Nvidia driver 341.95 for GForce 8800GTX crashes Win 10

[Gunner]

This has been an ongoing issue since I "upgraded" to Windows 10 Pro last year... and still an issue even with latest video driver released a few days ago.

 

Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz

Nvidia GeForce 8800GTX (Nvidia driver 341.95  WHQL - the latest available for my GPU/OS combo)

Philips 200P monitor UXVGA 1600x1200

4GB RAM - way down in the weeds I know... please don't judge

EDIT -  it was a reformatted HDD and clean install  (multiple times in fact). As well as running DDU and installing the latest ver. of the basic driver.

 

At this time I do not have any option to swap out or replace any components... I am stuck with what I have

 

The issue appears to be between the desktop GUI and the driver... under certain loads the video freezes while audio keeps playing for 10-20 seconds, then the audio starts buzzing and the PC reboots... this will happen a few times a month or multiple times an hour... either way, not reliable.

 

Here are some points that hopefully will help in diagnosing:

 

- Will crash (as described above) within minutes when tasking the PC (not just video) including large file transfers or torrent downloading (even if minimized and nothing else happening on screen), web surfing with too much "activity" (motion ads seem to trip the issue), watching YouTube videos (windowed or full-screen), etc.

 

- Will NOT crash while doing ANY of the above if first disabling the Nvidia driver in the Device Manager, but then my resolution maxes out at 1280x1024 and I am unable to play games... duh  (this is how I normally run my PC now... solid stability, but what a pain).

 

- Strangely, my PC does NOT crash when playing 3D games with driver activated (most of mine are now on steam, but include 3D games like Crysis, Far Cry, Just Cause, Supreme Commander, etc).  I always play full screen, anywhere from 1024x768 - 1600x1200) and haven't bothered to test stability in windowed mode, because, fullscreen!

 

Any help appreciated!

 

Gunner

 

 

 

[HPWebcamAble]

What PSU do you have? I suspect that might be the problem, but there are a lot of things that can cause this.

 

I've found Windows 10 works much better and more consistently on recent hardware.

[manikyath]

if i can get one of my old clunkboxes to load up win10 (most of them are P4 or older, shit out of luck there) i could see how unhappy my 8800GT would be with win10, but honestly, at this point even an intel NUC may do better than your system...

[,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,]

I never suggest upgrading to Windows 10 from an old OS. Always do a fresh install especially with OLD hardware. If you have a spare HDD lying around; try installing a fresh copy of Windows 10 on it, and playing a few games. Drivers are one of those really unstable things when messed with - Windows 10 does the best job it can with drivers when upgrading.

[haloharry97]

4 minutes ago, Reece Leu said:

I never suggest upgrading to Windows 10 from an old OS. Always do a fresh install especially with OLD hardware. If you have a spare HDD lying around; try installing a fresh copy of Windows 10 on it, and playing a few games. Drivers are one of those really unstable things when messed with - Windows 10 does the best job it can with drivers when upgrading.

;( it is true you must do a freash install, i did the upgrade but am lazy i got punished for doing, I have a newish pc. i5 2500k, gtx 780

[Gunner]

8 hours ago, HPWebcamAble said:

What PSU do you have? I suspect that might be the problem, but there are a lot of things that can cause this.

 

I've found Windows 10 works much better and more consistently on recent hardware.

I have the Antec Neolink 650P and the 550S dual PSU system - 1200 watts total - 650w for the mainboard & GPU, 550w for drives and utilities.  Power tests have been stable and system was rock solid with Windows 7 Ultimate (I just don't want to go backward regarding OS at this time).

 

I have no doubt the issue is compatibility between Windows 10 and drivers (I have seen many posts concerning this with even newer drivers and GPUs)... I just hope there is a fix that someone may have stumbled upon that works in my situation.

[Gunner]

8 hours ago, Reece Leu said:

I never suggest upgrading to Windows 10 from an old OS. Always do a fresh install especially with OLD hardware. If you have a spare HDD lying around; try installing a fresh copy of Windows 10 on it, and playing a few games. Drivers are one of those really unstable things when messed with - Windows 10 does the best job it can with drivers when upgrading.

Sorry, I forgot to clarify... it was a reformatted HDD and clean install (in fact I performed a few of them initially while I first tried to troubleshoot the issue last year).  And remember as I stated, the issue is NOT with the games which run great... even for hours at a session.  But try to watch a YouTube video, play a media file, download a torrent or just run my backup... and the screen freezes in minutes, followed by sound going wonkers and a reset.

[HrutkayMods]

try a fresh install of the windows Vista, 7 or 8 driver version, it's slightly different in code but should work fine on 10 and it helped me with a 9600Gt I had. And don't listen to people who says not to run Windows 10 on it. Almost any PC made since around late 2005 will run 10 without a problem, in fact it runs MUCH better than Vista or 7 did on them. Also 4GB of ram is plenty for a setup like that

[Gunner]

8 hours ago, manikyath said:

if i can get one of my old clunkboxes to load up win10 (most of them are P4 or older, shit out of luck there) i could see how unhappy my 8800GT would be with win10, but honestly, at this point even an intel NUC may do better than your system...

I have the GTX, one of the big boys (just short of the GTX Ultra) in the 8 series, and it still handles every game I have thrown at it just great at minimum of 1024x768, in fact I usually run 1600x1200 with maxed out settings.

 

Gaming is not the issue... general use stability is where the problem lies... I am guessing something in Windows 10 GUI is conflicting with Nvidia's drivers.

[Gunner]

1 minute ago, HrutkayMods said:

try a fresh install of the windows 7 or 8 driver version, it's slightly different in code but should work fine on 10 and it helped me with a 9600Gt I had. And don't listen to people who says not to run Windows 10 on it. Almost any PC made since around late 2005 will run 10 without a problem, in fact it runs MUCH better than Vista or 7 did on them. Also 4GB of ram is plenty for a setup like that

Thanks for the suggestion... I think I did try that once, but might as well give it another go.  And I agree on the overall performance of Win 10... I have it running great on most of my 2-3GB RAM laptops... except my little Acer Netbook... just can't seem to shoehorn 10 into it's 4GB SSD

[manikyath]

2 hours ago, Gunner said:

I have the GTX, one of the big boys (just short of the GTX Ultra) in the 8 series, and it still handles every game I have thrown at it just great at minimum of 1024x768, in fact I usually run 1600x1200 with maxed out settings.

 

Gaming is not the issue... general use stability is where the problem lies... I am guessing something in Windows 10 GUI is conflicting with Nvidia's drivers.

so... i have been struggling with my display being iffy for a month now, yesterday i thought "what the heck" and i decided to try DDU and reinstall nvidia drivers one more time. (clean installed before, did the DDU & reinstall thing tons of times already)

 

flawless...