Screen goes black in-game for a few seconds

[Egg Head]

It seems to just be this game that causes my game to freeze up. I looked at the error log and it causes some driver called nvlddmkm to stop responding and then the audio goes silent. This problem pretty much makes the game unplayable afterwards. Any ideas on what could be causing this driver failure?

OS: Windows 7 64-bit Pro
CPU: Intel Core i-7 4770k
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 780
RAM: 8GB
PSU: Corsair Gaming Series 800W
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC Socket 1150

[Fluffy Bunny ®]

This error occurs when your computer thinks that you graphics card has stopped responding, mainly due to a low frame rate. The program that controls this is called "Timeout detection and recovery." The error is very vague, and doesn't correlate to one problem. Getting this error is like your computer saying "something went wrong with your graphics card, and we're not sure what." It could be you're power supply, ram, temperature, or just the card in general.

Post your PC specs. Sounds like your vid card might not be up to the task. BTW, have you updated your vid drivers lately?

[Egg Head]

Edited my main post, yeah I recently updated my nVidia and CPU drivers.

[Fluffy Bunny ®]

You've got a good machine, so that's not the issue. Wow, that error can be caused by so many things like a bad stick of RAM, DirectX issues, PSUs, ventilation probs. and so on.

Hmmm, perhaps try doing the easy stuff first? Blow out dirt / crud to make sure nuttins' dirty causing temps to rise (Which I'm sure you'd know - but hey, I guessing here), then I'd blow out your Nvidia driver and install fresh, DirectX as well. Sorry I can't be more helpful, but that's one of those really vague errors that's hard to pin down.

BTW: B4 you reinstall vid drivers, try using a registry cleaner to clear out 'junk". You might also check this out: http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/2665946

[Egg Head]

Weird though as all of the parts to this PC was bought around Xmas time last year, I'm wondering whether or not the PSU could be the problem as it has to provide enough power for the above listed components plus 4 fans, an optical drive, 2 HDDs and an SSD. This error only happens on The Forest and Dead Island Riptide. Other high-demand games like Dead Rising 3 don't seem to have a problem at all though. What software would you recommend for recording temperatures? Thanks for the insight though.

[Fluffy Bunny ®]

I would think normally an 800W is plenty, but the 780 prolly could suck a lot of juice during a non-optimized game like The Forest. That, along with everything else, I s'pose it's possible that it's not enough?

Not sure which temps you mean, but GPU-Z is good to have to see what's going on with your GPU. I have seen posts with ppl claiming their 700 cards are running hot, fans screaming, etc. Idk, I have a 560ti and can't even hear my fans, so it's odd. Your card's about 1000x faster than mine LOL! While it's probably unrelated, you might want to just check to make sure you have really good airflow over the card, even though you have 4 fans + card fans. Like I said, I guessing here. :D

[Egg Head]

I've tested the RAM with memtest86 with 10 passes and that came up with 0 errors which leads me to believe it could either be a GPU or PSU issue. Know any software that I could use to test these components? I'm not too familiar with this as you could probably guess.

[Fluffy Bunny ®]

I doubt it's your hardware. From what I've seen, it appears that often times "nvlddmkm.sys" doesn't get updated or overwritten with new drivers.

So let's try this: Go to to C:\windows/system32/drivers and rename nvlddmkm.sys to nvlddmkm.sys.old. Go to the Nvidia directory and find the file "nvlddmkm.sy_" and copy it to windows/system32. Using the cmd window (DOS box) type:
"EXPAND.EXE nvlddmkm.sy_ nvlddmkm.sys." When the expansion is complete, copy the new nvlddmkm.sys to windows/system32/drivers and restart the computer.

You need to do this as "Administrator". If you are sure how to run this as Admin, go to "All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and right click and bring up properties dialog box. under Shortcut tab, click "Run as Admin."

If you PSU was bad, most times it'd start up, then shut down (or nothing at all) and that's not your problem. And I'm sure your GPU is fine.

[Egg Head]

I'm trying the method you posted but in cmd it keeps saying "can't open input file: nvlddmkm.sy_."

[Fluffy Bunny ®]

Sorry & Crap. With the new drivers, I'm not sure where the ".sy_" file is. Sent you an invite. Gonna try to send you my file and see if that works. I've also read where this can perhaps be due to heat. Did you DL GPU-Z? Is your card running hot?

Have a copy of the latest driver install file - I think 335.23?

If I can't send you the file (maybe due to size), perhaps - man, haven't done this stuff in a long time - try disabling your display adapter or uninstall your driver in Control Panel > Hardware > Device Manager, then start in safe mode. You should be running with a Windows driver. Blow out the NVidia directories in Program Files & Program Files (x86) . The start normally. If you have have a registry cleaner like "CCleaner", run that to remove possible garbage. Restart, then do a fresh driver install.

[Egg Head]

I did the whole expansion of nvlddmkm.sy_ but I did it in another folder and just dragged it into the system32 drivers, I'm going to test and see the results in a little bit as I'm currently working on something. Will let you know if the same issue comes back again. Also yes I have got GPU-Z on this machine so I'll retest temperatures and post them next chance I get. The GeForce driver I have for my GPU is 344.11

[Egg Head]

GPU-Z results - Max recordings:

GPU Core Clock: 1110.5MHz
GPU Memory Clock: 1502.3MHz
GPU Temperature: 72C
Fan Speed: 55%
Fan Speed: 2540RPM
Memory Used: 948MB
GPU Load: 99%
Memory Controller Load: 0%
Video Engine Load: 0%
Power Consumption 84%TDP
VDDC: 1.1620V

The expansion of nvlddmkm.sy_ hasn't resolved the problem as it has just happened again when I played the Forest for about 25 minutes.

[Egg Head]

I've downloaded and tried a bunch of other benchmarking and stability-testing software for piece of mind and the highest I've recorded GPU temperatures was 78C. The GPU seems fine under long periods of time rendering pretty hectic stuff so I'm going to completely wipe the nVidia drivers. I've downloaded Drive Sweeper, or as it is called Display Driver Uninstaller now, to help out with getting any remnants of the drivers off this machine.

[Survivalist]

In case it is something on our end I will make sure the team sees this.

Your screen only goes black temporarily, correct?

[Egg Head]

The screen turns black for about 10 seconds and then comes back, but when this happens all of the audio in-game gets muted. If I try to carry on playing I get graphical errors in the water texture. The water looks grid-like. In the event logger it mentions that nvlddmkm driver becoming unresponsive and recovering successfully, however I also get an issue when watching Youtube videos where the video itself loads but does not play, I imagine this is something to do with the driver error. To counter all of this I have to restart my PC. I used to have an issue where the whole game would freeze up my PC and would require a hard reboot via the standby button but I sorted that out by disabling my nVidia streaming software on startup. No idea why that had a problem with it though. Hope this helps.

[Fluffy Bunny ®]

引用自 Alza77：

The expansion of nvlddmkm.sy_ hasn't resolved the problem as it has just happened again when I played the Forest for about 25 minutes.

Ah geez, the sys file isn't it and you're not running hot. ??? Other than a fresh reinstall of drivers, I've run out of ideas. Sorry dude, wish I could be of more help. Good luck!