Hi all, I've recently started to use my gaming PC again now that I've relocated it to a newly refurbished room in my house. I've had all sorts of work done on the house and my rig's been stored under plastic for over 18 months.
 
Anyway, after spending time downloading windows updates and the latest drivers. The first issue started soon after with a windows freeze, folowed by black screen, then back to windows and the following error message;
 
Display driver stopped responding and has recovered
Driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered
 
I've also had some BSOD's after a freeze, too.
 
Sometimes it happens when I just simply open another tab/window on my desktop. I assume it was a driver issue, so I did a full uninstall/sweep and installed the latest driver again. 341.44
 
I've tried to catch up on some old games that were already installed on my PC too. CoD4 MW still looks great, but quickly freezes the same way as above. Another game, Anno 1701 played and did the same as CoD4 MW, so I installed the latest patch and it now goes to a BSOD when the game tries to start.
 
I've not overclocked my system. It's well ventilated and I gave the PC a good clean and air dusting when I installed it all in it's new location.
 
I've done quite a bit of searching online and there's all sorts of fixes and solutions out there, so I thought I'd ask for help in here. I can post the error report if required.
 
i7 965 3.2Ghz Extreme Edition
EVGA GTX 295 Co-Op Edition
EVGA x58 3 X SLI Motherboard
6GB Corsair Dominator
WD VelociRaptor 1500 HLFS
WD Caviar 5000 AACS
Silent Pro Gold 1200W
Vista Ultimate 64-bit

It's hard to say exactly what the issue is without examining the file myself. Could be a software conflict. Card could be unstable, could be a psu issue, could be a ram issue, etc. What are the bug check codes for your blue screens?

Sajin
What are the bug check codes for your blue screens?

 
Here it is;

Technical Information:
*** STOP: 0x00000116 (0xfffffa8006187010, 0xfffffa6002b615f8, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000002)
 
*** dxgkrnl.sys - Address 0xfffffa6003701e28 base at 0xfffffa60036a6000 DateStamp 0x539b91d6

Sajin
Have you tried downclocking the card yet?

It's not overclocked. How do you do that?

Sajin
Download evga precision x and set the core & memory to -150.

What should it be set at, straight out of the box ie. default settings?

Earlier I removed the GTX 295 and air dusted the card all over and its sockets. I also did the same for the three memory cards. It started up fine. About an hour later I noticed my W.E. showed new hardware detected and when I clicked to refresh, I got a BSOD.
 
Caused By Driver: hal.dll
Caused By Address: hal.dll+2d320
Files Description: Hardware Abstraction Layer DLL
Product Name: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
Company: Microsoft Corporation
File Version: 6.0.6002.18005 (lh_sp2rtm.090410-1830)
Processor: x64
Crash Address: ntoskrnl.exe+55010
 
Highlighted in pink in the lower pane below are the details of the device drivers loaded during the crash, one of which is the driver info mentioned above, and the other is;

ntoskrnl.exe
ntoskrnl.exe+15370
Files Description: NT Kernel & System
File Version: 6.0.6002.19454 (vistasp2_gdr.150721-0605)
Company: Microsoft Corporation
Full Path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

Zuhl3156
Try running the SFC utility to look for corrupt system file:
 
Post results when finished. BCC from last BSOD?

Ok, I figured how to do that. The results are pretty lengthy. As it was running it did say that errors had been detected and fixes were made.
 
What part should I copy and paste?

Zuhl3156
Copy the last few lines of the CBS.log file and Paste them into Notepad where you can easily retrieve them later then Paste them here too. SFC should complete and show 'No corrupt files found' or something similar.

CSI    0000034b [SR] Repair complete
2015-09-23 11:17:34, Info                  CSI    0000034c [SR] Committing transaction
2015-09-23 11:17:34, Info                  CSI    0000034d Creating NT transaction (seq 1), objectname [6]"(null)"
2015-09-23 11:17:34, Info                  CSI    0000034e Created NT transaction (seq 1) result 0x00000000, handle @0x160c
2015-09-23 11:17:34, Info                  CSI    CSI perf trace:
CSIPERF:TXCOMMIT;72371
2015-09-23 11:17:34, Info                  CSI    00000350 [SR] Verify and Repair Transaction completed. All files and registry keys listed in this transaction  have been successfully repaired
2015-09-23 11:21:00, Info                  CBS    Scavenge: Package store indicates there is no component to scavenge, skipping.
 
Just had a new message when I turned my PC on just.
 
NVIDIA User Experience Driver Component stopped working and was closed
 
My PC's clean. Other then NAV and some PC games. There's nothing else on it.

Zuhl3156
You should get rid of that GeForce Experience and enter your video settings manually. Get rid of nVidia Updater too. It's not that hard to set your own graphics values and GeForce Experience and the nVidia Updater cause nothing but problems.

I deselected GeForce Experience when I installed the latest drivers. I've just got control panel.
 
I'm playing an old Close Combat game, without any issues, yet sometimes if I open a second window or just open IE, I get a freeze followed by a black screen, followed by;
 
Driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered
 
The card has hardly been put to the test or overused, which is why I think it's a software issue.

SajinI see you haven't tried the downclock/underclock yet. Give it a shot. Leave precision open while testing.

In advance of that download, an interesting event has happened in 'Problem Reports and Solutions'. When I click on 'View problem history', it show five identical 'Video hardware error' messages, with a 'Solution Available'. The solution offered is 'Download and install the driver for your graphics adapter'. When I click on that, the link offered is for a new driver from the HP website. Other than the brand of my case, there is no HP component in my build.
 
Here's the link to .
 
Notice it's dated 19/7/11 for HP Notebook PC's.
 
DESCRIPTION
The notebook display screen temporarily becomes black while the graphics driver restarts. This issue may occur with many programs that utilize high performance graphics when the NVIDIA graphics adapter device driver spontaneously restarts.
 
Example error code:
 
 
BugCheck 117, {fffffa800d0f1010, fffff8800f206948, 0, 0}
Probably caused by nvlddmkm.sys
 
 
Programs that exhibit this behavior include, but are not limited to:

• Adobe Acrobat
• SolidWorks
• Flexsim
• Autodesk Navisworks
• Other CAD applications and 3D video games

The driver offered is 268.83.
 
What's going on there?

Zuhl3156
It sounds like there is some HP diagnostic software and utilities on your drive probably left over from the original installation. 268.83 is just the last driver tested and approved by HP for use on your video card.

Even though it's just an HP case?

Zuhl3156
Did you reuse the HDD?

No. WD. All new components for the build, including the case. Interesting that the 'nvlddmkm.sys' error goes back at least five years.

Zuhl3156
Did you use the install disk that came with the HP desktop with Vista on it?

It's an HP Blackbird 002 case. Vista Ultimate was a brand new off the shelf OS.
 
Occasionally, if I'm using IE, the screen just goes black, as though there's no signal from the card. It tends to only happen soon after starting the PC. Re-booting it doesn't work, because although it sounds as though it's re-booting, there is a short continuous beep and nothing else happens, so I turn it off at the plug socket.
 
I've read that a short continuous beep suggests a memory stick is faulty or dirty.

If it's bad memory that could have corrupted things like your graphics driver as well. I would try uninstalling and reinstalling the graphics driver anyway though. If I remember correctly you will need to use an older version of Precision for that card. Make sure the fan is working for your chipset (and not just spinning slowly). I have had two of these fans go bad and when the chipset gets too hot it will loose video signal like you are describing.