Graphic Card's drivers crash but do not recover

[explosivebarrel]

Hi everyone, I'd really like to find the solution to this frustrating problem.
Basically when I play videogames, like Rising Storm 2, Hearts of Iron 4 etc, my graphic card's driver crash, the screen turns off and there's no way to turn it back on without restarting the pc, this can happen after 1 hour, 30 minutes, or 6 hours, or sometimes never( very few times), I've already tried to solve this, I uninstalled and reinstalled/updated the drivers, checked the temperature, I also looked for some kind of overclock and it seems like the graphic is in overclock, everytime I start my pc I fix it with MSI Afterburner but it doesnt help a lot, and I don't think it's because the graphic card is weak, it's not a very old one, but it still crashes with very old games like red orchestra 2.
This problem is really annoying, please, if anyone of you know a possible solution tell me, because I really want to get rid of this, I already tried to read some answered threads but I didnt find an answer, especially because I didn't find one about drivers that crash but dont recover

these are some very generic informations about my pc, if you need more tell me

processor : Intel Core i5 6400 2.70 GHz
RAM : 8GB
Graphic Card : NVIDIA GeForce 950M

 

[terry4536]

It sounds like there is setting in the BIOS creating some of your problem. Record any settings in the BIOS that you have made, then reset the BIOS to the default setting. Then set your manual settings.

Regarding the drivers, did you get your GPU drivers from https://www.geforce.com/drivers . That is the best source of NVIDIA drivers.

 

[explosivebarrel]

yes I toke the drivers from that site.
I'm sorry but can you be more specific about what I should do with the BIOS? I'm a noob and I know that if you do something wrong in the BIOS your pc may die or something, and this pc is just 1 year old, I would hang myself if I killed it

 

[terry4536]

When you enter the BIOS, there is the option to exit without saving, exit saving changes. In that set of options, there is also the option to reset to default settings. If you haven't made any changes then resetting to defaults will bring you back to the manufacturers setting.

That is my suggestion. Enter the BIOS (your manual will show you how) , select the reset to defaults option, and then exit saving changes.

If you are unsure on how to do it, you can read that section in your manual. Or you can go to a PC repair shop for help.

 

[explosivebarrel]

it seems it has worked, but I can't believe the fans were the problem, the reset just lowered their speed, after all the things I tried to do, so I'll just play for some days and see if something happens, then I will thank you, pick that as the solution, and kill myself

 

[terry4536]

There are a lot of setting in the BIOS (including fan settings). It could of been something unrelated that got corrupted that was causing your problem. If you ever have difficulty booting the system, clearing the CMOS is a way to reset the BIOS externally. Then with the BIOS reset, hopefully the system would then reboot normally. It doesn't fix everything, but it helps a lot in those situations.

For future reference since you mentioned fans. If you get a warning message that some fan is too slow for example, the BIOS is where you would change fan lower RPM warning limits. They protect your system from overheating if a fan begins to fail.

 

[explosivebarrel]

I'm sorry but drivers just crashed, so I think reset wasn't the solution, do you have an other?

 

[terry4536]

Since you have already installed fresh drivers the options are few. Is there a time period that the drivers were working? It sometimes works to install an older driver. For example, if you had recently updated a driver and it wasn't working. Then you could reinstall the driver that was working in the past. Then you could wait for a new driver version that does work for you.

The only other suggestion is a fresh install of the operating system.

Since the release of Windows 10, Microsoft has made their updates mandatory (supposedly for security reasons) but it has also resulted in disrupting and corrupting many device drivers.

 

[explosivebarrel]

well, uh, I have this problem since I got this pc, I don't know if it's broken, because it works very well on some games, but it crashes in other games, it's not because it can't handle those games, because it meets the requirements, the temperatuer has nothing to do with this because it can crash after minutes or hours,and if it's because the OS's updates I guess there's nothing to do, I have Windows 10 I will try to check the driver's updates again, maybe the solution is simple but my incompetence doesnt let me understand.
There's just something I'm concerned about, maybe I should have told you before but, if I don't reduce the GPU's core clock to 0 with MSI afterburner, my drivers crash in a very little time, so if I reduce that, it takes a longer time to them to crash, here's how my gpu's core clock is before reducing it, if it can help somehow

 

[terry4536]

That is useful information. One easy thing to try is to uninstall MSI Afterburner then reinstall it. If that is just the result of a corrupted file, then that should fix that particular problem.

But on the other hand, it could point you in the right direction to fix the issue. The only "beneficial" aspect of reducing the clock like that would be to reduce the voltage going to the GPU processor and reduce the temperature (that I can think of anyway). You mentioned that this has been the case since you received the system. So, I would suggest that the graphics card is defective. If it is within the return period, I would do that. Warranty repair is also an option. Or lastly, you can try to fix it. Is that GTX 950M integrated or is it removable?

If it is removable, then you can try replacing it. You can try disassembling the 950M to troubleshoot it. I would guess that if it is crashing immediately (without turning the voltage down on the processor) it is throttling to prevent damage to the GPU. I would check if the heat sinks and GPU cooler are mounted correctly and functional. That isn't going to be easy to do (more of a last ditch effort). Perhaps the thermal paste wasn't applied for example.

 

[explosivebarrel]

sadly the graphic card is integrated, so I guess these are the last solutions, thanks for your help, I will try but I fear that I will have to do what I wanted to avoid, ask for a warranty repair

 

[terry4536]

sadly the graphic card is integrated, so I guess these are the last solutions, thanks for your help, I will try but I fear that I will have to do what I wanted to avoid, ask for a warranty repair

Most of them are integrated. There are some gaming laptops that have non-integrated graphics, but they are relatively few. Hopefully the warranty repair will work for you, and you will not have to turn down your graphics to avoid crashes.