things seem great so far. I will be testing it for another day and I will conclude with a final post of what my results are. I will be running 3DMark to get some comparisons between the new and old installs. Do any of you experts have some other good ways of running a system through the ropes?
 
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Maziar

Maziar

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Jul 20, 2007
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Try some game benchmarks(Crysis 2,Metro 2033 etc.)
 
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OmiRed

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Feb 12, 2013
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The flash is still there...

I actually found two videos which show my exact symptoms. however they are both on Apple devices...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-dQIgfIFsI
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGjoyiGyHmE&feature=channel_page

After the monitor comes back the screen is more fuzzy. After turning the monitor off and then back on the resolution will reset and its back to normal. I played counter strike GO and experienced what I though was one black flash early on in gameplay. It didn't re-occur so I assumed the best. Playing Vindictus (game from Nexon) showed absolutely perfect performance. However I just tried to play a youtube video in fullscreen mode and the flashing came back, really bad and always random. I'm monitoring my system with a rainmeter skin as well as logging GPU and CPU temps with Speedfan. Both show sub 50 degree temperatures when running games and sub 30 degree when running youtube and idle.

I have gone into the Nvidia control panel and set under "Adjust desktop color settings" the "Content type reported to the display" to desktop programs.
I have also disabled "Deinterlacing: Use inverse telecine" in the "Adjust video image settings."
I have disable hardware acceleration in flashplayer.

This is a clean system install... I remember Counterstrike GO indicated it was installing a new DirectX version to run. Other than that I can't seem to think anything that would have sprouted from the grave. Is there a way to tell if windows installed the R304 drivers behind my back? How would i do that?
 
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OmiRed

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Feb 12, 2013
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Ok, If I'm right about this I'm going to be really embarrassed and relieved. My main monitor is a Dell 2440L and I'm using the hdmi input. It has it's own driver software visible in the Device Manager. My second monitor is a LG Flatron TN panel with an hdmi>DVI input, with a generic windows driver. On Dell's forums there seems to be a common trend with screen flickering on the S****L models.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/f/3529/t/19490162.aspx
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/f/3529/t/19488820.aspx

I noticed Windows Update installed an optional (which I of course checked) update for the Dell monitor. Flickering became unusable watching fullscreened movies or videos. When disconnecting the Dell and viewing the same content on the LG there was no flickering at all. I rolled back the drivers to the version released 3-22-2012, from those released 6-10-2012 and it appears to have solved the issue (Dell does not name or number there beepin driver versions). Currently I'm switching back and forth between the monitor drivers. If I disable the dell driver, windows 8 features such as the charm bar and shortcuts like (Win+X) don't work on the dell monitor. Once I can surely confirm and reproduce the issue I'll try and bring attention to Dell and see If they're nice enough to actually do something. It seems I'm not the only one though, hurray...

Has anyone else experienced this with monitor drivers before? Are there generic windows ones I can possibly revert to and keep using?
 
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pierrescotland

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Apr 24, 2013
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10,510


I have the same issues and have reverted back to 9.18.13.697 (dated 2012), which fixes the problem. My PC constantly tries to update the drivers, and every so often I have to (again) revert to this version to fix the issues. What a complete shambles of a driver. Very poor NVIDIA.
 
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