Windows - Nvidia - Display driver NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version ???.?? stopped responding and has successfully recovered

Ok, so I am using my advisor's Dell Precision M4500 laptop for Windows (7 specifically).  It has a Quadro FX 1800M card onboard with a driver version of 259.22 installed.  I kept getting occasional screen freezes in which I had to reboot.  Every now and then the system "recovered" and gave me this error:

Display driver NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 259.22 stopped responding and has successfully recovered

Finally sick of it, I googled and found this:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/display-driver-nvidia-windows-kernel-mode-driver/46f1f9d0-313a-4182-a56f-1604edf04448

The complaint:

"Display driver NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 186.81 stopped responding and has successfully recovered." I keep getting this message since I installed Windows 7 Ultimate, it is only slightly different than the error message I got with Vista, please help!

Windows lovely response:

If you have a desktop machine, get the latest drivers from here.. http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us If you have a laptop, contact the laptop manufacturer as they are responsible for the proprietory drivers that you will need.. Mike Hall MVP - Windows Desktop Experience http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

This is why I hate Windows!!!!! Thankfully the community pitched in. I first tried this:

After many weeks of Googling, going through 100 threads, trying many of the solutions (some of which being ridiculous like reformatting, replacing hardware, etc.), I found ONE POST that suggested what I can now confirm fixes this problem. Not "it hasn't happened yet, keeping my fingers crossed", but actually fixed. THE SOLUTION: Nvidia Control Panel -> 3D Settings -> Set PhysX configuration -> Select a Physx processor -> choose your graphics card instead of leaving it on auto-select.

Like this^^^ user said, there are many fixes out there. This one^^^ didn't work. However, I found this nice post at the top and seems very reasonable since (total guess) I feel like over heating was a problem. This computer had overheating issues before when someone else used it, but it wouldn't stay one in their case. So far so good:

Ok guys, i fixed the problem... patched it at least... I had the same problem (different model same story... as everyone else) Nvidia and Windows 7 64 (read some problems with 32 too) don't get along too well.... i tried all solutions i found over the web, nothing worked.. Here is how i fixed it, i desactivated all windows visual goodies & stuff... Right click on my computer, go to property, then in left margin select: advanced system settings, third tab, called "Advanced" First option : Performance click on "settings", select "adjust for performance" that will uncheck everything, then you can keep the 3th and 4th from the end checked (smooth edges on screen fonts & smooth-scroll list box, if you want the webpages text to look the way they should.. quite essential to keep the font thing..) my system became stable after that, no more video card crash, no more Display driver NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version (whichever i tried) stopped responding and has successfully recovered VERY STABLE, and very simple... looks like win98 but functionnality are fully there... (without even mentionning how much faster this thing boots... ) When you see it's working well & stable, add options, one at a time... (i would recommand the useful options you miss, not the estetic that looked good) i added "show thumbnails instead of icons" and it's still stable... that way, if it become unstable or start over again, you know wich one to uncheck... it works for now, and let's hope Nvidia will release new drivers that actually works soon,... hope this post will help other poor customers of Nvidia to stop those frustrating msgs... i figured i seen so many posts with that problems it was worth to post actually worked... have a good day all...

I don't need or care for all the fancy stuff anyways. I do the same in Ubuntu/Mint with fallback or now Cinnamon because Unity seems to freeze with all the nonsense (nothing's perfect) and won't work (without much effort) with more than 2 monitors. Anyways, like I said it works for now and at least the performance is MUCH better. Looks like the old Windows 95 or 98 in places, but who cares?! Not me!!


NM!!  Was watching a Youtube video full screen and it froze!!!  Dammit!  I don't think I'll ever by a Dell!!!  Going to turn this POS in to get serviced!