Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered
 

Okay, I'm at my wits end here so I'm going to reach out for any chance of sage knowledge about this issue, specifically related to overclocking a Core i7 CPU. I've only had this issue with Core i7's.

Is there some method to fix this or BIOS setting that might?

So far I get this Event log message from both games and F@H, although more often from Folding@home.

I've tested with two CPUs, two motherboards, two brands of RAM, three NVIDIA GPUs, multiple drives/OS installs, and two power supplies. I still get driver reset messages with all of them, and the only common factor seems to be my overclocks.

You guys have experience taking hardware to the limits and running 3D benchmarking programs, so I'm guessing this problem has been run into before and worked around, somehow?

I had this problem in two situations till now : crappy drivers and needed a reinstall or video card VRM problems (the video card did not display any artifacts, but the screen was going blank for a bit and when it was coming back I was getting that error; sometimes I was getting the error without the blank screen).

After replacing the video card with an identical one, the problem was gone.

What video card/cards are we talking about? If we are talking about the new GTXes, there are problems with BIOSes from multiple manufacturers with these cards, and some promised to release BIOS fixes.

Hey Stefan! Thanks for the reply.

EVGA GTX 260 (original + fully watercooled)
EVGA GTX 260 Core 216
EVGA GTX 285

The screen flips black when it resets. Causes a 2-5 second game freeze if a game is playing, or it corrupts the F@H work unit that was folding. I've had this problem ever since I built the system, but always thought it was for some different reason or another because it is intermittent. A few times it gets so bad I can't play a game, others it doesn't show up for days.

I would have tried an ATI card, but until Stanford fully switches to a universal GPGPU codebase ATI's folding performance is still underwhelming at best. And at this point I don't think it would fix it anyway...

Dear Kougar,

No problem, just trying to help. I know the folding applications stress a lot the video card and in many cases you can hear the so called "coil noise".

Have you also tried older video drivers to see if you have the same problem? Also, what OS do you use? Windows 7, Vista? If using windows 7, I would also try Vista to see if the problem manifests again.

On the non-watercooled cards, also try to run the fan at a higher speed, not AUTO, to see if its not an overheating problem.

Yes, this issue irritates me greatly. Out of the three cards I listed the only card that never made noise while folding was the card I custom watercooled... the analog power circuitry in the 285 and Core 216 are extremely loud under Folding@home loads, the digital VRM on the original GTX 260 seems to have made a difference there.

Yes, it's not OS specific. I use Windows 7 64bit mainly.

I tried maxing out the fan speed on the 285, but GPU temps are not the issue. Even with the fans on auto Furmark 1.8.0 doesn't overheat these cards or force the driver crash.

Have you also tried to install other older drivers? (by using also a driver cleaner prior to installation)

I've had this problem since the 180 drivers onwards. Yes I've tried driver cleaner and driver sweeper.

If you deactivate PhysX in the drivers, will the problem persist?

I deactivated PhysX. So far so good... if the problem doesn't reoccur within a week I can be sure your suggestion resolved it. I'll cross my fingers on this one.

I really hope the problem gets solved. Damn Nvidias' crappy driver programmers.

Please update me in this thread.