Windows 7: Nvidia windows kernel mode driver version 301.42 stopped responding

Thanks for the recommendation. Well ever since I cleaned the dust out I have had the bottom lid open and have it on the cooler pad with the twin fans blowing almost directly onto the video card so under load it does not push past 80degrees (average is 60). Plus the laptop fan spins up under heavy load. I mean like blowing pretty well thus I'm assuming heat isn't the problem then.
So I guess the card is damaged/defective... Sucks!
I'm just wondering if I get a new card and the issue still persists. Could it be this is caused by some other problem like Motherboard or low power by the PSU? Is there a way to check for sure without testing with another laptop?

Afaik possible causes are:
- Defective or overheating video card (Deadlocked GPU or defective Video Ram)
- Bad system RAM (Test: RAM - Test with Memtest86+ )
- Display driver incorrectly adjusting 3D clock speeds in intensive Apps
- Badly installed display driver (highly unlikely)
- Insufficient power or defective PSU (shouldn't be the case on a laptop)
- Driver conflict especially with Realtek audio drivers

I would recommend an OCCT test, it'll run a bunch of stress tests on both the GPU and the Video RAM. Any defects will be logged.
NVIDIA/AMD Video Card - Test with OCCT

i have found the solution to the problem...............
it seem that nvidia graphic cards are compatible with our respective possessors but our cpu frequency isn't compatible with graphic card's default frequency &
each cpu has different u need to find it and overclock or underclock ur graphic card accordingly
my pc spec is
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GT 520
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7400 @ 2.80GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 2048MB RAM

u can see in the image that i have underclocked it and now its working like charm for 3-4 months without any errors

Makes no sense, graphics card are NOT dependent on processors or whatsoever clock speed of the latter.
No
You actually underclocked your graphics card, the card may have been factory overclocked, clocked at a speed that it wasn't supposed to be running or the GPU itself can't handle the load at those respective clock speeds.

I FOUND A SOLUTION!!!

Ok. I have had the same problem with "NIVIDA Kernal Mode stopped responding" error and blackout every few minutes and screen going black etc. I have had this problem for days and tried all of the solutions I found on forums. I even had another NVIDA graphics card, put it in my rig and it had the same errors, meaning this was not GPU malfuntion. I tried rolling back drivers and installing older driver versions about 5 generations, and no avail. I swept drivers, checked memory and power supply, etc. but the problem remained.

FINALLY I SOLVED THE PROBLEM!

I switched my Graphics card to a different PCI slot on my motherboard! My GPU was a little loose, and I believe that constant motion of travelling with my rig and doing work inside caused either damage or dirt buildup on the connectors in the PCI express slot that I kept my graphics card on. As soon as I moved it to another slot, my problem has been resolved and my NVIDIA card works perfectly. If you have tried all of the fixes (including re-installing Windows even) but still have constant blackouts, just open your rig case, and switch your Graphic Card to an open slot and reboot and allow your system to identify it, reboot again and I can almost guarantee it will work!

NOTE! This error has been solved on some rigs using driver rollbacks, reinstallations, etc., so not all instances of this error message are caused by the same thing. Sometimes its just a driver conflict. So try this only after you have tried other solutions, unless you just prefer to switch the slot.

NOTE! In the event that you dont have more than one PCI Slot for your card, an alternate solution might be to blow out the slot with a can of air duster or try to run a paper towel lightly dabbed in rubbing alcohol through your faulty PCI slot to clean the connectors. I have not done this, but if that are dirty and not damaged, this will most likely remove the buildup and create a solid connection again. Alternately, it is possible that your NVIDIA graphics card has the dirty connection. In this event simply get a pencil with an eraser and run your eraser up an down the metal connectors on your GPU a few times. This is a great way to clean any dirty connections in your rig that can be reached with an eraser.

I too have been having the problems with the accursed "Display Driver stopped responding and has recovered" / "Display Driver NVIDIA Windows Kernal Mode Driver, version 311.06 stopped responding and has successfully recovered" error messages. Also BSODs which look like they're in a similar vein.

I don't play games on my machine but I will need to run Premier Pro CS6 on it. Over the last week or so I have followed almost every suggestion I could find in this thread and elsewhere for solving this immensely frustrating issue, and, although I've managed to reduce the frequency of the problem, I have so far been unable to eliminate it. Frankly I'm at my wit's end - so I'm flinging myself at the mercy of this forum in the hope of a solution.

My GPU is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285, my PSU is a brand new Corsair CX750 (i.e. 750 watt) and my OS is Windows 7 64-bit. There's more details about my rig under "System Specs" in my profile.

So far in my attempts to resolve this infuriating error I have tried the following...

I was able to run Memtest v4.0 for about two hours with high CPU temperatures (I monitor them with CoreTemp) and no errors were detected in Memtest until a BSOD shut the computer down. The period that elapsed before the BSOD was about normal - in other words the stressing of the CPU and RAM did not seem to hasten the time of failure.

I was able to run Furmark v1.10.6 for an hour or so - with GPU temperatures of around 90 degrees C for most of that time - before finally getting the error message:
"The NVIDIA Open GL driver detected a problem with the display driver and is unable to continue. The application must close. Error code: 3"

Following Lucius2571's suggestion I have removed my graphics card, cleaned up the contacts, and re-seated it in a different slot.

Following Cyberius' sugestion, I've also checked my GPU's innards, but I found it to be surprisingly free of dust and fluff.

I've tried using the latest Beta drivers from NVIDIA for my GTX 285 but that didn't help, so instead I used Driver Sweeper (well actually it's successor Driver Fusion) to uninstall those drivers and in their place I installed an old driver - version 285.62 from October 2011. Many folk have mentioned this helped and I think it helped me too. The errors and BSODs seemed to occur less after clean installing the 285.62 drivers, but occur they sadly still did.

I've gone into -
Control Panel > System and Security > Power Options
- and selected "High Performance".

I've gone into -
NVIDIA Control Panel > 3D Settings > Power Management Mode
- and set it to "Prefer Maximum Performance"

I think all of these last three changes improved things somewhat - when I first started up my machine I could go for an hour or so browsing the internet (no gaming) without any problems before eventually getting a "Display Driver stopped responding..." message. After that they would become more frequent, culminating in a BSOD.

Eventually, frustrated by all this, I made a change that I really didn't want to. I switched off the lovely glassy translucent "Aero" themes by going into -
Control Panel > System and Security > Advanced System Settings (aka System Properties) > Advanced > Performance: Settings
- and selecting "Adjust for best performance".

Gosh what an ugly Windows 2000 style display this has left me with! - but it has also given me the best improvement so far in eliminating "Display Driver stopped responding..." errors and BSODs. When carring out regular computer functions such as web browsing or running Outlook, this change appears to have almost (but not completely) eliminated the problem. I even managed to run Memtest right through the night without it detecting any errors.

However, the system still crashes after about 4 hours of doing humdrum activities like web browsing and writing emails or documents. If I run Furmark the system scrashes sooner. Now, though, I get a slightly different error...
"The NVIDIA Open GL driver detected a problem with the display driver and is unable to continue. The application must close. Error code: 7"
... So it seems I've progressed (if that's the right word) from Furmark giving me "Error code 3" to it giving me "Error code 7" - whatever those codes mean. Does anyone know?

Incidentally, a few days ago I found a rather handy summary of many of the trouble shooting suggestions mentioned earlier in this thread. It came too late for me, but it might be useful to others:

Fixing the Nvlddmkm Error (Display driver has stopped responding)

I think that out of the 9 techniques suggested in that summary the only thing I haven't already tried is making changes to the registry. Before I resort to that scarey option, are there any other tricks I haven't tried yet that might help the situation?

Finally, if I do resort to the Registry trick and find it doesn't work, should I just conclude it's time to ditch my NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 ? I'm on a pretty tight budget here at the moment so very reluctant to if I can avoid it. I note however that it's a model of GPU that pre-dates the launch of my OS, Windows 7. I wonder if that's somehow causing issues. Any thoughts on that?

As I mentioned I'm not a gamer, but I do need to use my rig for HD video editing, so it's essential I debug this pain-in-the-bum error for that. Also I'd love to be able to use Aero themes again - they're just so pretty... so very, very pretty...

Help me SevenForum Obi Wans. You're my only hope...
　
(SF Diagnostic Tool log attached)