I get random flickering. When trying to run a program that can be taxing I get artifacting that is usually followed by a long black screen or a crash. If it black screens and recovers I get this message. "Display driver Nvidia Windows Kernel Mode driver, 326.80 has stopped responding and has successfully recovered." Temperatures: I beleive these temperatures to be correct. CPU: 34c Mainboard: 33c Video card: 57c(idle)-67(gameplay) Hard disk: 32c To my knowledge I have re installed the driver. However I am going to try that again since I don't think it was successful. I have heard i should go back to an older version but I don't know how to do that. I also ran a successful system restore to a date prior to the issues, but the problems persist. The other main issue is that the CPU usage will spike from 1%-100% with "nothing" running. As i am typing this it sits at 60% for two min, then drops to 10% for two min, then back up to 60%, repeat, repeat, repeat, every two minutes. memory usage runs around 1-1.4 GB idle ( i have 4GB total). ---System Idle Process on CPU jumps between ~09, ~40, ~80 The problem started yesterday when i was playing the "optimized" Rome II total war. I was finally able to play it with an average 20fps. My dumb ass ran the computer like that for around 6 hours. By the 6th hour the fps dropped drastically followed by artifacting and then a crash. I am assuming it got too hot, but hasn't run very hot since then.
Does not appear to be a temperature problem, those #s are fine. Check your PSU, cables, or another one if you have one.
Make sure your PC is free from malware. If it is clean, remove all nvidia drivers through the control panel and/or Device Manager until Windows installs the Standard VGA driver and then install 314.22. Set aside Rome 2, it's a broken POS.
Fixed a few problems. 1. Graphics card was bad. I switched it out with an old gt 430 and the artifacting/flickering stopped. However, the cpu was still running like before. I've had this problem a long time ago on windows xp, and when running a heavily modded minecraft game. MY roommate said it might be a "memory leak". 2. To fix said memory leak I uninstalled windows 7 32bit and re-installed the much needed 64 bit version. That fixed the problem, but that method usually solves all software problems. while copying all the files before the re-install I went down to tiger direct for a special they were running on the gt 630 for $39 and stuck that on the board. 3. All said and done the the new GPU and OS fixed the issue. I ran a full malware scan prior to the re-install and still had cpu issues. Also checked the paths on psu and they seemed fine as well. I have no idea how to fix a memory leak issue without re-installing the OS. If anyone has a recommendation I will write it down for the inevitable future occurrence.