[StanF]

I've had an 8500GT in my HTPC forever, but lately have been getting an error "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and was recovered". Last night, it happened about 10 times in a one hour recorded TV show. Everytime this happens, the screen goes blank for a second. It is very distracting and annoying. The wife was not pleased

.


I have an ATI HD 2600 Pro that I was thinking of testing in place of the 8500GT. Any thoughts? It's an older card, but it is the best one that I have. I'm worried it may be a little too old and slow. I don't want to spring the $50 for a 5450 without some guarantee that my problem would be solved.


HTPC is with Windows 7, 32 bit, Media Center, ATSC recorded TV.


Thanks, Stan

 

[nickc50310]

Have you tried a different driver? Installed all updates? Checked for malware, etc?


A different card would probably resolve it but is probably not necessary.

 

[nickc50310]

Dont know the exact difference between a regular 2600 and the mobility but the laptop I am using for my htpc is a mobility 2600 and it works great.

 

[walford]

I have no problems with my 8500GT on Win7. Are you using the latest drivers from the Nvidia Website and not any recent driver updates from WinUpdate?

 

[zzyckz]

It's likely a corrupt driver caused by windows updates, try to uninstall the drivers and use "driver sweeper" before installing the new drivers.

 

[StanF]

From my searches, it seems like a BUNCH of people have had this problem since Vista came out. One guy even made a website for it:

http://www.nvlddmkm.com/


See here too...
http://www.microsoft.com/communities...d589ba8750&p=1


Also seems to affect ATI's cards:
http://www.atikmdag.com/


There seem to be various causes (or alleged fixes) for the error. I'm running the latest Nvidia drivers. The problem seems to be getting worse.


The 8500GT is passive, but the ATI HD 2600 Pro has a fan. If it would be a functional card for Windows 7 Media Center, then it would be relatively simple for me to swap it in.


Thanks,


Stan

 

[nickc50310]

Check your windows updates and also try an OLDER driver. I had similar issues on a Vista machince a while back and IIRC rolled back to an older driver and the issues stopped.

 

[hardvark]

I've been having trouble with a 8500 card in a HTPC I just bought a while back myself ....I but a blu-ray drive in it and updated the ram [went from 1 gig of 800 to 4 gig's of 1333 ] wouldn't play a blu-ray for over 3~5 min. till I got the "driver failed " message and it seemed to reboot. I went to the enviddia site and got the newest driver and that fixed it for the most part except if I pause it or skip around in it to much. I also downloaded the DVDFAB trial but it seems to give me the same "driver failed " thing when I tryed to copy blu-ray and I thought the 8500 might not be strong enough to handle Blu-rays... could this be just a driver problem? might keep me from having to buy another video card if it is so I'd be very interested in any fixes

 

[walford]

It could be a problem with the program you are using to play Blu-Rays and/or a lack of GPU power in an 8500GT to process blu-rays. If using a program such as PowerDVD9 Ultra or the current top of the line WinDVD program then I would not expect the player program.

 

[hardvark]

TMT3 is program

 

[StanF]

I made the switch, and the HD 2600Pro looks good.

The fan is a little louder than I would like, but I can deal with that. I might look at getting a passive 5450 at some point in the future.