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"Display Driver Failed to Start" - Windows 10 Issue (Early January 2018)

Anonymous
2018-01-18T11:56:09+00:00

Hello there. For about a week now, I've been experiencing strange PC crashes that have gotten increasingly worse. At first, it would happen maybe once a day or every two days, but now it's consistent. Every time I open a game, my PC will crash within 1-5 minutes of it being open. Basically my two monitors remain on, but the images are completely frozen. Often the audio of my friends over Discord or a video I am watching on YouTube remain to be played, but the computer is completely frozen, and the game audio has stopped (because the graphics card display has stopped running it, I presume).

This means I can no longer play games on my PC, which is a major problem since that's half the reason I use it every day. Not only do I play games to have fun and socialise, I'm also studying animation at university, and I create YouTube video essays about videogames, so being able to actually use my graphics card for games and video editing is vital to me. I am 99% positive this is a software issue to do with either Windows or my graphics card drivers (both of which I have reinstalled and repaired many, MANY times over the past few days to try and fix this issue) because sometimes I can play games for hours and hours just fine with no issues, and then I'll turn my PC off and go to bed, wake up in the morning and try to open a game and it will crash.

I have already posted about this on Reddit with further details about past crashes if you would like more information. Any help that can be provided is 100% appreciated, because I NEED this issue to stop ASAP. If it doesn't, I won't be able to use my computer properly, and I have a video in the works that needs editing and rendering, which uses my GPU, and I also have university classes starting up again next month. Not to mention, I kind of just want to be able to play games on my computer. I wouldn't spend all this money on extra or new monitors, hard drives, keyboards, mice, controllers and RAM if I didn't want to make use of the countless games I have bought as well. Thanks again for any help you can provide.

https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/7r0p58/display\_driver\_failed\_to\_start\_windows\_10\_issue/

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Devices and drivers

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-04-09T03:30:43+00:00

    also Patricia wu i have other error report Cortana crash, windows login crash, i can't tell if it is because of the timing that cause bsod and system kernel reboot. or if it is cause by some windows error or windows corruption done by bsod causing windows corruption when windows does not properly shut down or restart.

    i can tell you that i did dism.exe online/restorehealth to make sure that my windows image is the same as the Microsoft windows 10 build and i did sfc / scannnow to check file integrity seams that i have duplicate owner ship is it because of the update that tried to install them self in the bsod reboot and one update got stuck between 64% and 83%? is it because of windows store app do to reset restore etc... i have no idea.

    10 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2018-03-03T08:59:50+00:00

    Hello,

    We noticed that the post has been idle for a while now. Do you still need assistance with the issue you're experiencing? 

    We're looking forward to your response.

    9 people found this answer helpful.
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  3. Anonymous
    2018-04-09T02:39:49+00:00

    patricia i already try all of that. i tried windows automatic search for driver, i tried the oem driver i tried the NVidia driver.

    issue is the same.

    my pc is a dell xps 8500 that i have upgraded to windows 10 in august after the upgrade advisor said that all my hardware and software was good for windows 10 upgrade when it came out.

    in November dell decided that they would not do test for this system for windows 10 and that if you upgraded to windows 10 Microsoft will have to give you the support.

    so is Microsoft doing the test for this system before they send update?

    they collect data on user system to improve windows 10.

    or should i return to windows 8.1?

    i got issue at windows 10 anniversary update took me 2 month to make my pc work again.

    and now this already a month with a pc that bsod.

    dwm.exe dwmcore.dll nvlddmkm diminit Microsoft basic display driver that takes over made in 2006 64 hertz only giving communication timing issue at the hardware level since the monitor require a timing of 60 hertz.

    what good is a back up display driver if it cause timing issue and bsod?

    we are now in 2018 why does Microsoft not upgrade their Microsoft basic display driver to give the proper timing for the monitor?

    6 people found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2018-01-18T15:35:52+00:00

    Hi,

    Performance issues always depends on how you operate your computer. There are several reasons that it will operate in an unusual behavior. Examples are: if the operating system is not updated, virus definitions are outdated, Windows Firewall is turned off, and there are many unnecessary startup programs during the boot process of your computer. This means that the programs will run and depends on your computer's performance.

    In addition, you need to perform these best practices below to start operating your computer again:

    • Keep at least 30% or 30GB of free space on your hard drive for optimum results.
    • Make sure that your hard drive is not full (Without warning message indicated in red color).
    • Disable all other anti-virus to avoid software conflicts except Windows Defender.
    • Unplug all unnecessary external devices that is not currently in used (External hard disk, webcams, etc.).
    • Have a stable Internet connection.
    • If you don’t have enough memory, you should have no background applications running and work only with one program at a time.
    • All other programs and applications were closed if not in used.
    • Make a regular Disk Cleanup.
    • Have a periodic scan using Windows Defender.
    • If you are using a laptop, make sure that the power adapter is plugin when running heavy applications.

    Visit this link: Tips to improve PC performance in Windows 10 to know what are the other things that you can do to improve your computer’s performance.

    Let us know if you need further assistance.

    5 people found this answer helpful.
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  5. Anonymous
    2018-03-13T11:24:12+00:00

    Hello,

    We noticed that the post has been idle for a while now. Do you still need assistance with the issue you're experiencing? 

    We're looking forward to your response.  

         I am also coming across with the same problem where my screen will just freeze and I will have to manually press the power off button and force my PC to shutdown itself. But even then my PC wouldn't even load up BIOS. Sometimes to "fix" it temporarily I would just have to wait until the next morning to turn it on again.

         It's also giving notifications where it saids: Display drivers failed to start. I tried reinstalling my display drivers and all its associating files and reinstalling it again (I have a Geforce 980 graphics card). But it is still giving me the error message and my computer will still freeze. Once this problem happens it will not stop happening until I completely not use my computer at all for a few days or even a week and turning it on again. The problem will then subside for a while but it will randomly happen again.

         I have even tried performing disk cleanups, resetting virtual memory, deleting temporary files, running system file checker (which has given me the result that there are some corrupted files but it couldnt be fixed), and also disabling C-state in BIOS.

    I'm just wondering if this is a bug that Win10 update has or there are actually problems with my GPU and its associated files.

    My PC specs:

    Model: ASUS Desktop PC G20CB Series

    Processor: Intel i7-6700 CPU @ 3.30GHz

    GPU: NVIDIA Geforce 980 TX

    RAM: 16GB

    System Type: Win10 64bit, x64 based processor

    4 people found this answer helpful.
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