display drivers have stopped working and have succesfully recovered

General Forums Off-topic Chat
1

what does this mean every time i play a pc game 5 minites into it that messages appears and the game stops working.what do i do?

2

A few ideas.
Try updating your graphics drivers.
Check your card is not overheating. Graphics card control panel may tell you temp.

Richard

3

Microsoft Windows 7 Mostly does this and some games like Crysis and 50% times its not the drivers, usualy its the OS

4

my graphics driver is up to date and there is no options to view the cards temperature
im on windows vista 32 bit

5

I use NVidia cards in my PC and also Vista 32-bit. I had this problem once, here’s what it was:

The settings in the NV control panel (named nvcplui.exe, so I affectionately call it NV Kaplooey…it fits.) offer options in hardware acceleration in OpenGL and DirectX, like “force mipmaps” or “force full screen anti-aliasing”, but also offer recomended settings like “let application choose”.

In my example, I forced Anisotropic Texture Filtering while playing Oblivion, because Oblivion doesn’t do it natively. It looked better but began crashing like you described. Like mentioned above, it’s Vista, not NV, or your game causing it.
So try checking your settings, you may be forcing something in your settings that Vista doesn’t like. Start by tweaking things you can do without first, and see if it helps, if you make one change at a time, you’ll find what’s causing it.

6

thanks for the advice.
my computer keeps turning itself off saying that windows had to shut down to prevent damage to your computer so i think my computers a gonner

7

Possibly the cpu fan is not working properly. If the cpu gets too hot the computer will shut down. Have a look inside the case and see if the fan needs cleaned.

(Obviously be sure to switch off and unplug before you do this)

8

ooooh…Mr. Marklew may have hit that one right on the head then, it sounds like a temperature issue.

That doesn’t necessarily mean your computer is toast, though.

Are you hardware savvy, or at least brave? If so, try this:

  1. turn off your computer.
  2. unplug the large power cord in back.
  3. press the power button in front, as if you are trying to turn it on.
    –this discharges any stored power in the computer.
  4. remove the cover.
    –the computer is safe just don’t touch anything you don’t have to and you won’t hurt anything.

Now you need to check your fans inside. Use a small mirror and flashlight if you have to. Dust is a real computer killer, if your house is dusty like mine, maintenance needs to be done inside your computer occassionally to prevent sudden overheating.

Check to see that the fans don’t have excessive dust build up. Make sure the fan blades can rotate freely. If you see problems you may have to take a small brush ( I use a toothbrush and a vacuum cleaner) to remove the excessive dust. If you’re not comfortable cleaning it yourself, it shouldn’t be that expensive to have someone do it for you. I still recommend you look at it yourself so someone doesn’t try to charge you for unnessesary work or parts.

I have two graphic cards runnign SLI and they’re close together, it’s a pain to clean the fans on them, but I do it every 6 months and they are old but healthy and happy. Good Luck!