Windows 7: Deus Ex Human Revolution Crash to Desktop

I have been having problems with a game I just purchased "Deus Ex Human Revolution". When I play the game after 5 to 45 mins the game crashes. There have been four different things happening when it crashs, most recent time it crashed I got a message from my Nvidia geforce taskbar icon saying geforce had stopped working but it was able to start again or something along those lines. Other times I have crashed to the desktop I get the system message window asking if I want to close the program or check online for fixes, when I expand the bottom to get more details it says either d3d11.dll or dxhr.exe are the files that cause the issue - this was the most common before I reformatted my computer. Finally sometimes the program froze up and I had to restart the machine. I only tested the game once after the reformat and I got that message from the geforce program in the taskbar, this did happen before the reformat as well but it was not common.

I have tried everything that steam recommended I do this included, redownloading the game, steam, checking the integrity of the games files, download latest drivers and windows updates, run steam/dxhr.exe in admin mode, disable directx 11, lower settings, various older geforce drivers. None of that worked. My last option was reformatting my hard drive and try the game again. After the reformat was when I got the "geforce card had stopped working" message.

I have ran a few video card memory stress tests, out of the 6 or 7 I have used only one came up with errors. I am unsure if to trust that result because I have ran Diablo 3 with max settings just fine. I also have had no other issues with the system as far as I can tell, blu ray movies run fine and I have not seen any artifacts. My next step is to try another steam program I just purchased and also run a RAM stress test and see if that picks up any errors.

Any ideas on how to diagnose what is going on and how to fix it? I know it is not the game because I loaded the game onto and older pc and the game played fine for the 2 days I tested it.


My system:
Intel core i7 3500k
16gb ddr 3 ram 1600
evga gtx 670 ftw
2 ssd in a raid 0 array



If I can supply any logs or any other info please let me know.

The nvidia reset message generally happens when
a - the driver kernel itself fails and restarts
b - the device itself (graphics card) has a hard fault and hardware resets
c - Overheating of the card
d - Power supply is not pushing enough juice
e - combinations of the above.

Since you have a modern model nvidia card, have you taken to using msi afterburner or EVGA precision to control the fan speed in real time? I do this with my gtx580 and it not only helps heat levels dramatically it also has slightly improved performance by lowering the max operating temp by near 20c.

The driver kernel itself fails sounds familiar, but I am not sure. I will try the evga precision to control the fan speed and see what happens. I did a burn test for almost a hour and the temp maxed out at 79C, is that too hot?

I was playing the expansion to Deus Ex Human Revolution, the Missing Link game and it crashed the same way it did in Deus Ex Human Revolution. This time I got this message saying the game exe was at fault, no errors from the geforce program.

Here is the message that gets displayed under the option to close program or check online for solutions.


Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: dxhrml.exe
Application Version: 1.4.66.0
Application Timestamp: 4fb3af76
Fault Module Name: dxhrml.exe
Fault Module Version: 1.4.66.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 4fb3af76
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00139d3f
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789