Display Drivers Keep Crashing.

[Vihxen]

So, I just upgraded my computer to windows 7 professional 32-bit. The hard drive was reformatted so there isn't much on it. Its been running for about 3 days now and has not been running properly from day one. It just freezes up and the screen goes black randomly. I get an error message that tells me the display drivers have stopped responding and recovered. It happens pretty often and I everytime I've tried to play a video it starts to act crazy. I have an EVGA Nvidia Geforce 9400GT 1GB Graphics card and I was using the 275.33 drivers but someone suggested going to a previous driver so now I am running 266.58. Is anyone else having this problem or does anyone know of a solution? I am in desperate need of help.

 

[Maguscreed]

The fix is generally to completely remove the previous driver installation.
(and the nvidia control panel)

Using this utility in safe mode - Phyxion.net - Driver Sweeper

Then reboot normal and reinstall the latest driver again.
This actually happens often in all versions of windows and with both nvidia and ati.
The main problem is ..well if there is a problem their uninstallers/installers don't actually function quite the way they should.

Anyhow give that a shot and see if it cleans you up.
If not we'll go to the more complex steps.

 

[Vihxen]

Thanks I will try this and let you know if it works. This is such a frustrating problem.

 

[Vihxen]

Unfortunately this did nothing for me. It seems to still be acting up

 

[Maguscreed]

Okay well If you are willing (this may take some time and be a minor pain)
I would like to see if we can get another minidump generated that will point to another cause.
The best way to do that is with driver verifier but it can be a pain in the butt.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/101379-driver-verifier-enable-disable.html
(Please read all instructions for driver verifier before using as it's possible it will make the machine behave badly and you need to know how to undo it.)

It's up to you if you want to take this step or not. Otherwise I'll need to wait for the next crash to see if the dump indicates the same problem still.

 

[Vihxen]

I think I am just going to uninstall windows 7 and Get XP back and see if that helps. This is crazy and should not be happening, the computer has been acting crazy since I installed windows 7, before that it was fine. The computer should be running like new instead I can't even watch a video one it. Thanks for trying to help. I'll let you know if the problem continues in windows XP.

 

[Maguscreed]

My guess is you are having issues with out of date drivers.
I can't help with those unless I have a minidump file.
It's your call just remember xp doesn't support dx10 or dx11.

 

[Vihxen]

Do you think it would help if I reformatted my hard-drive then installed windows XP and just upgraded to windows 7 from there?

 

[karlsnooks]

zip up what's in \windows\minidump and attach to your next post.

 

[digitalrurouni]

I never recommend upgrades. I always recommend doing a clean install for maximum benefit. As for going back to a previous driver version I highly doubt that is going to help much. I think Nvidia has unified drivers so they will just work across the board across all gpus that they have. I think it could be there is something inherently wrong with your video hardware itself? Did you have similar experiences before you upgraded?

 

[Maguscreed]

UDA only applies to desktop cards 6600+ models.

 

[karlsnooks]

Do you think it would help if I reformatted my hard-drive then installed windows XP and just upgraded to windows 7 from there?

One does not upgrade from XP to Win 7.

One can install Win 7, but one can not "upgrade" xp to Win 7.

 

[Vihxen]

Okay when I get home from work I will try this mini dump thing, thanks again.

 

[Vihxen]

Okay just so I am clear on exactly what to do...
Turn on the Driver Verifier
Then wait for the computer to crash, meaning when I get the blue screen.
Then when the report comes back zip it up and attach it to my next post?