Display Driver Problem

[Liliana]

Alright, so I was playing CS:S today(keep in mind I'd already played plenty of CS:S without any problems), and all of a sudden, my left monitor flickers green and the computer freezes. "Ok," I thought, "could be just a one time thing. Gotta do some more tests." Restarted the computer, went on CS:S again, after a short amount of time, things started messing up again and more things turned green again and it froze again. Then I decided to test with TF2 and after less than a minute of being in-game the game crashed. No freeze, but it crashed. I decided to update my video card drivers, to see if that was the case. Next time I played TF2, after a little bit, same green screen error(picture is attached).

The problem is, when it froze the last time, it seemed to reset my display to the way it was before I had installed the proper drivers for my graphics card, by displaying only one monitor and limiting me to 1280x800 resolution. Decided to run the new driver setup again, seeing as it was still on my computer. Didn't work.

So I need ideas on what to do. My computer is on Windows 7 x64, and the GPU is an NVidia Geforce 8800GT.

Oh yeah, and Windows gives me this nice message about my graphics card and doesn't help me solve it with its troubleshooting services

Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)

 

[Silent_Predator]

my suggestion is:

1) clean video card of any dust
2) go to Nvidia web site, click on the newest driver, install, it will prompt saying files are the same, continue, yes.
3) Download and Install/Update nVidia ESA system tools.

If none of the above works, go to Control Panel, add/remove software, remove ALL nvidia files. Restart PC, install drivers fresh.


---> explains code 43 error:

Code 43
Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)Recommended resolution

One of the drivers controlling the device notified the operating system that the device failed in some manner.

If you have already run the Troubleshooting Wizard, you might want to check the hardware documentation for more information about diagnosing the problem.

 

[Snipeye]

Gotta break down Silent's step 2 with his last sentence:
2) Go to nVidia website, download latest driver for your video card.
3) Uninstall current display drivers.
4) Reboot.
5) Install new video drivers
6) Reboot
7) Download and Install/Update nVidia ESA system tools.

If THAT doesn't work, then you may have a problem directly with the GPU itself (heat issues). Have a temperature program running (nVidia has one you can use as Silent pointed out), and boot up a game. See if the temperature skyrockets. If so, you now know the reason why. Report back to what you find.

 

[Silent_Predator]

thank you for making the info a bit easier to understand.

 

[Liliana]

Thanks, Silent! That worked great, though I actually figured out what you meant and started the process before Snipeye posted his clarifications. An easier way of doing that, btw, is by checking the "clean install"(I believe) box when choosing to install new drivers. But the rest of his post should prove to be useful information, I hope.

 

[Liliana]

New problem: Monitors keep blinking, messing up, displaying stuff like this when the screen scrolls quickly or when I'm typing.
Figured out this new thing was because of the Minecraft server I was just running. Problems, then.

 

[Liliana]

Forget the "caused by minecraft server." Is now just happening at random.

 

[Liliana]

Ok, temperature of GPU right now, without really doing anything, is 53C. Seems rather normal. Launching TF2.
[Edit]
Alright, I played a small amount of TF2 and my GPU temperature went up to 60 and then TF2 crashed. Trying this again...
[Edit2]
Crashed again. Odd flickering weird thing problem with my monitors is happening again. Temperatures between 54 and 60.
[Edit3]
Once again, randomly started flickering. No games running this time.

 

[Snipeye]

Check CPU temperature, just for fun too.

Someone else need to post here, but now I'm thinking maybe the video card is dying, or parts of it is corrupted.

Have you tried a different video card Ranthus? Try plugging in a different one and see if it'll work?

 

[Tension]

Sounds like the video card is dying, as Snipeye said. I recall having a similar problem a few years ago and a new video card sorted it. Not great news if true for you, though.

 

[Ric]

1. Click start.
2. In the search box, type "event viewer" with out quotes and hit enter.
3. Click Windows Logs.
4. Click the sub-menu Application.
5. Sort the list by its Level, click the box that says "level."
6. Look for the Windows error 43 you're getting in console. The easiest way to do this is looking by the date/time closest to the error.
7. Take a screen shot of the screen after finding it and post in this thread.
8. If you can not find your error, back up a few steps and click Custom Views, then double click it's sub-menu Administrative Events, it should appear in their.

That will help us with your problem a little more.

 

[Liliana]

Check CPU temperature, just for fun too.

Someone else need to post here, but now I'm thinking maybe the video card is dying, or parts of it is corrupted.

Have you tried a different video card Ranthus? Try plugging in a different one and see if it'll work?

CPU temp was fine, but I'm pretty much coming to that conclusion as well. Makes sense, as this was an extra that Dell mistakenly sent one of my family awhile back and was sitting in a box for a long time.
Also doesn't help that it went back to having the drivers not work.
I don't quite happen to have an extra video card lying around, though, as I upgraded from the one I had before because it broke.

[Edit]
Hm. The one I have was originally a replacement for another one of these that broke over a year ago. The one I had before was very similar, an 8800 GTS, which broke a couple months ago. Coincidence?