Latest Nvidia drivers caused system instability

[babarnette]

So this is just a heads up in case anyone else encounters this issue.  When I installed the latest Nvidia drivers (418.81) my entire system became unstable.  Explorer.exe kept crashing and my NZXT CAM software (I run custom water cooling and it's an easy way to monitor temps) would become corrupted and crash.  The system would run fine for a little while before the instability would start and then the computer would have to be rebooted to get it temporarily stable again.  I tried uninstalling the drivers with DDU and reinstalling but the issue returned.  The instability occurred in the Windows desktop environment, I never noticed it in games.  I have Windows 10 64-bit Pro installed on this computer.  I ended up having to roll my drivers back to 417.71 to resolve my issue. 

I'll list my system specs and software that was running in case anyone has a similar issue.  My GPU is an EVGA RTX 2080 XC Gaming (with a custom power curve OC on the GPU and +830MHz on the GDDR6) with an EK water block, CPU is an AMD Threadripper 1920X OC to 4.2GHz also with an EK water block, 32GB of G.Skill Trident Z DDR4 3200 CL14, Gigabyte X399 Aorus Pro motherboard (with a custom BIOS provided by Gigabyte) , Elgato HD60 PRO capture card, Sound BlasterX G6 USB DAC, EVGA Supernova 1000 G3 PSU, and multiple HDDs/SSDs (both NVMe and SATA).  I'm running two displays via DisplayPort cables, one is a high refresh rate G-Sync monitor (ASUS ROG PG 279) the other is not (just a regular 60Hz 4K monitor by Sceptre).  The following programs were in use at the time the instability occurred; Chrome with 4-5 tabs open, NZXT CAM, MSI Afterburner, Outlook, Steam, Gigabyte App Center, Sound Blaster Connect 2, Logitech gaming software (v.9.02.65), and various Windows services.  CAM would usually crash first and then Explore.exe would start having issues with one or both of the monitors blanking out forcing me to reboot the system.  Uninstalling the 418.81 drivers with DDU and installing 417.71 was what ultimately resolved the issue.  I also uninstalled CAM and reinstalled it just to be thorough since it was the only program to crash other than Explore.exe, though the system had returned to stability via the driver reinstallation prior to doing this.

[Turtle Rig]

18 minutes ago, babarnette said:

So this is just a heads up in case anyone else encounters this issue.  When I installed the latest Nvidia drivers (418.81) my entire system became unstable.  Explorer.exe kept crashing and my NZXT CAM software (I run custom water cooling and it's an easy way to monitor temps) would become corrupted and crash.  The system would run fine for a little while before the instability would start and then the computer would have to be rebooted to get it temporarily stable again.  I tried uninstalling the drivers with DDU and reinstalling but the issue returned.  The instability occurred in the Windows desktop environment, I never noticed it in games.  I have Windows 10 64-bit Pro installed on this computer.  I ended up having to roll my drivers back to 417.71 to resolve my issue.  I'll list my system specs and software that was running in case anyone has a similar issue.  My GPU is an EVGA RTX 2080 XC Gaming (with a custom power curve OC on the GPU and +830MHz on the GDDR6) with an EK water block, CPU is an AMD Threadripper 1920X OC to 4.2GHz also with an EK water block, 32GB of G.Skill Trident Z DDR4 3200 CL14, Gigabyte X399 Aorus Pro motherboard (with a custom BIOS provided by Gigabyte) , Elgato HD60 PRO capture card, Sound BlasterX G6 USB DAC, EVGA Supernova 1000 G3 PSU, and multiple HDDs/SSDs (both NVMe and SATA).  I'm running two displays via DisplayPort cables, one is a high refresh rate G-Sync monitor (ASUS ROG PG 279) the other is not (just a regular 60Hz 4K monitor by Sceptre).  The following programs were in use at the time the instability occurred; Chrome with 4-5 tabs open, NZXT CAM, MSI Afterburner, Outlook, Steam, Gigabyte App Center, Sound Blaster Connect 2, Logitech gaming software (v.9.02.65), and various Windows services.  CAM would usually crash first and then Explore.exe would start having issues with one or both of the monitors blanking out forcing me to reboot the system.  Uninstalling the 418.81 drivers with DDU and installing 417.71 was what ultimately resolved the issue.  I also uninstalled CAM and reinstalled it just to be thorough since it was the only program to crash other than Explore.exe, though the system had returned to stability via the driver reinstallation prior to doing this.

I read your novel.  Thanks for the heads up!

[babarnette]

Just now, Turtle Rig said:

Man I cant read this novel.  Thanks for the heads up tho.

It's not that long.  The first few sentences are the gist of it, the rest is just to cover as much info as possible for anyone else having the issue.  But I'll break it up into two paragraphs for people with a limited attention span.

[jones177]

Hi

 

I check the Geforce driver forum before updating drivers. This is important for a few months after a launch since it can save you time in rolling back drivers. 

 

Since your report is so detailed you might want to post it on that forum along with the EVGA forum.    

 

So far RTX drivers have not been too bad. With Pascal I had to roll back 3 times in the first 6 months. A lot of the issues I am having in games with the RTX 2080 ti are the same when Pascal launched. It is sort of like deja vu. 

 

Thanks. I will give this one a pass.