Windows 10 v1511, NVIDIA v358.91 drivers and Steam-related TDR crashes

still nice to hear it's working now i had no more real TDRs since reverting to TH1 and reinstalling TH2 again, but i noticed i still have wonky stability in some games so i ditched W10 and installed W8.1 again so far no issues but it could be these drivers too that ngreedia is dishing out

 

359.00 started to cause TDR on most games like Starcraft Batman and one time star wars, 358.91 was perfect.

 

Sora is troll and this know by many people @ nvidia

@Darren Hodgson
by chance is your cpu OCed? only time I ever seen TDR on any of the dozen's of pc i made for friends and family, is if there fautly HW (just cause it worked before with older verisons of software/os/etc dont mean anything i could of just had a higher tolerance to what is now causing it )or bad OC's they done.

go back to older drivers if they work is another option.

 

I know for me. steam is slower on windows 10 compared to windows 8.1

stops responding everytime I start it and have to wait for it to start responding again.


it does it in 8.1 as well, but not as bad.


it has to do with the amount of games in your library.

they did something to the code and now it lags like hell sometimes.

they even tried to fix it. but its still does it.

so I can understand if steam causes tdr, when the program it self is having issues.

 

How many games do you have in your library?
Doesn't crash neither acts slower on Windows 10 for me with 135 games and neither for two of my friends with 499 and 921 games in their library.

 

411 games.

for some reason if you click anywhere on the steam window right after loading, steam process will stop responding. if I click again on it then it gives message saying its not responding.

If I dont rush it. then it wont do it.

 

My GTX 980 Ti is an EVGA SC model so, yes, it is factory overclocked.

Alas, I am still getting these TDR display driver crashes when opening Steam but not all the time. However, over the weekend I was watching a video on YouTube using Chrome and I got one when I closed the window.

I get absolutely no TDRs while playing games and the card is running at the lower 2D clock speeds on the desktop when the display driver crashes and recovers so I am not sure how an overclock could cause this issue when it is not running anywhere near the default NVIDIA clock speeds, never-mind the one set by EVGA. :3eyes:

That is what makes this issue so aggravating.

 

I'll bet you it's one of these apps causing the problem... a few years ago used a lot of Stardock stuff when I was using Win7 but starting having problems with them when I upgraded to Win8 a few years back. Dumped all those apps a few years ago and solved a lot of the instability issues I was having.

Stardock Start10 v1.06 (this just updated from v1.05 this morning)
Stardock WindowFX v6.0 beta (this is a likely culprit I think since it affects how the windows open/close, etc)
Stardock Fences
DivX Media Server and Update Checker

If your having any BSOD along with those TDR errors you can use BlueScreenView to get more details.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

 

have you tried older drivers?? i still using 358.50 I really havent seen point in chaning them yet, seeing none of issue i been seeing have been fixed yet.

fact that max performance in global profiles no longer lets the gpu drop to idle speeds sitting on the desktop like it does in win 7 annoys me to no end.

and DSR smoothing dont work. That and i want to see if Windows tries to update any gpu/nic/audio driver which so far it has not.

Steam seem fine on my end with the drivers i use. and global profile is set to adaptive, see above much rather have max performance in global i dont trust adaptive power i never have.

 

Go to your steam settings and disable DirectWrite. Could be the culprit.

 

I will certainly try that, thanks, but it doesn't explain the TDRs when watching YouTube in Chrome.

If I had to guess then I would say it is likely do with hardware acceleration and seems to be the same damn issue that plagued many NVIDIA card owners around a year to eighteen months ago before they fixed it in the drivers. I was not affected at the time. These TDRs only exist since NVIDIA introduced adaptive clock speeds. Sometimes I wish I could disable it completely.

I do not get any BSODs by the way, the driver crashes and recovers, which would not be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that the GPU core clock becomes locked at 2D speeds until I reset.

Getting sick and fed up of it to be honest, though I can avoid it completely if I do not use Steam and don't use Chrome*** to watch YouTube!

*UPDATE*
Seems that actually using Chrome can also trigger TDRs, it is not just watching YouTube on it. Firefox 42.0 64-bit (with HW acceleration on), Opera, Edge and Internet Explorer are fine.

 

Here's a thought...

These issues happen ONLY on the desktop while using Chrome and Steam. Steam uses Chromium components so that is the commonality between those two programs I believe.

I also remembered that the TDR issue started when I upgraded to Windows 10 Pro v1511 from Build 10240 but I also installed the 64-bit version of Chrome around the same time as well. I did not know there was a 64-bit version when I had Build 10240 as the Google website only mentions 32-bit. Can't remember how I found it but the point is I did and I installed it post-v1511 update. I was not experiencing any issues with Chrome x64 while using websites so I kind of forgot that I had installed it.

I have now uninstalled it and reinstalled the standard 32-bit version. I will see if that fixes the issue. It may be that the 32-bit Chromium components in Steam are causing incompatibility issues with the 64-bit version of Chrome, a distinct possibility considering I have Steam set to load with Windows and showing in the system tray.

I have exhausted just about everything else and it seems too much of a coincidence that I installed Chrome x64 around the time these TDR issues started occurring on the desktop.

Fingers crossed...

P.S. I have also uninstalled the NVIDIA HD Audio drivers although I don't think they are the cause.

 

it is possible, i dont use chrome.

I have how ever NEVER installed anything but Nvidia drivers and Physic, I dont use HDMI out to send things to my HDTV cause my HDTV has PC connection. something new HDTV dont have anymore. and seeing as Nvidia still has this limited/full issue with HDMI, i avoid that by just not using.

 

One thing that puzzles me about this display driver crash/TDR error, which ONLY occurs on the desktop and never (I repeat NEVER) while playing games, is that I see no blanking/blacking out of the screen when it happens. All I get is a audio ping and then a notification error that the display driver has stopped responding and recovered in the system tray. Sometimes this error can pop twice in quick succession. Last night I was using both Chrome and Steam together without issue then this morning I got a TDR straight away when I opened Steam! :bang:

Previously, and I am talking about a couple of years ago, when I got a TDR in a game due to an ambitious overclock then the screen would always blank out for a split second, sometimes followed by the game freezing for upwards of a minute before the display driver crash notification would pop up.

This leads me to think that the issue I am experiencing at the moment is something very different to that, which it is anyway since I can play games absolutely fine without seeing this error. It only happens on the desktop and then only when using Steam or Chrome. I have been using Firefox 42 64-bit for the past two days and that works 100% fine without causing any TDRs.

I guess I could uninstall Chrome but, alas, there is not much I can do about Steam as it is absolutely required to play the majority of my games. As long as I run them from desktop shortcuts rather than from the Steam library itself then I never get the TDR errors (to clarify, the act of opening the Steam Library window triggers the TDR not the loading of the game).

Weird, isn't it? :3eyes:

 

I do not believe it is Afterburner either as I tried disabling a couple of days ago and for a while I had no TDRs, leading me to initially think I had resolved it, but then one cropped up anyway. Such is the nature of these random TDRs. The only thing I know with absolute certainty is that opening the Steam Library or using Chrome is what triggers it. Sometimes I can use both or leave them open for hours (as in not actually using them, they are just open on the desktop) and everything is fine, other times I will get a TDR immediately on opening one or the other, sometimes even two TDRs in succession.

Just been doing some reading at work (lunchtime!) to see what other things I can try. I saw someone on Reddit in a forum about the problematic v352.86 drivers which had a TDR issue (which some people might remember, though it did not affect me at the time) mention that the TDR issue with Chrome is triggered by it using the P8 power state. I believe my PSU supports it but maybe there's a setting in the UEFI BIOS that I change to improve stability?

Also, the fact that both Steam and Chrome share Chromium components is almost certainly why both those are the only things causing the TDRs. I have been using Firefox for a few days now and I do not get any TDRs with it despite hardware acceleration being enabled and using it to watch YouTube videos.

Websites, of course, use Flash and unlike other browsers, Google update Chrome separately, again that could be a probable cause? Maybe.

Finally, I have disabled all the HDMI audio showing under the Sound control panel as I don't use them. I have also uninstalled and reinstalled PhysX, including the legacy version in case that is a factor.

I am now at the point where I am apprehensive about opening either Steam or Chrome. I can easily do without the latter, as I use other browsers, but Steam is kind of hard not to use at some point. I really do not want to have to do a reinstall of Windows, especially since the issue is so specific to only two programs I use, nor do I want the expense of buying and trying out another PSU, only to find that it wasn't the issue either.

At least, I can play my games OK and avoid the TDRs by not using Steam or Chrome if I want to play games at full 3D clock speeds (since the TDRs lock the clocks at lower power 2D speeds until I reboot).

Does anyone know why I would get a TDR without the screen blacking out. That is what is baffling me as I thought that indicated the driver had crashed/stopped responding.

 

Some strange TDR messages appearing when i open device manager then my monitor or GPU

http://i.imgur.com/vWJrrN1.jpg

can repeat this several times.. very odd oh the and screen doesn't go blank or anything just pop up message twice.

Only things I've seen cause this TDR thus far

Is

Rocket league - Seems to cause flicker and 2D clocks instantly until a system reboot
Device manager when clicking Monitor or GPU

Witcher 3 / Fallout 4 games that use 90-99% of my GPU work just fine.

No issues with chrome/Steam (as yet)

This seems to have risen after deleting older versions of windows 10 after the big update.

another update. did a 'CLEAN' install of 358.91 and Device manager no longer causing a TDR (AS YET!)

 

P states are part of graphic bios power states, not MB bios .

http://docs.nvidia.com/gameworks/content/gameworkslibrary/coresdk/nvapi/group__gpupstate.html
Do a Google search on P8 power states and you should get hits on it.
I know when I was messing with vid bios, I saw some altering the min voltage in power states to improve stability.
I think you can also force certain power states with software.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/...nd-a-few-games-will-have-performance-halved-/

 

Just wanted to chime in on the TDR issue, as I went through this recently with my desktop system. I've been reading a lot on the subject, and how it is prevalent on a lot of systems, especially older ones. My system is a venerable Rampage III Black X58 with i950 and a Asus GTX580 DCII, with 6GB 1600 Memory. Been stable for a very long time, and only had this issue start up when I upgraded to Win 10.

I won't get into the full history, but suffice to say that whenever you either upgrade to Win10 or update Win10 with a revision, it will rebuild the Registry and driver detections. The chipset drivers included, and Win 10 prefers it's signed set to whatever you were running previously. Since the chipset drivers control the buses and such, they can affect how other drivers work, like say video drivers.

Now I did a number of reinstalls, fresh installs, fresh install of Win 8.1, and all were unstable. So I decided to install 10 again fresh, and this time I forced an overwrite of all the Intel chipset drivers using this command in CLI:

setupchipset.exe -overall

This will force the Intel installer to install what it believes to be the best chipset driver set for your system. If you do NOT use the -overall switch, the installer will only upgrade what are flagged as critical updates, otherwise, it leaves everything alone. After doing this, I installed the 1511 update so that the system would rebuild the driver base using the new chipset drivers. Win10 installed 353.xx vid driver.

End result: perfectly stable system for couple of weeks now. Can use all my software, like Steam, Stardock Start10, Afterburner, whatever. Currently on 359.12. So for people with constant driver resets and TDR's, I suggest you consider looking at your chipset drivers, as Microsoft doesn't always install current builds of them. (Some were compatible 2006 builds, go figure)

 

@ Chastity - Interesting post.

I did do a reinstall of all my drivers, something I actually did not do post-v1511 Windows 10 update, mainly because everything appeared to be as it was before and the games I tested all played fine. The v358.91 drivers were even installed and my Creative X-Fi Titanium HD was working too.

I reinstalled the Intel chipset drivers - I was using the v10.2.x ones but I reverted back to the latest v10.1.x one instead - as well as PhysX, including the legacy driver, DirectX 9.0 redistributable, a new VC++ 2015 library and the Intel RST v14.8 drivers for my hard drives. I also disabled hardware acceleration in both Steam and Chrome.

I have not experienced a TDR issue in three days now. Admittedly, I have ditched Chrome in favour of Firefox for the moment (its hardware acceleration is enabled though) and only opened the Steam library window about half a dozen times. It is too early to say whether the issue is fixed but (and I will probably regret typing this) it does look promising so far.

Of course, it was a desktop issue anyway and not one I experienced while gaming. Also, the driver crashes have always been strange in that the screen never blanked as other TDRs have done, nor have I been getting BSOD crashes or system freezes.

Fingers crossed that the issue is gone for good.

 

P.S. To eliminate hardware acceleration as a cause, I will leave it disabled in Steam and Chrome for a week then re-enable it in both programs to see if the issue returns. If it does then at least I have something I can throw back at NVIDIA.