Windows 7: NVIDIA Driver Issue

As Mintos said, you are not the only one with this
I have Dell xps m1530 with nvidia 8600M GT in it and long time ago i downloaded drivers from dell and by default option to check for updates was turned on, it informed ne that there is update so i downloaded the latest drivers from nvidia. After that i had exactly the same problem. I don't remember how and what i did but after some time, issue was no longer present. Now i'm experiencing something similar. Only in my case there is no massage about problems from driver. Screen just go black for a few seconds, then it returns to its previous state. I checked Nvidia control panel, windows event viewer and nothing:| Going to remove driver from nvidia in safe mode and install one from dell.

Yes, Binks, Mintos it quite correct. I did a lot of searching this weekend and this problem has been going on for some period of time with various incarnations of nVidia drivers. So far, the Dell tech hasn't contacted me but the day is relatively young. I'll call them if I don't hear something soon.

Thank you for your reply.

Mike

Forgot to mention that now i'm installing fresh copy of Windows 7, therefore my quest for drivers.
Strange thing just happened. I uninstalled nvidia drivers as advised by Mintos - safe mode, and i didn't even installed one from dell as on their website the latest one for video is from 2008, so i was sure that WU will tell me that there is new video driver or something but no. Since i deleted Display Adapter in a safe mode, i don't experienced any flickering, any "blackouts" or nothing. So i think it did worked for me. For now at least. I'll keep my fingers crossed for it to last.

Had the same issue once after a nVidia driver update. Restored to an earlier "time" and issue disappeared.

So true. I've had this problem with EVERY single nVidia driver since around October 2010, on driver 260.89, and no fixes I have found have ever worked. Not 10 minutes ago, I had the nVidia driver crash and restart about 10 times in a row, and all I was doing was video editing.

Originally, it used to just crash the whole laptop (XPS M1730), but now the driver just crashes and restarts. As far as I know, it has nothing to do with temperatures or anything... and I totally blame nVidia for not sorting this out sooner.. it's been almost 2 years since this problems started... and it's like they have completely ignored it.

Most people used to say it was Flash that caused it, because it happened while watching Flash videos, such as on YouTube. But since it's happening WITHOUT being on YouTube... it must be nVidia's crappy drivers.

End rant.. sorry about that.

Don't be sorry about the rant, BlueStreak. It was a statement of fact. I rarely watch YouTube videos and my nVidia errors occur randomly.

Mike

It seems like it's the drivers problem though, I uninstalled my graphics card and reinstalled it, and the driver software was 191.11 - no problems with the 2009 driver seems NVIDIA's 29xx.xx and 3xx.xx drivers have a bug or something, who knows?

I wouldn't go downloading drivers from the computer manufacturer (I'm kinda used to getting them from the official site) because once the manufacturer stops producing your computer/laptop they'll discontinue upgrading the drivers.

Hehe, thanks. Well, it seems to me now that it DOES always happen with YouTube running. If say, I'm editing videos... and I have FireFox in the background with YouTube loaded. Every time I try to edit the video, I get the driver crash/restart.. EVERY time, which also causes the video editing software to generate an error and close, losing my work.

As long as YouTube ISN'T running in a browser, then it will always work flawlessly... so far anyway... so I do now believe that it is mostly Flash based... so it's hard to know whether or not to blame the nVidia drivers or the Flash plugin, since with each nVidia and Flash update, the problem has never been fixed.

nVidia and/or Adobe are really slacking.

If you don't game too heavily then just use your onboard graphics processor.