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Random blank screen crashes

Craig321

Craig321

Craig321

Soldato
Joined
2 May 2004
Posts
19,953
Hi,

I've recently been getting blank screen crashes which are blue screens in disguise (if I wait long enough after the crash the BSOD will come up).

The screen will suddenly go black during gameplay & the sound will start looping. Eventually the screen will go into standby. About a minute later the PC will beep once like it's posting, a bit after that a blue screen will come up, I guess this is Vista's way of trying to restart the driver and failing resulting in a BSOD.

This sometimes happens after hours and hours of game play and sometimes after only a few minutes.

I have monitored my graphic card temps using my G15's LCD & they don't go over 82 (playing Titan Quest - this game will make your graphic card hot hot :p). 82 is fine for a 8800GTX as far as I know.

Specs:
Vista x64
4x 1GB Geil 4-4-4-12
Gigabyte P35-DS4
Conroe E6600
BFG 8800GTX

I'm on the latest 175.16 drivers.

So far I've tried reverting back to the 169 drivers using a combo of DriverCleaner and safe mode as well as normal reinstalls.

* I've just tried uninstall/reinstalling the drivers in safe mode using DriverCleaner and some manual deletion of files. (had to remove nvlddmkm.sys myself).

The Minidump reports nvlddmkm.sys causing the crash.

* I haven't been in game after this one yet.

[Edit]
Nothing is overclocked. System is extremely stable other than this. I can successfully run Orthos overnight with 0 errors.

While I test if it still crashes after my most recent 'fix' attempt has anyone had this problem before and been able to fix it?

Thanks,
Craig.
 
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jubei said:
I have had that same issue for a while now with my OcUK 8800GTX. Did post about it quite a while back but only got the old 'use driver cleaner' solution that didnt work lol.
Click to expand...

Did you try the fix with driver cleaner, then manual removal of nvlddmkm.sys? Some people say on some systems that file doesn't get removed/updated when installing newer/older drivers.

anant_shah94 said:
similar things happened to me with my 6800, it happend in hl2:deathmatch, it turned out to be dodgy new drivers, so i went back to my old drivers...
Click to expand...

I really don't want to go back any further than 169 (I was even reluctant to go from 175 to 169) as there have been a lot of improvements for Vista x64 in these drivers.

Although if this problem carries on I guess I'll give it a shot :)
 
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Just happened again :(

I've not upped my RAM voltage to 2.2v (it was on 2.1v). Back when I first got the PC there were a few issues with RAM voltages because the motherboard decided to set it to 5-5-5-18 rather than 4-4-4-12. Recommended voltage for the RAM is between 1.9v and 2.3v so I'm giving 2.2 a go for now.

Next thing I'll do is remove my 2 most recent RAM sticks.
 
Can anyone recommend a graphic card stress tool please, I'd like to run that for a few hours to see if it's the graphic card causing the crash. I'll be running Orthos overnight as well to make sure it's not RAM/CPU/something else crashing it.

I'm hoping this is just a software problem and not a hardware problem :(
 
Nope, not got DreamScene here. Not sure what else to try now.

Tried different graphic drivers/complete reinstall
Tried setting card to performance mode
Tested with Orthos - 0 errors
Tried the game in lowest graphics
Tried upping RAM voltage

Any other ideas please anyone, this is really annoying now :(

Gonna try turning Aero off I guess.
 
The max my 8800GTX has reached in game is 82oC - IIRC the GTX only throttles at 120oC or so.

The game just crashed again now, but I managed to save it before it blue screened/the screen went to standby.

The second the screen went black I pressed Ctrl+Alt+Delete & the Vista menu came up, I opened the task manager and killed the game, the system stayed standing :p - I noticed Titan Quest was 'not responding' under the applications tab.

Right after I had killed the game's process I got this:
nvlddmkm_stopped.png


I don't know if that helps diagnose the problem at all, the fact that I saved it from completing crashing tells me it's software rather than hardware at the moment.

I'll have another check over the Titan Quest forums for fixes, but as far as I know there are no known problems with the game & NVIDIA cards.

The game even crashes when it's in pause mode. I went for dinner earlier and left it paused, came back and the PC had crashed, so that eliminates any specific graphical objects/effects that are crashing the game.
 
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Hmmm, I might have found the problem.

Just found this on the MS website: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/wddm_timeout.mspx

I don't know why Vista would suddenly decide to reset the GPU, maybe Vista doesn't like me playing games for so long :p

So it looks like Vista is purposely resetting the GPU for some reason which results in Titan Quest crashing as it has not been coded specifically for Vista and there have been no Vista updates for it :(

Might turn the error detection off for a bit and see if that helps the problem. I'm a bit wary of turning it off permanently though.

Just found this as well:
NVIDIA statement on TDR Error Messages


Some Windows Vista users have reported that their systems are displaying an error message that says: "Display driver stopped responding, but has successfully recovered." This is called a Timeout Detection and Recovery error message.

Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) is a new feature of Windows Vista that attempts to detect problematic situations and recover to a functional desktop without forcing a reboot. Hangs can occur when the GPU is processing intensive graphics operations, typically during gameplay, and nothing is being updated on the monitor. To the user it appears that the system is frozen with no resolution to the problem; in previous operating systems users generally had to wait a few seconds and then reboot.

The TDR error message "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" lets the user know that the NVIDIA display driver (specifically the "nvlddmkm.sys" file) has been re-initialized and the GPU is reset without requiring a reboot. The only visible artifact from the recovery is a screen flicker, the result of a screen redraw. Note that some older Microsoft DirectX applications may render to a black screen at the end of the TDR, requiring the user to restart these applications.

TDRs are not specific to a single driver problem, and can occur for a variety of reasons. When they occur, diagnostic information is collected in the form of a debug report that is sent to Microsoft through the Online Crash Analysis (OCA) mechanism if the user opts to provide feedback.


NVIDIA encourages users to submit their own bug reports via the NVIDIA Vista Quality Assurance Program, using the keyword "TDR" in the description of the problem. The NVIDIA bug report link is here:
https://surveys.nvidia.com/index.jsp?pi=749...8f09e040b4a437a

We understand that many users have expressed frustration with this issue, and we apologize for the inconvenience. Since the NVIDIA v101.41 beta driver release, NVIDIA has been fixing many TDR issues reported by users. Our software team is currently preparing a new driver which will dramatically reduce the number of TDR errors that users have reported on the forums. Thank you for your patience.

More information on TDRs can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/displ...dm_timeout.mspx.
Click to expand...

They say they have fixed a lot of them, seems they missed some.
 
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I might see if I can disable the TDR feature in Vista. It's aimed to improve the user experience by restarting the graphic card if a problem is detected, this usually will avoid the need to reboot because of a graphical issue.

I reckon Vista thinks there's a problem, attempts to restart the driver which results in a BSOD.
 
I've got Titan Quest running on compatibility mode (XP SP2) (don't ask why this wasn't one of the first things I tried :p).

Hasn't crashed yet, although I haven't played for that long in a row since. I'll test on Tuesday (day off :D) and let you know.
 
dheyworth1981 said:
Ive started getting this problem this morning, nothing has changed for months, even the overclock has been steady for 18 months

Im on Windows XP, DS3 motherboard, 2gb (2x1) Geil, E6300 and the BFG 7950GT

Id say it was game/graphic related as it happens when i start WoW up, but then sometime it does it while its posting. Although I havent waited long enough for blue screen, it goes blank, screen goes into standby...then i reboot.

Running now without the second monitor and its ok now, might try the game in a minute
Click to expand...

Yours sounds like more a hardware problem if it's doing it at POST every so often, no drivers or anything have kicked in by then.

Maybe just your monitor on it's way out :)

I've now turned TDR off using the following key:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicDrivers
TdrLevel REG_DWORD 0

See this: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/wddm_timeout.mspx if you want more information.
 
What make card do you have, I don't remember seeing any screws as such. BFG 8800GTX here.

[Edit]
I take that back, there are a lot of screws :p

Not one of them was fully tightened. Hopefully it'll sort my prob.
 
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Smackhead said:
When your PC crashes, is it just as if you press the reset key?
Click to expand...

Nope, black screen, screen then goes into standby after a few seconds. Then after about 2 minutes Vista will blue screen as it's attempt at restarting the card didn't work. (see TDR above)

I've fixed it now though. Reinstalled Vista. Something must have corrupt DX10/drivers somewhere.

5 hour Furmark - 100% stable :D

Thanks for the help everyone.
 
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