"Display adapter has stopped working..."

CompKronos · Post by **CompKronos** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 6:37 pm

Well, I seem to be having this problem where at inconsistent times the screen turns black and then a few seconds later returns with a little Vista bubble in the tray that says something to the effect of: The display adapter has stopped working and has successfully recovered. While this may seem to be yay problem solved, it is not. Now my computer is doing this to me when I run an internet browser and itunes at the same time, trying to play a video, or trying to play a game. Sometimes it has turned the desktop into a blizzard where all the pixels switch around from where they should be. I've looked up solutions to this and they all seem so hairy and specific that I don't think I have the technical skills to stumble upon the answer.

For a little background:
*Currently running the stable version of my drivers (156.72)
*Alienware m9750
*two 8700's (that could be in SLI)
*if i place the cards in SLI (with this verison) the drivers fail and reverts to generic windows drivers (does NOT have any problems but horrible for games)
*Originally was using the latest beta drivers (179.13beta) for my laptop but because of they "stopped working" thought a "stable" release might thwart these problems
Driver Page

As far as using other drivers i am not sure if i can change drivers because nvidia says that all laptop drivers need to be obtained from the manufacturer's website. Any ideas?

Eaton · Post by **Eaton** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 7:26 pm

I get the same error when watching Youtube videos in full screen. I could never figure out a fix. Try getting a new graphics card.

CompKronos · Post by **CompKronos** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 6:04 am

Well I'm not really big on that because i don't necessarily want to fork over the money for two new graphics cards and on top of that I'm still restricted to the same cards and finally I have never changed graphic cards in a laptop and I'm not sure I want to become adept at that.

JK-47 · Post by **JK-47** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 1:59 pm

It's not possible to switch graphics cards in a laptop; they're built into the motherboard.

Cryticfarm · Post by **Cryticfarm** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:34 pm

Weren't the latest official drivers from nvidia 179 or something?

CompKronos · Post by **CompKronos** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 1:15 pm

JK-47 wrote:It's not possible to switch graphics cards in a laptop; they're built into the motherboard.

This indicates it is possible to remove the second however you're right about the primary card being built-in

Cryticfarm wrote:Weren't the latest official drivers from nvidia 179 or something?

Yes the latest Beta drivers are 179; however, on the site it says that if problems are occurring it may help to revert to older stable drivers. the only stable release is the 15X one. I used the 179 for a while (spore made me update the driver) and then thoguht maybe the problems could be linked to that.