Experiencing blackscreens of varying frequency. Omnissiah save me. I would like some help figuring out if it’s just that commonly experienced nvidia driver issue, or my hardware specifically.
Started with the current nvidia driver (591.67) about a week ago. I’ve since DDUed this driver, and worked my way backwards through some driver versions, trying to find one that just won’t crash/blackscreen, but no luck.
System was built May/June 2025 and has been completely stable until updating (last week of December 2025). Now, regardless of which version, I’ve gotten a blackscreen at some point.
Issues/symptoms:
- Blackscreen; display goes dark, then either tasks keep running/are audible, or I get a delayed restart. Display performs a source search, then shows the “no signal” message. If the pc doesn’t restart automagically, I hit reset
- More frequent on low-load tasks (browsing, quakelive, point and click adventure games)
- Almost never happens on BF6 or other demanding games with any driver version (i only recall it crashing once when playing bf6, and it was during shader compilation)
- Sometimes id 153 error in Windows Event Viewer.
- Sometimes, I just get a bug check/crash log indicated in Event Viewer. Excerpt at end of post.
System:
- Win11 24H2
- 9950X3D
- 5090 Astral (air cool, not LC version)
- ProArt X870E-CREATOR WIFI
- 128GB RAM (CMK128GX5M2B6400C42)
- Monitor is Corsair 27QHD240
- Meg Ai1600T PSU
Stuff I’ve tried:
- nVidia GRD 591.67, 591.59, 581.80, 576.88
- DDU between every driver version, after I get a blackscreen. I’m almost back to the release driver for my card lol
- Disable Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling (not for every version, and frankly, this is a feature id want on)
- Switch to HDMI from DP (not for every version)
- Disable GSYNC
- Remove second monitor
- OCCT test CPU/RAM (not the individual CPU/RAM tests), this test passed, but it’s only a 1hr test
- RAM temps only seem to get as high as 56C.
Stuff I’ve thought of but haven’t tried quite yet (some of which I’d rather not do):
- Reinstalling Windows
- Replacing my GPU
- Buying new RAM
Notably my system experienced this issue while writing this post. Here is an excerpt from WinDbg of the dump file:
VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE (116)
Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed.
Arguments:
Arg1: ffffda0721dce010, Optional pointer to internal TDR recovery context (TDR_RECOVERY_CONTEXT).
Arg2: fffff800a1d8aae0, The pointer into responsible device driver module (e.g. owner tag).
Arg3: ffffffffc000009a, Optional error code (NTSTATUS) of the last failed operation.
Arg4: 0000000000000004, Optional internal context dependent data.
Debugging Details:
------------------
Unable to load image nvlddmkm.sys, Win32 error 0n2
*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for nvlddmkm.sys
Are there other common blackscreen related fixes I should try?
What order should I be troubleshooting/replacing parts?