Display driver has stopped working but has recovered...

My framerate was morbid at even low settings (4 to 10, sometimes 12/13 in blank land)..

so I tried updating my drivers, which seemed like a good idea, but now whenever I run SL I get this "Driver has stopped working but has recovered" error and the program is just blank...

If I run in windowed mode, and minimise the program to quite small (1/4 of my screen maybe) it sometimes works for a bit.

Should I revert my drivers or try to fix it? Suggested drivers are always useful..

It's a NVIDIA Geforce Go 7300 and has been working alright for the past few months, albeit slowlt, expected of a laptop.

thanks!
A


(update: trying a new driver now, the 163.69 - will report on any improvements.)

My new Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop (4 gig ram, GeForce 8600M GT with latest driver) had this problem sporadically, but occasionally--like now--it escalates to occuring every couple minutes. This only occurs while running SL.

I discovered a thread about this problem here:
http://i.nconspicuo.us/2007/01/01/display-driver-nvlddmkm-stopped-responding-and-has-successfully-recovered/
The last entries suggest that bad memory is the problem rather than the graphics board.

My husband wonders if returning to the prior version of the driver might help, but since the laptop is so new, I'm not sure the new driver caused these crashes.

Did you discover any solutions?

It means the display driver is crashing.

Try another version of the driver.

If it was bad memory, you'd get the error regardless of what game you had running. I get the video displat driver error once in a while. I'm running sli 8600 512s, latest drivers because EQ2 stutters witht he ones that came with them, 4g ram, Vista 64. I play many other online games but on SL causes this error to happen. So it's either SL hates that card/driver or Vista 64bit, or a combination of the two.

To be specific, it would be the display driver hating SL.

The error message is a Vista message, informing the user that the user mode video driver crashed and restarted. The alternative to that error is a blue screen of death (Vista gets those errors, XP gets BSOD's).

It certainly could be bad video memory or an overheating GPU, but it's probably just a buggy driver.

Yep, thanks to those responding, you're right about the "bad" driver.

Though I have the latest available from Dell, I figured this up-to-date version must be the culprit, and rolled the driver back to the one that shipped with the laptop. And....
.....ta da!

Everything's working again. No more Second Life crashes. Plus I am no longer seeing those persistent messages urging me to increase resolution to the maximum of 1920 x 1200, even though that was what the resolution was set to. Gah.

Isn't it odd that the recommended latest driver for my laptop model & graphics card from Dell on their website would be so flawed? Anyway, the only thing I'm missing from this older driver is vibrance control, but it looks like I can pretty much get a reasonable match to the tones on my desktop using the driver's other RBG controls.

It's such a relief not to be plummeting out of cyberspace every two minutes.

I used to play World of Warcraft--I was a hunter and had such a fine black cat!--and I'm tempted to see how this muscular laptop does with those demands. My husband has read various strings claiming SL causes more graphics strain than many demanding mmorpgs.

Now if my Hair Collection folder would just return to my inventory, my SL life would be complete!

I just got a new Dell XPS1530.. 8600 card 3 mg ram and i have spent huge amounts of time with the Dell support line.. My display flickers and goes to black.. then a recover message.. I have tried everything.. roll back to factory settings, uninstalled sl and reintalled.. changes the vista setting to turn off bells and whistles (Vista 32bit).. Dell says it's nvidia.. Nvidia says its sl .. none of the drivers i have tried have been able to find the hardware...169.25..163.75..to mention a few.. I also downloaded the Vista service pack.. I get at the most 20 min. b4 I crash...and recover. I am not a huge techy so i need help asap.. my time to return this computer is running out...Graphics card checks out in diagnostcs and this only happens with sl...please help me figure this out.

i was told to reinstall vista, but not the service pack 1, and everything is fine now.

The problem is nVidia. To a smaller degree it's SL ticking off the driver, but it's the drivers fault for crashing.

Install an updated version of the driver.

And there's nothing wrong with SP1. I've been running it since last year without issues.

well I finally found THE MAN at Dell... after countless hours of tech support and deciding I would have to send this laptop back... I stumbled on someone who not only fixed the problem but tweaked my computer to make it run better...woooooot.. he read the reams of logs and actually went to the trouble of researching a fix.. it was a driver issue (knew that) and updating the driver only made it worse.. seems prob is 8600M GT does not have a driver on the Nvidia site..odd? Had to go to third party and get it... once done.. I am back inworld and stable.. the driver number is 171.16. THANK YOU KELLY!!! for all you do.. you saved your company a return and earned my respect.... )))

well I finally found THE MAN at Dell... after countless hours of tech support and deciding I would have to send this laptop back... I stumbled on someone who not only fixed the problem but tweaked my computer to make it run better...woooooot.. he read the reams of logs and actually went to the trouble of researching a fix.. it was a driver issue (knew that) and updating the driver only made it worse.. seems prob is 8600M GT does not have a driver on the Nvidia site..odd? Had to go to third party and get it... once done.. I am back inworld and stable.. the driver number is 171.16. THANK YOU KELLY!!! for all you do.. you saved your company a return and earned my respect.... )))