Solved DX 10 / 11 games crashing randomly

[Lunideth]

One day i updated my gpu drivers (gtx 780) to 360.00 via geforce experience.

During update i got some c++ error.

I retried and got same error.

After that i downloaded driver manually and installed. Everything installed fine. Then i tried to play AC: syndicate and got BSOD. I retried and again BSOD.
Then i tried Evil withing and again BSOD.

I posted to BSOD forum: http://www.sevenforums.com/bsod-help-support/386938-bsod-games-after-last-nvidia-update.html

Reinstalled drivers, reinstalled c++ stuffs, rerolled drivers, uninstalled bunch of stuffs. Used nvidia cleaner, etc.
BSODS are basically gone, but games crashes constantly. I cant play any dx10/11 game anymore they all crash.

You can read more detailed explanation in my original BSOD thread and you can read what has been done.

Thing is that before that update & error everything worked fine. No crashes. But now every dx10/11 game i have crashes. I get either "Game X stopped responding" or whole system just freezes and i have to hard reboot it.

 

[event3horizon]

forgive if it's been mentioned, I read through your previous post, but run memtest86 on your ram at least 2 passes. Have you done that?

Also are you running the games off SSD or regular hard drive? Do a surface scan with mini tools partition wizard for bad hd blocks.

MemTest86 - Offical Site of the x86 Memory Testing Tool
Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

You have to get the basics out of the way first.

Also, reseat your Video card in the PC.

 

[Lunideth]

Yeah i run memtest 2 times already no errors, but i can run it once more.
Also i run OCCT tests: CPU / GPU / PSU each for several hours. No errors.

Games are on normal separate hdd that i use for games only. It has been checked for errors with windows build in tool. I can run minitool partition also. it's not that i will lose anything.

All my games are installed on that same hdd and by running dx9 games i dont have any errors / crashes.


Also i get random 1-2 sec freezes in dx 10/11 games. Meaning i play game then everything freezes for 1-2 sec, then game works normally. Then later everything freezes for 1-2sec and again everything starts to work.

In steam games steam has buid in FPS conter so during freezes my FPS just drops to 0 for no reason.
I get several random freezes and then later game crashes or whole system freezes.

 

[event3horizon]

sounds like you have bad latency issues. At this point, suspect OTHER drivers, like LAN, audio, etc. I would uninstall LAN drivers, audio drivers, video drivers. Reinstall latest chipset drivers (if intel drivers, run setup.exe -overall) and then reinstall lan, audio, the video.

I know it's a pain in the ass but it's trial and error. Also run DPC latency checker and see if you are having latency spikes DPC Latency Checker

 

[Lunideth]

Alright will do. Strange thing is that i havent updated anything except gpu drivers on day when crashes started. Several days later i updated windows with updates, but thats all. No drivers, no programs, nothing has been added / updated.

 

[event3horizon]

Never know, could be coincidental. Makes no sense. If you installed bad drivers that day, there's no reason why uninstalling old ones and reinstalling good stable ones wouldn't fix the problem.

Oh, also try running games with all third party services/startup items disabled. Run msconfig, click startup tab, click disable all, then go to services, click hide all microsoft services, click disable all, click apply then reboot. This will eliminate all third party software n' stuff (not drivers though)

 

[Lunideth]

Forgot to add. If i install latest gpu drivers 359.00 / 359.06 almost all of my games stops starting up.
With those drivers games insta crashes on startup. Games like AC: syndicate / zombie army starts up and works untill they crash but for example Hatred / Helldivers dont startup but insta crashes. And when i reverted drivers to 358.59 all games starts up and works until they crash.

 

[event3horizon]

what are you seeing in the event viewer? what are the faulting modules

 

[Lunideth]

Run memtest whole night no errors.

Run latency checker for day. Latency didnt raise above 300 microseconds.

Today while trying to play I got 1 freeze 2 crashes and 1 bsod. All during zombie army game.
And after first crash that was "ZAT stopped working" my gpu drivers crashed and i couldnt launch any game. Had to reboot pc.

Event viewer says "game x stopped working" and then ntoskrnl crashes when i get bsods.

 

[event3horizon]

is there are firmware update u can do on your video card and or bios?

 

[AstaLaVista]

This is what I would do not being a PC guru... I would try to do a system restore to before the update of the failed driver.

If that does not fix my issue, I would then proceed to uninstall all of the games in question, saving my progress of course, I would then proceed to do what suggested... uninstall of video and audio drivers, also the physx drivers, run Ccleaner after the restart (I always do it in safe mode to grab even more remnants), restart one more time and run Ccleaner yet again.

Then I would start to install drivers and then games to see if that fixes my issues.

I know, I know, way too much time and perhaps not solving the issue but since you can't play the games no matter what, might as well take the long road... unless of course you end up having to do a new clean windows install.

 

[Lunideth]

Hi sorry didnt see your reply.

No updates to bios and latest updates to gpu are installed.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
I didn't see any one post this
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/327414-nvidia-drivers-avoid-problems.html

There was an update a while back that effected older games I posted a question after someone reported it,
Not sure if the issue is related or not :/
http://www.sevenforums.com/gaming/381240-old-games-may-not-run-anymore-9-8-15-a.html

 

[Lunideth]

Problem was overheating. My thermal paste went bad and that was causing cpu to overheat. I changed paste and now everything seems to work fine.