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Question

Display driver has stopped responding and has recovered

Apr 9, 2016 10:50AM PDT

Hello guy and gals my computer recently has been getting the error Display driver has stopped responding and has recovered " Display driver NVIDA windows Kernal mode driver, version 352.86 stopped responding. After it blue screened I tried safe mode where I no longer got the error. Tried to turn it back on worked for a second then blue screened again. Tried safe mode with networking and worked for about 10 minutes then the screen started to mess up. Tried to download a gpu updated driver in safe mode, but it would not let me. Tried a normal boot one last time and it immediately blue screened.
Computer is 4-5 years old windows 7 gtx 580 gpu , can provide more details if needed.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
The clues to me here are:
Apr 9, 2016 11:03AM PDT

1. "safe mode with networking and worked for about 10 minutes then the screen started to mess up"
2. "4-5 years old"

This does not sound like a driver or software issue but heat or failing GPU. Did you try canned air cleaning of the GPU's heat sink?
Is the fan working on the GPU?
And if that doesn't clear it up, try new heatsink compound on the GPU since at that many years it can dry and crack.

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Thank you
Apr 9, 2016 11:40AM PDT

Thank you for the help I'm pretty sure the fan was still working. I try cleaning it and see if that helps. Thank you again for the help!

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Cleaned gpu, still has the same problem:
Apr 9, 2016 1:52PM PDT

I took out the gpu, cleaned it out with some canned air, and then turned the computer back on and it started doing the same things. Did not blue screen, but the monitor was messing up really bad so I just shut it down. Do you think a heat sink would work or is the gpu totally done for?

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To test that out, try another GPU.
Apr 9, 2016 2:18PM PDT

If you have onboard video, try that for a test run.

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Onboard graphic worked
Apr 10, 2016 7:41AM PDT

Ran the computer for about 30 minutes with no error so looks like it is definitely the gpu. Thank you for all the help!