Video freezes, nvidia 8800GT, probable driver issue

Anonymous
2009-11-14T10:24:12+00:00

Looking at their forums, it should become apparent that nvidia does not care about problems their customers are having. Therefore, I have to turn to people they might listen to or work with to solve such problems - Windows and Microsoft.

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (Retail). My video card is a nVidia Geforce 8800 GT.

The issue is that the video is locking up, flickering, freezing, and even sometimes causing the "blue screen of death" - The problem is widely reported, and is also widely misdiagnosed as overheating. The card is not overheating, let me be quite clear on this. The card is also not old and ready to die (Another common misdiagnosis by techs who would brush difficult problems away.)

The issue is: Whatever nVidia has done with their drivers, they do not get along with Windows 7. The issue, if you search the web, is exclusively a Windows 7 problem.

I saw an article earlier regarding something that was implemented in Vista that would detect if the video drivers were crashing, and attempt to close and restart them without rebooting. I can not remember what this feature is called, nor can I find that info again (I found it while at work and did not save the URL sadly) - but it certainly seems like that's what is going on.  The video will flicker while I am in a game, the game will freeze, and then after a second, the screen will go black, then the game will come back up, but at lower graphic detail. Evenually, the game will do the same thing again, and go back to full detail.

That's just a theory, though, of course.

I have tried the latest nvidia drivers, as well as the drivers from Windows update. I have not yet tried the nvidia beta drivers, but have read from other users that there was no luck in using them.  Some users reported luck when using the default drivers of WIndows 7, or the Windows Update drivers, but I had no luck, and many others also didn't.  I may try rolling back to some much older Vista drivers to see what happens.

In any case, my purpose here was less to get an answer, and more to really just spread the word more about this problem. Maybe a Microsoft employee will see this post and report it to someone who can have their people talk to nvidia's people, so to speak, because nvidia people do not frequent their forums. There are threads there with issues unsolved from over 2 years ago, and those are similar to some other issues we still have today with TV-Out. But that's another topic entirely.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2009-11-24T01:00:16+00:00

Well, no problems so far beyond some flicker. The flicker does make me nervous, but otherwise, no crashes in almost 24 hours. I have been running Folding@Home on it constantly and it doesn't seem to have had any issues with that, either.  Folding@Home has it running at 97-98% GPU usage constantly, and it's sitting at 67 degrees Celsius, which is just fine. It is looking more and more like it was my 8800.

But I do still wonder what the ____ could have caused it to act so crazy, hmm...

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-01-12T01:34:21+00:00

    I love Win 7 64, it boots fast and seems to run my apps very smooth. That was my thought during the first two months. It currently takes me an hour to boot up and get my system going because it constantly freezes. It's a random freeze that could happen at any time while doing anything, BTW I have two 8800 GTx's. Did run fairly smooth with XP

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-01-10T20:19:27+00:00

    I am hoping someone would reply.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-01-10T13:04:24+00:00

    I am reading this thread carefully for more than an hour. I was hoping to get the solution to this problem. I agree that Microsoft and Nvidia has to work together to solve this issue. I am having the same Graphic card (Nvidia 8800 GT) working with the same OS (Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64) causing the same problem (Freeze, Slowing suddenly, Crash, black screen, etc...) I don't think the problems are caused by the game. It was fine when I used Windows Vista Ultimate x64. The problem only starts to when I started to use Windows 7 Ultimate x64. I tried every possible thing to make it works.

    Games I played:

    Battle Realms (It freezes with the new driver, and it crash with the old vista driver)

    Starcraft (It just freezes anytime during the game with the new driver only, it works fine with the old vista driver)

    Combat Arms (It just crash anytime with either drivers)

    When something crash, it usually says:

    "The display driver has stopped working and has recovered" "

    The problem has been explained well in this whole thread, I don't have to explain it again. Whoever knows the solution, please help.

    Below is the summary of my system information:

    OS Name    Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600)

    Version    6.1.7600 Build 7600

    Other OS Description     Not Available

    OS Manufacturer    Microsoft Corporation

    System Name    CACH-PC

    System Manufacturer    Gateway

    System Model    FX7026

    System Type    x64-based PC

    Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad  CPU   Q9300  @ 2.50GHz, 2497 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

    BIOS Version/Date    Intel Corp. DPP3510J.15A.0304.2008.0210.1950, 2/10/2008

    SMBIOS Version    2.4

    Windows Directory    C:\Windows

    System Directory    C:\Windows\system32

    Boot Device    \Device\HarddiskVolume3

    Locale    United States

    Hardware Abstraction Layer    Version = "6.1.7600.16385"

    User Name    Cach-PC\Cach

    Time Zone    Pacific Standard Time

    Installed Physical Memory (RAM)    4.00 GB

    Total Physical Memory    3.93 GB

    Available Physical Memory    818 MB

    Total Virtual Memory    7.86 GB

    Available Virtual Memory    3.67 GB

    Page File Space    3.93 GB

    Page File    C:\pagefile.sys

    My Video Card information:

    Name    NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT

    PNP Device ID    PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0611&SUBSYS_C8023842&REV_A2\4&C971561&0&0008

    Adapter Type    GeForce 8800 GT, NVIDIA compatible

    Adapter Description    NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT

    Adapter RAM    512.00 MB (536,870,912 bytes)

    Installed Drivers    nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um

    Driver Version    8.17.11.9562

    INF File    oem3.inf (Section003 section)

    Color Planes    Not Available

    Color Table Entries    4294967296

    Resolution    1360 x 768 x 60 hertz

    Bits/Pixel    32

    Memory Address    0xE2000000-0xE2FFFFFF

    Memory Address    0xD0000000-0xDFFFFFFF

    Memory Address    0xE0000000-0xE1FFFFFF

    I/O Port    0x00002000-0x0000207F

    IRQ Channel    IRQ 16

    I/O Port    0x000003B0-0x000003BB

    I/O Port    0x000003C0-0x000003DF

    Memory Address    0xA0000-0xBFFFF

    Driver    c:\windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys (8.17.11.9562, 13.06 MB (13,694,056 bytes), 1/1/2010 8:59 PM)

    Thanks a lot for reading. I'm hoping for a solution.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-01-10T03:48:41+00:00

    i am having issues with my 9800 gtx as well in windows 7 pro.

    my machine wont  boot past the windows logo it just goes black and i get nothing.  i put in a card with ati graphics and all works well.  I would have to say nvidia and microsoft need to get together on this one.

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