THANKS NVIDIA! /s Crappy drivers freezing my PC

By Steven P.
in Hardware Hangout

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Raa

Posted
Posted

I've had various issues with some of the 3xx driver series over the last 6 months, but usually a driver update (surprisingly) fixes it.

Seems to happen with different cards and different games. No real reason that I can pick.

 

No biggie for me, updated drivers usually mean increased performance - and indeed that's often been the case along with bug fixes.

 

Big thumbs up to nVidia for excellent driver support IMO. (Y)

Proficient

yowanvista

Posted
Posted

I have a Gigabyte GTX460. Anything after 314.22 just causes freezing and BSOD.

See here https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1164578-nvidia-geforce-210-version-32049-stopped-responding-and-has-successfully-recovered/

Try the beta driver, it fixed all my freezing problems with my GTX460.

Grand Master

Steven P. Administrators

Posted
  • Author
  • Administrators
Posted

Point is, beta drivers have promised fixes for many versions :P The latest (released by Microsoft as a WHQL not long ago) fell into that category too but actually made my PC unusable and was much worse than older (new) drivers.

Veteran

DavidM

Posted
Posted

This link explains it better than I can http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/nvidia-freezes.html and is spot on!

 

Long story short, I have a GeForce 560 GTX and ever since around version 320.xx my PC keeps freezing (mouse stops moving) and much of the time audio freezes too which results in a not so nice sound emitting from my speakers.

 

I have reverted back to 311.06 - which is recommended by the above link - and without all the 3D Vision and HD Audio drivers crap that comes with it.

 

The last thing is also that I've had to disable Windows Update from automatically downloading and installing updates since Nvidia drivers are delivered through that too. :/

 

Anyone else having this and want to share some experiences, other solutions?

 

Evga GTX 560 owner here and can sadly confirm, I'm using 314.22 or latest I can use without crashing. It happens on Windows 7, 8 & 8.1 for me.

 

I have a GTX 460 and I was stuck on 314.22 due to the random freezing issues with every release up until the beta 331.93 version came out.

The release notes in the beta 331.93 specifically state they have a Fermi freeze fix in them.  I've been stable since I went to 331.93.  Everything released in between 314.22 and that version causes my machine to freeze.

 

I had given up they were ever going to fix it and had stopped watching the forums for an answer, I might have to give the latest beta drivers a shot.

 

I had the same problem then i disabled hardware acceleration in firefox, no problem since.

 

I thought I tried that and it didn't work, I'll have to give it another try. Who knows maybe the newest driver and disabling HA in firefox will get me off of 314.22.

Grand Master

Anibal P

Posted
Posted

I just use GeForce Experience and always run the beta drivers, had no issues with my 550 or 660 

 

Then again I also don't mess with the settings much if at all, just run it all at default settings

Experienced

Matt B

Posted
Posted

I have a Gigabyte 560 ti. Exact same issue, was always pretty random. Found this online somewhere (a while ago) and it hasn't crashed once since.

 

Nvidia Control Panel > Manage 3D Settings > Power management mode > prefer maximum performance

 

(note at some point it seems to have changed back to adaptive for me and yet still hasn't crashed?!)

 

 

Hope this works!

Rising Star

Coagulated

Posted
Posted

I think my friend who runs a 560Ti has had this issue for the past couple of months.  I just haven't had time to help him through it past the usual troubleshooting "Drivers up to date?  Idle Temp?  Load temp?" etc.

 

He uses Geforce Experience and seems to get these issues once or twice a day.

 

I'll point him in direction of this thread.

Mentor

Dadwen

Posted
Posted

I have a 560 tI and so far have had to stick with the 314.22 drivers, any drivers version newer freezes while gaming, it's a fairly new and clean install of Windows 7 64, no overclocking or changes tweaking was done, did try a clean install of the newer drivers but no luck would still get hard freezes in just about most games even the most non-graphic intensive ones. (It?s used mostly for gaming so the only thing installed on it is steam (and a few games from it), WOW, GW2 and Microsoft Security Essentials, I don't surf or do any other work on that computer at all.

 

Am holding out to see how the new 331.93 drivers do, I've been following the thread for it on the Gforce fourms for awhile now.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/621899/geforce-drivers/desktop-internet-browser-freeze-thread-w-geforce-460-560-gpus-updated-for-nb-12-5-13-page79-/

Grand Master

Jason S. Global Moderator

Posted
  • Global Moderator
Posted

microsoft never gives newer drivers out on windows update for gpu. there drivers release is slower then intel gpu drivers release.

 

matter of fact have the newest drivers and it still tried to push the older driver on me.

i get nvidia driver recommendations in Windows Update...

Grand Master

Jason S. Global Moderator

Posted
  • Global Moderator
Posted

I have reverted back to 311.06 - which is recommended by the above link - and without all the 3D Vision and HD Audio drivers crap that comes with it.

In that 311 version, can you do a custom install and deselect those components?

Grand Master

tsupersonic

Posted
Posted

 

 
 

 

Aha! those aren't on WinUpdate yet are they. I will keep an eye on the link in the first post because it looks like that person is also looking out for a fix.

 

Why would you use Windows Update for updating video drivers? Get them right from the source! I have a 560 Ti currently, and have NEVER had a problem with any of the WQL releases from Nvidia, same goes for my previous Nvidia cards. I've had worse luck with AMD/ATI but that's another story.

Grand Master

LittleNeutrino Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Install Nvidia Geforce Experience and have that download the latest beta drivers on release instead of using windows update :o

I was going to suggest the same thing,

 

Running windows 8.1 and 2 nVidia 650GT in SLI the latest Beta drivers are doing well for me. after the 8.1 upgrade I had to update the vBIOS on my graphics cards to get it working.

Grand Master

Ironman273

Posted
Posted

I've always had ATI cards and have never had problems with them.  This time I switched to nVidia and the drivers are horrible.  Various games crash with them.  In fact, I had to not install the latest drivers because it kept crashing Batman Arkham Origins...

Experienced

ensiform

Posted
Posted

I think I've actually had this happen a few times in the last month too..  Haven't actually discovered the cause because it's not happened again and it was seemingly random both times.

 

Seemed more likely to blame my CPU going bad or possible overheating due to dust.  Interesting find if it is just these drivers.

 

@Ironman273, ATI has had the worst drivers for years and poor release cycles on them too...  nVIDIA's only real problem seems that they can never figure out how to program the fans to actually work correctly before the cards start to get hot without external fan control via software or monitor on computer itself.

Grand Master

Aergan

Posted
Posted

Not had the issue on my laptop's GT555M 3GB or my GTX 650 (331.65).

 

On a positive note, recent driver updates mean I can now play Skyrim on my GT555M now whereas before it was just a pipedream.

Mentor

Tikimotel

Posted
Posted

I've installed Beta driver 331.93 on my GTX 460 equiped machine. They fixed my browser/flashplayer/random freezes and crashes.

release notes: http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/331.93/331.93-win8-win7-winvista-desktop-release-notes.pdf

 

Changes and Fixed Issues in Version 331.93

The following sections list the important changes and the most common issues resolved

since versions 331.82. This list is only a subset of the total number of changes made in this

driver version. The NVIDIA bug number is provided for reference.

Windows Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8 Fixed Issues

?         [326.80, Fermi]: End users report browser freezes and crashes. [1358403] <--- Fixed my issues!!! 

?         [Assassins Creed 4]: In a multi-player game, textures are either missing on models or they get swapped for each other. [1411524]

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing