This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
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.
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.
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...
Look, you're asking people who can't see or test your machine for advice. If no one participating in your thread has had the same problem and knows a special solution that is different than what you've gotten, you'll get answers like you got here - answers gleaned from Googling and answers based on experience. What else can you possibly expect? I understand you're frustrated but your expectations that strangers who aren't hands-on with the machine are going to somehow give you the magical One True Answer are not realistic. It isn't that we don't want to help you; we can't . If you've already determined that it isn't a driver issue and it isn't a weird Nvidia service issue (got the Stereoscopic service running? Turn it off and see) and you've already done clean-boot troubleshooting to determine it isn't something running in the background interfering (the known troublemakers Punkbuster services perhaps?) and you already troubleshot DirectX - well what else is there? It isn't Win7 and it isn't the card because I have Win7 and the same card and so does OldHobo and we don't have any problems running the newest, most hardware-demanding games. So it's something on your system - hardware, software, or a combination of the two.
I would have loved to have been able to help you and I'm sorry that I couldn't.
MS-MVP - Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
You probably have a bad video card and/or flaky RAM. The symptoms you describe are usually caused by hardware issues.
MS-MVP - Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
So sick of hearing this that I am tempted to slap this video card into another computer with Vista or XP installed and run games on it non stop for a week.
I would put real money on never seeing a freeze-up.
Why is it so hard for people to accept that IT'S NOT FAULTY HARDWARE!
You probably have a bad video card and/or flaky RAM. The symptoms you describe are usually caused by hardware issues.
MS-MVP - Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
Well, installing DirectX and using old drivers did nothing to fix the issue. It seemed like the problem was solved, and I had played Modern Warfare 2 quite a bit, but then today I was playing World of Warcraft, and it happened again. I turned my video settings down to the defaults, and had no further crashes, but had to deal with lower resolution textures and models, etc...
So at this point, I am thinking "It's just Wow. Something in the game is conflicting."
But today, I bought Left 4 Dead 2, I installed it, got on my first co-op game, and not even 5 minutes into the game, I get the little lines all over the place, choppy video, and eventually a freeze.
It doesn't stop there, though. I reboot, and my DESKTOP freezes upon starting windows almost instantly.
I had to reboot into safe mode and uninstall the video card drivers, and have not had a freeze since.
By the way, the car is not all that hot, and I even have an extra exhaust fan mounted below the card to vent off more hot air. The card is DEFINITELY not overheating, it HAS TO BE either a driver issue or a Windows 7 issue with that feature that tries to restart video card drivers, I don't know.
In any case, the only games I can play right now appear to be World of Warcraft in default video settings and Modern Warfare 2... So far, anyway. I anticipate a crash any time now... :(
Oh yeah, and Solitaire. Man, I love solitaire. :/
