nvidia kernel driver has stopped responding

[Bsmooth]

I know this seems to be a persistant problem, but I built a new system about a year ago, and just last night my screen goes all black and I get that persistant message "nvidia kernel driver has stopped responding". the screen then comes back and goes black back and forth.
The system has all the cooling it could get at least for the CPU using the hyper 212. Its not overclocked at all, and actually blows cool air out the vents.
I'm running an Asrock P67 Extreme MB,Asus TX560TI video card,Kingston HyperX memory 8GB and an I5-2500K CPU.
If the system stays on long enough I could check a few things, If it does what should I check, other than make sure the fans are clean of dust and spinning?

 

[imaheadcase]

Are you using the latest drivers for it? Because its a known issue with 280x drivers, lots of people, including me are getting that error.

 

[s44]

It's the well-known TDR bug. Check out the PSA free game codes thread. And/or just switch to Chrome (it basically only happens in Firefox).

 

[Bsmooth]

Actually I'm using the 266 drivers, because I heard of all sorts of problems with later ones.
last night I had just finished about 2 hours working with Photoshop when I wanted to check my yahoo mail. I went to use explorer and bam black screen then flashing, then all sorts of error messages, about kernal drivers stopped responding.
I did try safe mode and had no problems at all, but this hasn't happened since I bult the system months ago, so something changed, either a video card failure maybe or a memory problem possibly ?
Should I just get a different Video card. This Asus TX560TI wasn't cheap, I would hope it lasts longer than say 9 months, but how can you confirm what the problem really is?

 

[s44]

I'd RMA the thing (and did, for my first 460), but you could put some more volts into it instead. Or... switch to the 285 official first.

 

[Bsmooth]

I could put up with an occasional error, put when it happens it shuts down my PC sometime and reboots it.
Weird thing is if its just on the desktop it seems to be ok, just when I try and run an application does it happen. Not only that but it was right out of the blue with no warning at all.
If I do RMA it, I was thinking of picking up a GTX 460 1GB just for a temp replacement. Would I lose that much performance say just running stuff at 1050 x 1680? I only have a 22" screen anyways.

 

[bryanW1995]

That's definitely not TDR. @ 1680x1050 gtx 460 is adequate for now but 560 ti is much better.

 

[Majcric]

This is also a known issue with IE 9. I'm currently experimenting with IE 8 and chrome to see if it still happens.

The thing I've noticed it seems a lot more common with the GTX 560 ti owners. I only get it while browsing using a GTX 560 ti but many are reporting this error while gaming.

 

[Bsmooth]

I just don't get it months without an issue and then last night. Tonight ran it for about 1 and half hours and its working fine. maybe I need to really put oa strain on it and see If it does it again. I went in and looked for windows logging errors and found nothing, like it never happened.
I wouldn't mind so much If I was overclocking, but I'm not, this thing should be bulletproof...hmmm.

 

[DirkGently1]

This is also a known issue with IE 9. I'm currently experimenting with IE 8 and chrome to see if it still happens.

The thing I've noticed it seems a lot more common with the GTX 560 ti owners. I only get it while browsing using a GTX 560 ti but many are reporting this error while gaming.

The only reason it appears more common is that are a huge number of people using that graphics card.

I've had random TDRs crop up recently and even the usually stable 275.33 drivers suffered from it. Nothing so far on the latest release drivers though. It's Flash video in Chrome that sets of the problem for me, which makes me think that added to the other reports, that's it's a Flash problem, at least in some part.

 

[Bsmooth]

Sounds more like a card or memory issue, especially since it just happenns on a lot of 560 graphics cards. Is there a card it doesn't happen to?
The last card I had was an 8800GT and that was stable for 8 years. This one is only 6 months old and I'm having issues already.
So does everyone just put up with it or just get a different card?

 

[DirkGently1]

Sounds more like a card or memory issue, especially since it just happenns on a lot of 560 graphics cards. Is there a card it doesn't happen to?
The last card I had was an 8800GT and that was stable for 8 years. This one is only 6 months old and I'm having issues already.
So does everyone just put up with it or just get a different card?

It doesn't just happen on the 560 cards. That just happens to be the biggest seller. 4 series and 5 series have the same problems and not many people are left using older cards than that.

TDR issues were common when Vista was first released and my 8800GTX Ultra used to crap out all the time. Nvidia have never really gotten it sorted.

 

[Seero]

I know this seems to be a persistant problem, but I built a new system about a year ago, and just last night my screen goes all black and I get that persistant message "nvidia kernel driver has stopped responding". the screen then comes back and goes black back and forth.
The system has all the cooling it could get at least for the CPU using the hyper 212. Its not overclocked at all, and actually blows cool air out the vents.
I'm running an Asrock P67 Extreme MB,Asus TX560TI video card,Kingston HyperX memory 8GB and an I5-2500K CPU.
If the system stays on long enough I could check a few things, If it does what should I check, other than make sure the fans are clean of dust and spinning?

Boot your system with another PSU and see. If you can't get a PSU, then bring the computer to a computer store and have them diagnose it for you.

 

[Bsmooth]

I could plug in all new components and it still wouldn't really give me an answer. Its intermittant at best, as I said last night it worked fine for almost 2 hours, and for 6 months before that not an issue at all.
Sorry not familiar with all the acronyms yet, by PSU do you mean another power supply? I would hope a power supply would last more than 6 months, that and just trying different items could take quite awhile. Isn't there any tests I could do to prove one way or the other what it might be?
I don't think a Computer store would have any more luck than I would figuring out what it might be, especially considering it seems to work fine most of the time.
I'm beginning to wonder what i would rather have , a stable PC or one that can actually run modern programs.
While I'm at it asking questions, whats a TDR bug stand for?

 

[Seero]

I could plug in all new components and it still wouldn't really give me an answer. Its intermittant at best, as I said last night it worked fine for almost 2 hours, and for 6 months before that not an issue at all.
Sorry not familiar with all the acronyms yet, by PSU do you mean another power supply? I would hope a power supply would last more than 6 months, that and just trying different items could take quite awhile. Isn't there any tests I could do to prove one way or the other what it might be?
I don't think a Computer store would have any more luck than I would figuring out what it might be, especially considering it seems to work fine most of the time.
I'm beginning to wonder what i would rather have , a stable PC or one that can actually run modern programs.
While I'm at it asking questions, whats a TDR bug stand for?

Computer store that does repairing has a PSU checker which will immediately shows if the PSU is faulty. You can buy a PSU checker yourself, but professional ones are too expensive and the cheap ones don't test a lot other than it boots. Besides, say the problem is not on PSU, a computer store has tons of parts laying around and it is really easy for them to debug the source far faster than a home user, at the cost of a cheapy PSU tester. Your call.

TDR is just another acronym to a cause which average user classified as unstable system. In case you really wants to know, it stands for Timeout Detection and Recovery.

 

[amenx]

The last card I had was an 8800GT and that was stable for 8 years.

You got it 4 years before it came out?

 

[imaheadcase]

Like i said its a KNOWN ISSUE FOR ALL CARDS. Its not uncommon i will get it 20+ times a day with that last bf3 beta AND the official one. If you switch to 270x series it disappears.

has nothing to do with bad cards.

The problem is that nvidia said they don't expect a fix for 2-3 weeks...along with a major bf3 issue they found, including major SLI performance issues.

 

[Bsmooth]

your right amenx the PC was 8 years old, I had forgotten I replaced it with the 8800GT in 2007, well 4 years of stability ain't bad either !
I got a response from ASUS, and they just told me to put the PC in safe mode and reload the drivers.
BTW you mention 270 series drivers, are they still in beta or are they actually finished drivers?
Also what is the best way to replace drivers? Just to make sure I get all of the old drivers out before I put the new ones in.
BTW thanks to everyone so far, this not knowing whether my PC would work or not is driving me nuts.
So If I waited Nvidia may have a different solution other than switch to 270 series drivers?

 

[Seero]

Like i said its a KNOWN ISSUE FOR ALL CARDS. Its not uncommon i will get it 20+ times a day with that last bf3 beta AND the official one. If you switch to 270x series it disappears.

has nothing to do with bad cards.

The problem is that nvidia said they don't expect a fix for 2-3 weeks...along with a major bf3 issue they found, including major SLI performance issues.

I have 3 different gens of Nvidia cards, not once I experience TDR through varies driver upgrades. There is another thread stating Nvidia is asking those who have TDR problems to send their card in because Nvidia couldn't reproduce this problem in-house.

If you read OP carefully, there are no problems with his old NVIDIA video card.

 

[toyota]

You got it 4 years before it came out?

yeah even if he bought it on the day it was released, the oldest it could be is exactly 4 years old as of two days ago.

 

[Bsmooth]

I'm beginning to think it is bad cards, or at least something in the cards. possibly memory issues, but then again it could be a combination of drivers and cards

 

[3DVagabond]

Update everything. Check for BIOS updates (especially the mobo), OS updates, Dx updates, browsers, flash, etc... Install the latest drivers and take it from there. Until you do that though you're shooting in the dark.

 

[toyota]

I thought the latest drivers were part of the problem...

 

[3DVagabond]

I thought the latest drivers were part of the problem...

He's been using old drivers. You have to start somewhere. I've always brought everything up to date and then started going backwards from there.

 

[imaheadcase]

I have 3 different gens of Nvidia cards, not once I experience TDR through varies driver upgrades. There is another thread stating Nvidia is asking those who have TDR problems to send their card in because Nvidia couldn't reproduce this problem in-house.

If you read OP carefully, there are no problems with his old NVIDIA video card.

If you read the nvidia thread, you will see the replicated the issue and a fix is in place..for next release. I get this error and so do lots of people on teamspeak that I play with. 4 cards is hardly a good representation of all the cards out there.