Thomas Coe

New Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2010
Messages
24
I recently built a new computer with a 1GB NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT graphics card and installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit on it. I formatted the hard drive and did a clean install of everything. I am not overclocking any of the components, and I have checked the GPU temps and ran stress tests, and the GPU doesn't get very hot, maybe around 50C.

Every time I try to game on it, even with a game as simple as Portal, the game will freeze up and the graphics driver will crash. The screen will flash black for a second, and the monitor will stop recieving a signal from the graphics card temporarily. After 2 or 3 seconds, the system starts working properly again. This is the error it's giving me: "Display driver NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version xxx.xx stopped responding and has successfully recovered."

I have tried this using the default drivers that came with the card, the most up to date drivers on NVIDIA's website, and an older version of the drivers from NVIDIA's website. No matter what driver version I have installed, this still happens. It has even happened before when I wasn't even running a game, just using Firefox.

I have checked Windows Update for any updates, uninstalled the drivers and used Driver Sweeper to fully remove them before installing a new version, and no matter what I cannot seem to fix the error. Any suggestions?

The rest of my specs:
Diablotek 450-watt PSU
ASROCK P43DE Motherboard
2 GB DDR2 667 MHz
2.8 GHz Pentium 4 with Hyper Threading

(yes, I know the CPU and RAM aren't great, I'm upgrading both as soon as I can, but it still should be enough to run a game like Portal, and I don't think it is related to the cause of this error)
 
Solution
TDR timeouts happen for any reason under the sun that can disrupt the video subsystem. There are tons of reasons including hardware and software.

I would use RivaTuner to set the fan speed to max while playing games to test.

Also, clean any built up dust or dirt from the video card fan if any. It would be good to take it out of the machine, then place it firmly in again so you know all connections to motherboard are well. If they aren't now, that is yet another thing that can cause the issue.

Make sure your psu is sufficent for your system, with respect to it's maximum watt rating.
I just disabled Aero and adjusted my power settings in Windows 7 to disable power saving for PCIe, and I made it though one of the long test chambers in Portal without it freezing up! But then it started freezing up much more often again once it first froze up after I started playing...

It's like everything I do helps slow down the error so it doesn't happen as soon, but then it will always eventually happen.

Any more suggestions?