Question Screen flickered and GPU driver automatically updated with error ?

[The Guy From The Thing]

I was testing some coil whine at 120hz and high settings in Heaven Benchmark, I left it on only for about 30 seconds before closing it and going back to 60hz, which I've done regularly before; this time, about 5-10 seconds after I do this, my screen flickers several times, Steam restarts itself, and I get an Error in Event Viewer that says:

"The NVIDIA LocalSystem Container service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 6000 milliseconds: Restart the service."


this happened at 3:45:21pm; at 3:45:12pm, there was a "WindowsUpdateClient event that said: Installation Started: Windows has started installing the following update: NVIDIA - Display - 31.0.15.3179", which would've been when my screen flickered

I check Device Manager and sure enough, my GPU automatically changed the driver version to 531.79, which I did not have on my PC prior btw since I DDU'd my drivers a few weeks ago. I've gone back to 531.29, the driver I had before the flicker, since it was still there in Device Manager and I opened a few games to check on flickering, and even repeated what I did with Heaven Benchmark, but it hasn't done it again


what in the world happened? is my GPU dying or something (RTX 3070), like what prompted this?? there's nothing out of the ordinary with the GPU or PSU as far as I can tell; normal voltages, normal temps, nothing is vibrating or feels hot on the case, fans are normal, so I don't notice anything external. I've also had Automatic Driver Updates disabled in Windows for ages. any ideas?

 

[Lutfij]

Make and model of your PSU and it's age? You might also want to inspect the power connector feeding the GPU.

For the sake of relevance, we ask users to help bring he community up to speed by passing on the specs to your build. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. Include the BIOS version for your motherboard as well.

 

[The Guy From The Thing]

Make and model of your PSU and it's age? You might also want to inspect the power connector feeding the GPU.

For the sake of relevance, we ask users to help bring he community up to speed by passing on the specs to your build. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. Include the BIOS version for your motherboard as well.

Phanteks Revolt Pro 1000w Gold; it's no more than 6 months old, around that timeframe. I got the PC in February of this year; Bios Version is 2806, on B550-F

 

[phtoedbwydtnbxrdgw]

I just booted up my PC half an hour ago and having logged in my monitors flickered with the device disconnect/connect sound and then I got a prompt to reboot PC to finish installing a driver. Checking in device manager it shows that I have driver 31.0.15.3179 from 25.04.2023 (and I last updated my drivers in 2022; geforce experience now shows driver ver 531.79) and the logs show a driver install occured exactly when that flicker happened, which explains it because that's normal when installing drivers. My GPU is a 4 year old RTX 2070 Super. Oh and I haven't been doing any benchmarks, or even really playing games/using GPU intensely at all recently.

Given the weird coincidence good news is I don't think your PC is about the explode and instead somebody (Nvidia or Microsoft) just forced the update on us without any consent.
The bad news is somebody forced the update on us without any consent

If you find out anything else about this weird incident please post here, thanks in advance.

 

[The Guy From The Thing]

I just booted up my PC half an hour ago and having logged in my monitors flickered with the device disconnect/connect sound and then I got a prompt to reboot PC to finish installing a driver. Checking in device manager it shows that I have driver 31.0.15.3179 from 25.04.2023 (and I last updated my drivers in 2022; geforce experience now shows driver ver 531.79) and the logs show a driver install occured exactly when that flicker happened, which explains it because that's normal when installing drivers. My GPU is a 4 year old RTX 2070 Super. Oh and I haven't been doing any benchmarks, or even really playing games/using GPU intensely at all recently.

Given the weird coincidence good news is I don't think your PC is about the explode and instead somebody (Nvidia or Microsoft) just forced the update on us without any consent.
The bad news is somebody forced the update on us without any consent

If you find out anything else about this weird incident please post here, thanks in advance.

your driver also got updated to 531.79? that's really weird, but good to know it seems like it wasn't just me. Event Viewer's WindowsUpdateClient event definitely lines up with when the screen flickered, especially when the 'NVIDIA LocalSystem terminated' events popped up 10-20 seconds later, which indicates a driver install


I didn't get any prompt to reboot, but I guess that might just vary between our PCs. strange how it was 531.79, and not even the latest driver, which leads me to believe it was probably Microsoft/Windows maybe? Windows doesn't exactly have a good track record of installing exact, up-to-date drivers

 

[Weps]

Would also be interested to know what could be the cause of this because I have similar symptoms. I hadn't turn on my computer for two days, I try to play some games and I notice the routines that happen when you install it for the same time or when the video driver updates. I try to play a game of Halo: Infinite and I get 20FPS whereas before it would reliably stay at 60. So I check the Windows update history and lo and behold NVIDIA - Display - 31.0.15.3179 installed today. In GeForce Experience I too now have 531.79 but I know for a fact I did not installed any driver during / since May.
Where is this coming from...

 

[The Guy From The Thing]

Would also be interested to know what could be the cause of this because I have similar symptoms. I hadn't turn on my computer for two days, I try to play some games and I notice the routines that happen when you install it for the same time or when the video driver updates. I try to play a game of Halo: Infinite and I get 20FPS whereas before it would reliably stay at 60. So I check the Windows update history and lo and behold NVIDIA - Display - 31.0.15.3179 installed today. In GeForce Experience I too now have 531.79 but I know for a fact I did not installed any driver during / since May.
Where is this coming from...

yeah, it seems like there's a few people that've been hit by this. you should be able to roll back to your other driver, I was able to go back to 531.29 but it's annoying that Windows forcefully installed another driver onto me


I've asked here, where you and the other guy have had this happen, I've asked on Reddit where another 2 guys have claimed this happened, and I asked on LinusTechTips, but I got people saying they haven't seen this before


3 out of 4 of these people have said that they were suddenly updated to 531.79 specifically. the last guy didn't specify, but I assume it was the same for them as well. might be some kind of update wave with Windows, but that's still odd because I've never seen this happen before