Hello!
 
Ever since I went from Windows 8.1 x64 to Windows 10 x64 (fresh install) a month or two ago, I've been having an issue with the displays losing signals randomly regardless of what I'm doing at the time. Looking in the event viewer, I can see 10 Event ID 4101 warnings saying:
"Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered"
 
Contrary to what the message says, the displays never get signal back (even using WIN+CTRL+SHIFT+B) and the only solution is to power-cycle the PC. This issue seems to pop up randomly both with a mostly-idle system (browsing the Internet, chatting in Slack) and with a more heavily utilized one (Diablo 3, 7 Days to Die). Sometimes there are no issues for days and sometimes I get this once or twice a day. This is not a BSOD, however, as I could still hear sound coming from a youtube video playing in Chrome and was even able to continue conversation with someone in a Slack voice call for a few more seconds before that stopped working as well.
 
Specs:
CPU: Intel Core i7-4930K
Motherboard: ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition (latest BIOS)
GPU: 2x EVGA 980Ti Hybrid (in SLI)
PSU: 1000W 80Plus
 
I realize this is a fairly common issue that has been around since the beginning of time, so I did check most of the usual suspects:
- Set TdrDelay REG_QWORD to 8 (also tried 20)
- Set Power management mode to "Prefer maximum performance" in the NVidia Control Panel
- Set Computer power plan to "High performance" making sure Link State Power Management is Off
- Currently using Geforce 430.86 drivers (latest as of this post), but also tried 416.94 drivers with the same results, no Geforce Experience installed. Using DDU 18.0.1.5 to uninstall drivers with network disconnected until new drivers are installed.
- Cooling is fine, the GPUs were running 30C-40C on both cards when I've seen the issue occur
 
The GPUs are both factory-overclocked with the same clocks, but one seems to be a newer revision - they are both running same BIOS version, however. The primary card is typically running at higher clocks than the secondary card when just browsing the Internet and such, which makes sense, but maybe something weird going on with the different power states?
 
I did get EVGA Precision XOC and now I'm wondering if I should lower the clocks somewhat from the factory-overclocked settings or if a better solution would be to give it some more power? What would be the best way of doing this? I see the GPU/Mem Clock Offset sliders, there is a Power Target slider (100% at the moment) and a separate voltage slider to stabilize overclocks. I was thinking maybe I should boost the voltage slider a little bit to see if it helps - by how much (its in mV)?
 
Thank you for any help, this has been driving me crazy

Sajin
No issues when testing each card individually with the other card completely removed from the system?

 
I have not tried that yet as the testing would likely take several days due to the random nature of the problem. I'm leaving this as the last option. The two cards were running in Windows 8.1 x64 for a few months without any issues. I've only started seeing issues in Windows 10 x64 and stressing both cards doesn't seem to trigger the issue. I played Diablo 3 for hours yesterday with no issues, but then I wanted to lock my PC for the night and when I pressed WIN+L, the issue popped up.

Thanks for the update. Let us know what happens with sli disabled.

Now move your display cable to your other card while leaving sli disabled, and see if everything runs fine.

Thanks for the update.

And looks like I jinxed it - the same issue came back. Its weird that it took this long to trigger it though.

Well here's an update - both cards seem to have an issue separately. The issue is still random - sometimes there is no problem for days and sometimes there is an issue several times a day. Again, I never had these issues before the move to Windows 10, so I'm still very suspicious that it might be at fault. There is probably something to do with my system configuration thats having issues with the driver, but who knows what it could be.
 
I bought a EVGA 2080 Super Hybrid card and will be testing it out and will put one or both of these 980Ti's into my wife's gaming PC and see what happens, but at this point, I'm worried that my PC would still have the same issue even with a 2080 Super card, but I guess we will see.

Update: Was on vacation for a couple of weeks. When I got back last weekend, I removed the 980Ti cards, put a brand new EVGA 2080 Super Hybrid in. Everything worked without any issues for about a week and then everything died like before (not in a game, I was just browsing with Chrome). Considering this started happening on a fresh system after installing Windows 10 (fresh install, not an upgrade) and was not happening in Windows 8.1 on the same system, I think its pretty much for sure a driver issue of come kind.
 
I am now changing things up some more. I have a Bluetooth USB dongle that my mouse connects to (using Microsoft drivers) and whenever the mouse moves at first after a few minutes of inactivity, it locks up the picture on my PC for a few seconds. Assuming that it could be something related to that, I replaced that dongle with another one that uses a different chipset (that I had BSOD issues with in Win 8.1, but maybe not in Win 10) - will see if that will be any help.

Sajin
So are you thinking about going back to windows 8.1 for testing?

No as I use my PC for work as well (although I still have the SSD with the Windows 8.1 install). I am hoping that this stupid Bluetooth dongle was the cause of it all. I replaced it with another one and will see if that fixes the problem. The issue seems to be so random - sometimes it happens once or twice a day, sometimes its once a week.
 
I do not believe its a hardware issue though. When the issue occurs, the picture locks up, but I can still hear the sound for a minute or two after that (also if I'm in a voice chat, others can still hear me fine), so its just the video driver failing. The screen eventually turns black and some time after, the sound disappears soon after as well and the system pretty much hangs completely.
 
 

Sajin
A complete system hang makes it sound like a hardware issue imo.

It only hangs a couple of minutes after the picture locks up (but the system still works in the meanwhile) and who knows why - maybe its trying to recover the video driver and eventually gives up. Even if it is some kind of a hardware issue, what could it be?
- Its not the video card, since I just replaced it with a brand new one.
- Its not the CPU or the RAM - issues there would just trigger a BSOD.
- Its not the power supply as more stress (even SLI) doesnt cause a crash any more often than an idle system, nor are there any unexpected shutdowns.
- Its not a cooling issue - everything runs very cool.
- Its unlikely to be the motherboard, although its possible - especially could be some sort of a BIOS issue with Windows 10/UEFI. No new BIOS is available, so no way to know if thats what it is.
 
I'm still leaning towards a driver issue of some kind. I'm hoping the Bluetooth dongle was the cause as I got it very shortly before upgrading to Windows 10, so its possible I just didnt see the issue in Windows 8.1 because of that.