Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered - had to lower core lock

[redness]

GTX 1070
Gigabyte Z68-APD3
i7 2600k OC'ed to 4.5ghz

Whenever I play video games, after a few minutes my screen turns black and stays black forcing me to restart. When I check my Event Viewer I get a lot Display errors with "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered."

To fix this, I lowered the core clock of my GPU through MSI Afterburner by 100MHz as per suggestion by another user and so far no more errors.

Questions:
-Why am I getting this error?
-Am I getting sub-par performance because I lowered my core clock?

Things I've already tried to fix this error:
-Update graphics drivers
-Revert to older graphics drivers
-Clean Windows installed
-EVERYTHING IN MY SYSTEM IS NEW EXCEPT FOR MY MOTHERBOARD, RAM AND CPU

Could those three be the culprit of me getting this error? I have a GTX 1070 now and still got the error sometimes when I still had a GTX 760 before.

 

[hang-the-9]

What is the power supply brand and model? Set all speeds to stock, including the CPU. does it happen when? Did you check for a newer BIOS for the motherboard?

 

[redness]

What is the power supply brand and model? Set all speeds to stock, including the CPU. does it happen when? Did you check for a newer BIOS for the motherboard?

PSU is a Seasonic m12ii 620 evo.

Tried setting stock speeds to both CPU, GPU and RAM and it still happens.

Haven't done the BIOS thing. Do you think updating it will fix it?

 

[hang-the-9]

What is the power supply brand and model? Set all speeds to stock, including the CPU. does it happen when? Did you check for a newer BIOS for the motherboard?

PSU is a Seasonic m12ii 620 evo.

Tried setting stock speeds to both CPU, GPU and RAM and it still happens.

Haven't done the BIOS thing. Do you think updating it will fix it?

Trying a newer BIOS for an older motherboard is a good idea. If that also does not work, test the card in another system and see if issue follows it. If not, then it may be one of the things you did not replace, motherboard or RAM most likely, CPU not nearly as much.