Display Driver Stopped Responding...again

This message appeared earlier, just after GW froze and I hit ALT-TAB to see whether it was just GW which had frozen, or if my whole computer was fritzing out.

This is the fourth or fifth time this has happened since I started playing GW, and it never happened before GW.
And it's never happened when GW was NOT running.



I've updated by drivers at least three times since this message first started appearing, and apparently doing so has only staved it off temporarily.

Any suggestions on ways to fix the problem?

We need to know your computer specs, something like a DirectX diagnostics report would be useful. Could be a heat issue, so make sure your video card's fan and heat sink is free of dust.

I use Belarc Advisor to get hardware profiles.

Operating System
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (build 2600)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United States)

System Model
BIOSTAR Group P4M90-M4 Ver:1.0
System Serial Number: OEM
Enclosure Type: Desktop

Processor a
2.60 gigahertz Intel Celeron
8 kilobyte primary memory cache
128 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Not hyper-threaded

Main Circuit Board b
Board: BIOSTAR Group P4M90-M4 Ver:1.0
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG 12/12/2008

Drives
242.37 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
141.91 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
AOPEN DVD1648/AAP [CD-ROM drive]
HP DVD Writer 640c [CD-ROM drive]

Memory Modules c,d
1024 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
Slot 'A0' has 1024 MB
Slot 'A1' is Empty

Controllers
Standard floppy disk controller
Primary IDE Channel [Controller] (2x)
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller] (2x)
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
VIA Bus Master IDE Controller

Display
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT [Display adapter]
AOC LM560 [Monitor]

Sometimes not having the same type and size of memory in both memory slots can cause problems. You may want to put a gig of ram in the second memory slot and see if that helps.

Ignoring the absurd....

There are a number of things that could cause the nVidia drivers to fail:

1. Update your BIOS
2. Update to the latest graphics card drivers
3. Turn off shaders in GW and lower the resolution
4. Is your system running hot?
5. Finally, have you already fried the graphics card?

I had exactly the same problem (as many others have) it's not just a GW issue, e.g. the same crash happens running World in Conflict - after battling it for a number of weeks, I took the final, step - switch to ATi/Radeon and all your Nvidia woes will go away

Run a driver cleaner program
Reinstall directx
Reinstall GPU driver

Should work after that.

It's a common bug with that era of Nvidia Cards, I get the same occasionally with my 8600 GT, fortunately not enough to be annoying. Tried all sorts of drivers, nothing works. Reboot as usual sorts it out.

its a faulty card. I had my 8600m gt fail on me consistently that it was annoying.

How clean is the inside of your computer.... when a computer overheats the video driver is usually the first thing to go...cleaning that dust out makes a huge difference...when it crashes you should try to feel how hot your card and comp is without actually touching it.

download a program called GPU-Z. open it and let it find everything. go to the temperature section. when gw crashes check what the temp is, if its really high then its an issue with your graphics card overheating

I have been having the same problem with my nvidia 8600 GT card. I downloaded GPU-Z and it says my GPUs average temperature is ~ 80.6°C when when my screen starts flashing (that weird flashing occurs a moment before graphics driver stops responding).

I'm not expert with graphics cards so I'm wondering if over 80°C for that card is considered overheating?

That is a bit hot for a graphics card I tend to not like seeing them get above 75C cause as far as I know that's when they start to go bad under long term use. Someone may be around in a bit to be like no it can go to 100000000000C but yeah...you might wanna blow some dust off there and hope no perm damage was done.

The 8600 series is supposedly designed to sustain a much higher thermal draw, but GW has always been a very finicky game when it comes to temperatures, I would try to blast some dust out of there and get some better airflow in your case.... if that doesn't solve them problem it may be the beginning of the end (for your video card that is).

I had this issue with my Nvidia 8500 GT. I tried everything possible but nothing worked. Even Nvidia could not help me so I am now forced to use the last good drivers before this started happenng and I have no issues what so ever. I have not been able to use any drivers after the June 2008 (I think =\) update. Maybe one day I will purchase a new card but for now I have no issues. Try backtracking to a previous driver if possible if you can remember when this started happening and the driver.

Good luck and Merry Christmas