nvidia kernel mode driver not responding and has recovered

letsgohuntin · (This post was last modified: 04-01-2010, 09:43 PM by letsgohuntin.)

Hello,I'm getting the error "nvidia kernel mode driver not responding and has recovered" after a few minutes of gameplay.
When it happens,the screen becomes black but the game is still running (can hear the sound of my char moving and acting).
It only happens with dolphin,all the other programs/games are running fine (witcher,borderlands,divinity2,street fighter 4) with max settings.
my dx are updated,my gpu too (and I tried 3 different drivers).

my specs:
packard bell imedia s3800
intel core i3 530 @2.93ghz
8gb ddr3 ram
nvidia geforce gt 320 1gb
win 7 os 64bit home premium

games I tried:
monster hunter demo [US]
monster hunter 3 [JP] with codes

the revs I tried:
2.0 rc1
4771
5243
5030 with patch

my config is the same as this:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2842751/Dolphin%20Setup/2.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2842751/Dolphin%20Setup/3.jpg (my card is nvidia and not ati)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2842751/Dolphin%20Setup/4.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2842751/Dolphin%20Setup/5.jpg

the isos are running at 100% with no problems at all,until the error occurs.
I tested and benchmarked my hardware,so it's not an incompatibility issue or damaged hardware.

nvidia forum topic suggesting that if it's not a hardware/os problem,it's related to badly written software:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showt...l=nvlddmkm

GundamQuatro · 04-01-2010, 11:25 PM #2

i think it's just bad drivwers

**Ocean** · 04-01-2010, 11:32 PM #3

It's not a driver or hardware error, happens like a few times a week if you use custom/homemade apps like dolphin, for example when it makes a call to a memory address out of range etc... But rarely happens if just running a web browser or PC game etc.

Nothing serious as the newest forceware just recover itself after black screen within a few seconds.

letsgohuntin · 04-02-2010, 12:33 AM #4

(04-01-2010, 11:32 PM)Ocean Wrote: It's not a driver or hardware error, happens like a few times a week if you use custom/homemade apps like dolphin, for example when it makes a call to a memory address out of range etc... But rarely happens if just running a web browser or PC game etc.

Nothing serious as the newest forceware just recover itself after black screen within a few seconds.

yes,but this prevents me from using dolphin.
dolphin triggers this problem 100% of the times,and the screen isn't recovering at all..it only recovered twice in 30 times.

**Ocean** · 04-02-2010, 05:32 AM #5

It shouldn't happen 100% of the time, maybe 1 or 2 times per week depending what you do on the computer..

Use a lower forceware from nvidia such as the 193 or 194 series

letsgohuntin · 04-02-2010, 08:27 PM #6

lower drivers don't support my card,I'm afraid.
looks like 196 and 197 series are my only option.
thanks for your help,anyway..I will wait for new drivers or new dolphin revs Sad

bcrt2000 · (This post was last modified: 04-07-2010, 02:45 PM by bcrt2000.)

I'm also having this issue with the nvidia GeForce 360M. I cannot trigger it with anything else (OCCT which is a CPU/GPU stress test program, Crysis, Just Cause 2, Street Fighter 4, etc). I'll try some more stress testing but it really seems like it may be the way Dolphin accesses the GPU, my system just doesn't like it. I should note I don't have the same problems using dolphin on my desktop (8800 GTS ). I'm also mainly having this problem while playing New Super Mario Bros Wii. Didn't happen when I played Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. I'll try other games and see if this happens.

I did underclock my GPU and I still had the issue. I tried underclocking my CPU (i7-720QM) but I can't really bring down the clock speed significantly without slowing down Dolphin, and I still encountered the error with my CPU at 75%.

I guess its a chance that the unique way that Dolphin works (stressing out multiple CPU cores + GPU) might be a lot more than the normal app (games which usually only stress the GPU, and apps that stress the CPU don't usually stress the GPU) and its showing some faults in the hardware.

**Ocean** · 04-07-2010, 09:36 PM #8

It's nothing to do with the clock rates you have. Reason why you only get this crash with dolphin & not any stress tests of pc games, is because dolphin is made of user-generated code, not by a company who have a financial motive to make the code extremely coherent and stable.

Hence, it may make illogical operations such as pointing to a memory variable that is not mapped in physical memory of gpu, trying to invoke commands which are poorly implemented etc.. There are a thousand reasons why it could happen.

For a free piece of software it's still pretty good despite the occassional crash

bcrt2000 · (This post was last modified: 04-08-2010, 08:54 AM by bcrt2000.)

(04-07-2010, 09:36 PM)Ocean Wrote: It's nothing to do with the clock rates you have. Reason why you only get this crash with dolphin & not any stress tests of pc games, is because dolphin is made of user-generated code, not by a company who have a financial motive to make the code extremely coherent and stable.

Hence, it may make illogical operations such as pointing to a memory variable that is not mapped in physical memory of gpu, trying to invoke commands which are poorly implemented etc.. There are a thousand reasons why it could happen.

For a free piece of software it's still pretty good despite the occassional crash

Its just weird that it doesn't happen on my desktop at all but I get it after 2-5 minutes of playing on my laptop always. If it is a software issue then I believe it only affects the Direct X plugin as I did not encounter this error while using Open GL.

letsgohuntin · 04-08-2010, 10:48 PM **#10**

It's just the same for me,my other pc (laptop) can run dolphin without problems,but my new desk triggers the problem all the time.
Too bad my laptop isn't very powerful,so I can't play with decent framerates..
As Ocean pointed,it's a software stability issue,and we can only wait and hope for new releases to fix it.