display driver stopped responding and has recovered

i have the Asus G51Vx-A1 notebook. when gaming (and sometimes in google earth and photoshop) i get an error: Display driver NVIDIA Window Kernel Mode Driver v.195.55 stopped responding and was successfully recovered.
i´ve tried every driver there is for notebooks, including beta drivers, but during gaming it still crashes to windows (usually resuming the game after few seconds and then crashing again in few minutes and so on). it does the same thing when opening NVIDIA Control Panel only it does it very often (the display just blinks until the control panel stops responding).
3dmark06 doesn´t work very well either, it finishes about 2 times out of 6. i don´t think the problem is related to temperature because during gaming (modern warfare 2, Half-life 2 Ep 2) its about 87-89, highest max i´ve seen is 94 c.
i have windows 7 at the moment, but it did the same thing with vista.

does anyone know a solution for this or is it probably a faulty graphics card?

 

The 195 drivers are not meant for M GPUs. Use 186.81 or 186.82.

 

i have tried those too but no change.
when i searched Nvidia homepage for drivers (beta included) it showed 195.39 and 195.55 for gtx 260m, so it seems they are suitable for m-series

 

I'm assuming you don't have any undervolts or overclocks.

If that's the case, it could be a hardware issue. It seems it crashes whenever you go to 3D clocks, whether it's a game, benchmark, or some kind of tool.

Does any 3D application work without it crashing?

 

That happened to me with my m1330 before the 8400m gs GPU croaked.

 

I'd recommend first wiping all drivers and properly reinstalling 186.82 or 186.81, and then move onto other possibilities.

 

I'd get a similar error when I push games too hard. I try not to max everything and be easy on the machine. Seems to work. I'll have to try to push Photoshop and see if it happens then.

 

i wiped all drivers and installed 186.81 and when it didn´t make any difference i wiped everything again and installed 195.55 (i havent tried 186.82 yet but i doubt it changes anything, i´ll try it later).
i havent overclocked or undervolted (only from power4gear hybrid and turbo extreme). the funny thing is that the crashes and freezes aren´t consistent, for example, i can play hl2 ep2 for over an hour with maybe one or two freezes but when i start age of empires 3 it might crash after a few seconds.
i haven´t tried DOX drivers yet, should i? and is there any way i can test for the hardware problem before i start the agonizing road to replacement?

 

I did a clean OS install with latest drivers from the manufacturer's support site.

If it still happens, it's a hardware problem.

 

I'm with dune-- I only get that in the most intense parts of gaming (graphically speaking) where the computer is purely GPU-limited for a bit. I've never gotten the error from a CUDA computational program, however (I render flame fractals on occasion).

 

i don´t think it happens because of graphics card limitations, i mean i should be able to play age of empires 3 on full settings with gtx260m. and if some games are too intense, then it should have a lag and the frames should drop but L4D2 and modern warfare 2 run very smoothly with max settings...well, until they freeze and crash.
the other thing that makes me think hardware problem is the fact that it did this right from the start with manufacturer´s os and drivers and with a simple game like feeding frenzy.
anyway, i´m going to try to send it to the warranty repairs, but its probably going to take ages before i get it back, since its not a very common notebook in Estonia and they probably even don´t have the parts yet
but if anyone has any theories about it being a software problem after all, i´m all ears

 

Do factory drivers. If that fails, clean install windows, update drivers via driver disc (if you dont have a driver disc, do windows update). come back and let us know how it went

 

I agree, that's what happens if games are too intense. I find for me the driver problem happens when the game is somewhat 3d-intensive and is gpu limited meaning the CPU can handle the current scene. For example, this happens to me only in scenes that are rendered >60fps, which generally means the less intense ones. It happened a few times just standing around at camp in Dragon Age, and another few times in certain spots in Titan Quest. In each case the CPU wasn't being used very much but the GPU was heating up nicely before a crash well below the GPU threshold temp. It's not a temp problem, it's a software problem (or so I suspect).

 

i don´t think that installing a clean windows would make any difference, because when i got the notebook it had all the factory drivers and os and i had the same error with feeding frenzy 2 (from the Eee-stick cd) which really isn´t very big on 3D. and the current windows is a few weeks old and has no bloatware on it, yet the problem still exists.
ok i understand why it may happen during gaming, but what really baffles me is that when i go to Nvidia Control Panel and 3d settings it starts blinking and giving me the error immediately, until it stops responding and i close it. that is really the reason why i think it might be a faulty graphics card.
oh, and should i try Windows XP ?

 

RMA it. Something's not kosher with that laptop.

 

definitely RMA it. I've never received anything like that with any driver in any game unless I was OC'd way past stock underclocks. Tho, in win7 I did get a random driver failure when I was watching a 720p movie, unisntalled/rebooted/cleaned/installed and presto no more problems. still have powermizer flux tho.

 

I have 195.55 mobile drivers that were released by nVidia. Again, these are the mobile drivers, not the ones for desktops. They work fantastic thus far.

 

Well we give you ideas but you shut them down. try our ways!

 

sorry i didn´t mean to offend you or anything but i basically have tried the same thing and that didn´t help

 

It's must be the problem of your hardware,195.55 has improved too many things including fixing the bia.hh stop responding problem.But I've found the newer google earth conflicting with 195.55 beta driver.so I just back to very old google earth edition cause I can't find the previous one.

 

Did you get your driver issue resolved, if you are still experiencing issues after trying all the suggestions already provided, I would recommend calling our toll free number for RMA.

It's better resolved now rather than later. If you need to contact them for RMA it is 1888 678 3688.

 

I called the Estonian warranty service for Asus and they told me to bring the laptop for diagnostics for a few days, but I´ve been quite busy at school recently and haven´t had the time to go there (200km from where I live) and I also needed the laptop at school. But I´m going to RMA it soon, since I´m really annoyed with it and Assassins Creed II is coming out soon for the PC
I will let you know if I find out what´s wrong with it.

 

Yep, I had a G51 that did that out of the box, it was a hardware problem that has yet to happen on it's replacement 5 months later... definitely RMA it when you get a chance!

 

martinique90 does your laptop freeze randomly for a couple of seconds (with sound loop) if so, I know exactly what is happening and how to fix it, don't worry its not hardware problem.

 

Curious, what's the fix? I had the same display driver problem, and never solved it? Yet, the new one has never had the problem.

Thanks

 

Yes I'm curious too.

I used to have this sometimes on some games with my M1530. I think it happens if you push the computer too much with high graphics settings etc. My brother also gets this sometimes on his Asus M51sn with 9500m gs. The game would freeze with the sound looping, and when you ctrl alt dlte, you'll see the popup saying the display driver has stopped working. I always thought it was just a driver problem.

I think I may have had it happen once with my G51. I can't remember for sure though.

 

Well it does freeze when gaming but usually doesn´t have sound loop, it just blacks out and with some games it just resumes as normal after few seconds but with never games it just crashes. I still don´t think it happens because i push it too much, Half-Life Ep 2 runs like a dream with full settings and Age of Empires 3 crashes in the first menu...

And it never freezes in Windows (only Photoshop and Google Earth stop responding from time to time).

 

I got my laptop back today and everything seems to be working. It was in repairs for three days and they replaced the GPU.
The only problem I have now is that it runs very hot. It used to max 97C (I use HWMonitor and unfortunately it doesn´t show average temp) but now it runs to 102C (MW2 and 3DMark06). I tried to make it cooler by raising the laptop off the table about 2-3cm but it made no difference. What is the highest temp it gets before it crashes or whatever it does to protect itself? And on what temp will the gpu be damaged?

 

How can i get my gpu fan to start at lower temperatures?

 

you can't control de gpu fan but hell 100+ degrees is a lot the maximum b4 u get downclocked is 105 celcius and umm in what kinda hell do u live t get such high temps i mean i live in a reallly hot place in central america and only when im in bed i got up 101 celcius...maybe its a thermal compound issue?

 

It´s like -15c outside maybe i should start gaming on my terrace
If it is a thermal compound issue then i really have bad luck concerning graphics cards

 

When playing Modern Warfare 2 my laptop runs at 100-102c constantly, I´m afraid its going to boil mu GPU What temperatures would be normal when gaming? Would 90-95 be okay for the gpu?
And doesn´t anyone really know how to change fan speeds and if it would even help?

 

Firstly, I think the max temp is 106C before it begins to downclock.

I read somewhere that making the fans start earlier doesn't do anything but delay how long it takes to get to the max temp. So even if you make the fans kick in earlier, it'll eventually just get back up to the original max temp which makes sense because that's all you're doing; making the fan kick in earlier. It'd be different if you were increasing the fan speed or something. That said, I don't know how to change it myself.

 

So there is no way to make it cooler? (I am planning to buy/make a cooling pad)
And will constant temperatures of 90-97c ruin my gpu?