Nvidia Display Driver Stopped Responding

[Egitel]

So, I just bought a new build just recently off of Newegg. I have the Haswell i7-4770k, an MSI GTX 770 Lightning, ASUS Z87-A motherboard, a SeaSonic 620W PSU, 16GB memory, etc.

The issue I'm having is with Assassin's Creed IV, and Battlefield 4, the display driver always crashes. Both monitors will flash black, and then the games become unresponsive (and never recover). With Battlefield I can sometimes go hours without this happening, and sometimes 5 minutes. With Assassin's Creed it happens as soon as I get into the game. Trying to just start the campaign, I run up a tree and boom, crash.

I've updated Nvidia drivers, I've used the beta, and most recent stable build, checked all my other drivers, I've stress tested the CPU and the GPU, and even both at the same time, I've pulled RAM sticks, I've checked CPU and GPU temps (no overheating), I've unplugged one monitor, I've lowered graphics, etc. etc. etc. Still keeps happening. I have no idea what to do anymore. What else could be causing this?

 

[lp231]

Update your motherboard bios

 

[katanadude]

When you updated your drivers, did you pick to install as a new installation?

 

[Egitel]

Wow, you guys respond fast. I've never actually used this site before. Anyway, BIOS is already up to date, I did that when I first built the PC. And yes, new installation for the drivers.

Update: I also tried this and still nothing. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2665946

 

[junkeymonkey]

well if the game is calling for somthing that is not in the driver it will do that like a certin dll or somthing. funny how a game like bf4 as buggy and all the posts that come in on it but yet it is a driver/hardware to blame. do to the bad code of the game. they hurry these games out to grab your $ then leave yhou holding the bag wile they ''work on it'' .

 

[Egitel]

well if the game is calling for somthing that is not in the driver it will do that like a certin dll or somthing. funny how a game like bf4 as buggy and all the posts that come in on it but yet it is a driver/hardware to blame. do to the bad code of the game. they hurry these games out to grab your $ then leave yhou holding the bag wile they ''work on it'' .

I have seen a lot of issues that BF4 has, yeah, but it's not BF4. The issue happens with BF4, yes, but it's much, much worse in ACIV. ACIV isn't even playable, I can't even get into the very first area of the game. BF4 will sometimes go hours before it crashes.

 

[junkeymonkey]

well i guess you could uninstall the driver and get it all out and reinstall it or try an older/newre one to see if it makes a diff. i was not trying to be mean but they release the games too early and expect you to beta test for them. back yearsago it seemed like there were not so many issues like there is today it like nothing seems to work right. as for me i dont support games that require 3ed party involvment or internet connection required. cause what cant they put on the disk but have you to connect to them ?? what are they realy downloading or uploading ?? you dont know. it just makes me wonder what is the real reason to have access to your computer?? so i just dont do new games i been gaming a long time and got plenty of games that dont need steam dont need internet dont need nothing but load it and play it. and i can run my own server at my house invite friends over to privite lans. i just cant hit i agree and give them full access to my harddrive.

 

[Egitel]

Yeah, I'm going to try downloading an older driver now, to see if maybe it's just the two latest drivers giving me issue.

 

[lp231]

Is it only these two games that is having the problem?
Try the video card in the 2nd or 3rd pcie x16 slots.
Another thing to try, while it will be tedious, is to do custom driver install. Install the main drivers only, no physx, hdmi audio, etc. Try the game and see if that works.
If yes, then uninstall the driver, restart and reinstall it, this time do main driver + physx and try the game again.
Repeat this process by adding one additional driver component, until everything is installed.
This may help pinpoint which driver component is causing the problem.

 

[Egitel]

Yes it is only these two games. It never happened running WoW, Arkham Origins, DotA 2, League of Legends, Minecraft, Planetside 2, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, etc. And it just crashed in ACIV again even with an older driver. Now, could it be that my MOBO isn't powerful enough? I'm thinking of getting a refund on the Z87-A and getting the Z87-Pro instead, because apparently the -A can't really overclock that well (which kind of defeats the purpose of owning a Haswell..)

Edit: I'll try moving my video card to another PCI-e slot, but the one it's in is the one the MOBO manual recommends. :l

 

[junkeymonkey]

looked like a good build to me [better then what i got ] i'm close to a new build and now looking things over it will be close to what your running. are you manualy installing the drivers or doing it auto through the software? i orefer manualy install. and are you getting the driver from nvidia or the card manu.?

 

[Egitel]

Now, since the card is an MSI GTX 770 Lightning, should I be using the MSI driver (306.97) or the Nvidia drivers (331.82 latest stable or 331.93 beta). The way I seem to understand it is MSI doesn't update their drivers and just uses whatever the stable Nvidia one was when they released the card? 306.97 is dated for December 2012 for example.

 

[Egitel]

looked like a good build to me [better then what i got ] i'm close to a new build and now looking things over it will be close to what your running. are you manualy installing the drivers or doing it auto through the software? i orefer manualy install. and are you getting the driver from nvidia or the card manu.?

I've been doing manual install for the most part.

 

[junkeymonkey]

ok if msi is adding to the driver to support some added on thing for there card it could cause a conflict. now would try to go to nvidia down load a driver to a file and save it. not run but save. then i would get all the msi stuff out for the card and down to were when you reboot to the desktop all the card will have to run on is the windows defult driver, reboot to desktop , do a few little things to check things out [ defult windows driver wount do any heavy stuff] if there is no issues there open the file you downloiaded the driver to and install it reboot and re test. dont install added features just a driver. let see were it goes from there.

 

[Egitel]

Yeah, just completely cleaned out all display drivers and reinstalled Nvidia's most stable again, and still no fix. Even tried MSI's, nothing. :l

 

[lp231]

while it will be tedious, is to do custom driver install. Install the main drivers only, no physx, hdmi audio, etc. Try the game and see if that works.
If yes, then uninstall the driver, restart and reinstall it, this time do main driver + physx and try the game again.
Repeat this process by adding one additional driver component, until everything is installed.
This may help pinpoint which driver component is causing the problem.

 

[junkeymonkey]

hmmm. well we know that bf4 is flakey so. but i dont know about ths aas cread game if people are having issues with it . do you use that gpu-z? you can run ti to log and when the game crashes goe out of it and check the log to inspect your temos and fan speed s wile you were gaming to see if its getting hot or if the fans are keeping up to the rise in temp[??] but it could be that you will have to wait for a game patch or new driver with a better fix in it . i'm going to look at the release notes over at nvidia for them drivers u r useing just for fun. be back soon.

 

[junkeymonkey]

did not see anything that realy jumped out at me but you would think under known issues or fixes that bf4 would have been listed for somthing outher than an 15% increse seeing all the postes that folks have issues with the game . but it seems most use amd cards. to me if the 2 games your having issues with is all, i would lean to the too new a game and see if theres a patch or a driver fix down the road. nowadays your the beta teaster for them. cause they get them out before there fully ready to get some returns on there investment. outher then reinstall the game to see if it installes better. oh do you let the game auto detect your settings or do you set them yourself??

 

[Egitel]

did not see anything that realy jumped out at me but you would think under known issues or fixes that bf4 would have been listed for somthing outher than an 15% increse seeing all the postes that folks have issues with the game . but it seems most use amd cards. to me if the 2 games your having issues with is all, i would lean to the too new a game and see if theres a patch or a driver fix down the road. nowadays your the beta teaster for them. cause they get them out before there fully ready to get some returns on there investment. outher then reinstall the game to see if it installes better. oh do you let the game auto detect your settings or do you set them yourself??

I set my own settings, yeah. All that said, I seem to have gotten ACIV to stop crashing, in a very strange way. I turned all the graphics in the game down to low, and shut everything off that could be turned off, and then ran around for a few minutes to make sure it was running alright, and then turned everything back on, and now it works fine. Oh except now I'm getting Blue Screens. /sigh fml

 

[lp231]

Try the card in another PCIe x16 slot.
What error does the BSOD say or was it too fast for it to be read?

 

[Egitel]

It was the generic 124 error. I have the .dmp, and blue screen view or whatever, so I can read it if I want. Just not exactly sure what information you need. It happened twice in a row, and hasn't happened again. Under caused by address it says "hal.dll+12a3c" and then Crash Address is "ntoskrnl.exe+75bc0" Googling those two comes up with this http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1878899/bsod.html Curious that the OP in that thread has the same MOBO and GPU as mine. Wonder if it might just be the MOBO?

 

[junkeymonkey]

did you read what this guy had to say
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-system/bsod-ntoskrnlexe75bc0-need-assistance/eb4a594d-03b6-4357-84f1-ccac726be7e3

 

[Egitel]

I think I've seen that one, yes, but I'm about to just load my .dmp files to a new thread on Microsoft so they can look at mine and tell me what's up.

 

[junkeymonkey]

ok heres somthing about your good buddies at microsoft. i installed a copy of windows thats been out awile [vista] and the first list of updates were like 170 long so i got them well in the first list of them there were newer updates like for .net3.0 and some thing like that so i had crashes and bsods regulaorly so like a few days go by or a week i get amother list of updates and there was the .net but it was the .net1.0 so what i am saying is that they dont seem to give you the updates in the correct order and i found that to install.net they had to be installed in a correct order to work right. that stuff from them just came however when ever and i think that was part of alot of my issues heck a year later i was getting updates that were like 3 years old and just now getting them so keep that in mind you may have issues intill bill gets you compleatly up to date i thought to myself how dumb to do things that way. so you may have to look at that.

 

[Egitel]

Yeah, I have everything up to date so far on my PC except for three updates that keep not working. I'm not really sure why not, but when I refresh it Microsoft says my system doesn't need them.