Display driver NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version XXX.XX stopped responding and has successfully recovered.

I've not found a good way to remedy this error message, Display driver NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version XXX.XX stopped responding and has successfully recovered, or what causes it.

Cupid shows that my temps are <60C when this message occurs. It happens in Diablo3, SC2, Dead Island, probably more that I can't think of now. Skyrim, Portal 1&2, and L4D run fine at <80C.

I've changed my driver to the newest and the oldest as well as a few middle ones. I don't have a driver scrubber, but followed a complete Nvida removal from BradleyW.

I've tested my ram and it's fine.

My machine is a Sager NP8960
Windows 7 home Premium 64 bit
8G ram 1333
Intel quad core I7 Q720 at 1600MHz
Nvida 285M
video driver (tried them all that are certified for the 285M)

I don't believe that my driver is a brick because it plays some games real well. Any suggestions?

 

thats defo a driver problem. you could well have old remnants from older drivers conflicting.
as you tried most things theres a walkthrough in my sig below where you can also get driver sweeper.
run in safe mode a do a clean then load the drivers again and see if that helps.

must admit the best stable driver i found was the 186.81 which if you havnt tried i can post up for you.

 

Was getting the same thing with an NP9850 (280m in Sli), even tried a Windows reinstall and there was no change. Sent my laptop in to Sager before the warranty runs out end of September, just to be sure. Needed a few other things fixed as well, Sager/Clevo, tend to be a bit flimsy.

 

sli always seemed to be a problem back in the 2xx card days. hopefully its all sorted now.

 

What else needed fixed?

My HD went bad under warranty and they left one of my two fans covered and I undid that myself.

 

The connection between the motherboard and LCD panel was going. I could no longer open and close the laptop else the screen would start acting up. Bright white bloom from the bottom of the panel would spread to the top, and I would have to move the LCD panel to get it to stop, had a sweet spot slanting slightly forward. There is a piece of plastic with a serial number riding up into the LCD viewing area, the hard drives had to be RMA within the first week due to noise and causing the system to freeze then continue once clicking has stopped, never really went away, was just not as severe once the HDDs were replaced. The driver issue started in February last year, first with Skyrim and ending with just about everything I tried, didn't matter the driver old or new. The screen will flash black, sometimes the game will come back, sometimes the whole system will freeze. The worst games to cause this were Skyrim, Spec Ops: The Line and Prototype 2 the flashing would be constant every few seconds till the game or the PC would crash. Finally the system will also just hard lock when starting it up, happens intermittently usually at the Windows splash screen. I have had issues with the Sager since I got it, problems started out of the box. I have been unwilling to send it in cause I have to pay for that, finally I had to, cause warranty ends in a few weeks. Cost $280 with insurance to send it in (Canada to US).

 

when you say fans covered was it a black piece of plastic over one of the vent grills. if so that was there for a reason to disperse air around the lappy.
loads of people did remove it though before they found out what it was actually there for.

i think you mean sager were a bit flimsy. ive had two clevos now and they have both been perfect and built like tanks.

 

I thought it was a driver problem too. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be a video driver problem. I followed your instructions using Driver Sweeper in safe mode with no success.

 

Nvidia forums are down right now, but there's a thread that's many, many pages long about this error. I thought it only affected GTX 4XX and on, but I could be wrong. Some people get it solved, and some don't, but there doesn't seem to be one common fix. I get the message on my desktop sometimes, so I take the card out, blow some canned air on the moving bits, and put it back in. That buys me a few weeks before the messages start coming back. I also noticed that it happens more frequently when my computer wakes up; almost like clockwork. Look up the "TDR Crash". Much of that is over my head, but if it makes sense to you, it might help.

 

I had this problem a couple of years ago with an Asus G51 260m.... it did in fact end up being a hardware GPU problem, luckily still under warranty. As others have mentioned, OS reinstalls, different drivers, etc did not help.