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[Leftism]

Right, so for the past few months I've been trying to work out what the heck is going on with my graphics card/GC driver. When I'm playing some games the picture the disappear; the monitor will briefly turn off and then come back on (I think this is Vista restarting the driver) and the picture will come back - during this time with a blank screen the sound will loop over and over again. In Source games the game will crash and Vista will report said error about the driver whilst in other games it will just continue and when I exit I'll have a bunch of nice notifications in the taskbar with said error.

It does this for some of my games (including TF2). At first, it was only for Orange Box+ source games however turning the DirectX level down to Dx. 8 fixed the problem. On a weird sidenote, Left 4 Dead 2 works happily and has decent frames at full graphics. Before the engine was updated, I didn't have a problem with HL2 (and EP1) either, but since the engine upgrade it's been behaving in a similar manner as well.

The only difference between these cases are that everything bar L4D2 I have downloaded from Steam whilst L4D2 I have a retail copy of. This issue also seems to keep happening on Railworks (yes, yes I know! ) as well which doesn't have the ability to downgrade the dx level. Trackmania also has this problem, although daylight levels it's fine with it's just the darker levels and the bit at the end on multiplayer races with all the cars and the final results.

I was just as puzzled when games I consider to be quite demanding have never had any problems: Civ5; Burnout: Paradise; Empire: Total War; Tropico 3; Moonbase Alpha and Borderlands.

What I have tried:
- Reinstalling problematic games.
- Uninstalling Driver and reinstalling driver.
- Installed Dx. Redist.
- Underclocking my graphics card.
- Increasing graphics card fan speed.

System Specs:
- CPU: Intel Pentium Duo E5200 (2.5Ghz)
- Graphics card: nVidia 9600GT (Sub-vendor: BFG, manufacturer overclocked.)
Speccy Info

GPU   G94
Device ID   10DE-0622
Revision   A2
Subvendor   BFG Tech (19F1)
Technology   65 nm
Die Size   240 nmІ
Transistors   505 M
Release Date   Feb 21, 2008
DirectX Support   10.0
DirectX Shader Model   4.0
OpenGL Support   3.0
Bus Interface   PCI Express x16
Temperature   63 °C (Has never ventured beyond 85°C under load)
SLI   Disabled
Driver   nvlddmkm.sys
Driver version   8.17.12.6099
ForceWare version   260.99
BIOS Version   62.94.3c.00.69
ROPs   16
Shaders   64 unified
Memory Type   GDDR3
Physical Memory   512 MB
Virtual Memory   1280 MB
Bus Width   256 Bit

- Motherboard: Asus P5Q-PRO
- OS: Windows Vista, 32-bit.
- RAM: 2GB

Any help + suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Chaos]

I had a similar issue with an 8800 Ultra (that I sold to chuggy)

Had to do a riva tuner hack

[DeadlyAvenger]

Is your card getting hot while you're playing the games it's crashing in?

How's your power supply?

How old is the card?

I'd be inclined to think it was a driver issue - but since you've tried using the latest driver it's probably not that.

(P.S. If it is hardware - don't forget that Junta is selling his 4890 )

[Hzza]

I used to get similar problems to the ones you described on my laptop when it overheated. Try monitoring CPU/GPU temps to see what they're like when it craps out.

Also, if you can remember when it was last stable, try rolling back your graphics drivers to those?

edit - inb4Cats "Take it out and blow on it"

'nother edit - Also try removing OC and running at stock for a bit, could be the OC failing or something.

[Leftism]

Is your card getting hot while you're playing the games it's crashing in?

The card never really ventures above 85C and a quick check suggests that this is well within it's working limit.

How's your power supply?

The PSU is a Corsair 550W.

How old is the card?

It's been in the PC since it was built, which was in July 2009. So it's about 1 and a half years old now.

I used to get similar problems to the ones you described on my laptop when it overheated. Try monitoring CPU/GPU temps to see what they're like when it craps out.

Also, if you can remember when it was last stable, try rolling back your graphics drivers to those?

edit - inb4Cats "Take it out and blow on it"

I'm not too certain this is a temperature issue as the card is running at a similar level (around the 70C mark on average) throughout all my games.

And no, I can't remember the last "stable" drivers I had; plus, in typical fasion, I have lost the driver CD that came with the card.

[Mr Chug]

Can only suggest the same as Hz- try removing the overclock and see if it helps. The card I bought from Chaos had to be underclocked every time I started up the PC or it would crash the whole computer every time I played a 3D game for more than a few minutes.

[Leftism]

Right, a quick update.

I have underclocked the card using rivatuner to the stock settings (or the lower side of the factory settings in cases where the slider wouldn't sit exactly where I wanted it to). HL2:E2 now runs for around 30 mins as opposed to struggling to render the opening few seconds (the black screen with "Half Life 2: Episode 2" text) so it's progress.

I would leave it at that, but the game still crashes and returns an the old "Display driver has stopped...etc" message.

[PapaFade]

Check 3-D Guru for third party/beta drivers. TBH I had alot of issues with my ATI drivers which threw up the same symptom that ur having. May be the same cause though. Might help.

[Zarf]

It's almost certainly a driver screwup. Download a driver cleaning app and the latest whql drivers, then uninstall the drivers (including nvidia physx / 3d) from control panel and device manager.
Reboot into safe mode and run the driver cleaner on the nvidia drivers, then reboot into windows and install the drivers.

Can't guarantee it'll work, when I had driver issues with my 5850 nothing short of a format and clean reinstall would help.

[Leftism]

It's almost certainly a driver screwup. Download a driver cleaning app and the latest whql drivers, then uninstall the drivers (including nvidia physx / 3d) from control panel and device manager.
Reboot into safe mode and run the driver cleaner on the nvidia drivers, then reboot into windows and install the drivers.

Can't guarantee it'll work, when I had driver issues with my 5850 nothing short of a format and clean reinstall would help.

Already tried this.

[Hzza]

Nuke it from orbit? Its the only way to be sure...

[Finaldeath]

Have you tried a quick new partition and OS install, so it is bare minimum, fresh drivers for everything and no overclocking of anything at all?

To be honest a hardware issue with the card can easily cause these kinds of issues. Resetting it and, if it still fails after all of this, trying a different card you can borrow, will nail it down if it is graphics specific or even something else!