Graphic card gone crazy

[Faboulous]

Hello!
I have an Asus G551JM notebook with Geforce GTX860M (4GB) videocard + an integrated Intel HD 4600. Nowadays my 860M seems to be messed up. It not always work properly. I mean that sometimes when I'm about to launch a game that normally runs smoothly (60fps) it just says an error message, different in every game, but always related with the 860M. These games I currently playing are Battlefield 4, SW The Old Republic and Soma. BF4 says that 860M does not support directx10, although it does and I have 12 installed. SWTOR says that my system is not compatible. And SOMA just says some error and I get a message from windows that the nvidia driver collapsed and then recovered.
Sometimes I manage to launch these games but on the loading screen I hear wierd noises like if it's tearing apart, and in most cases it leads to the mentioned errors. If I get one of those errors I cannot play any of the games until I reboot my PC or I use the integrated one instead, with that there's no problem. (however it's much weaker)

Obviously it's a driver fault but it's up to date. Nvidia often releases updates but I download them everytime. I'm wondering if I might shouldn't update. Would it possibly solve my problem?

Something else worth to mention that I replaced ODD with SSD there were some problems irrelevant to graphics. It have even been serviced (replaced motherboard), I suppose if there's something wrong with the graphic card hardware they would have solved it. However I donot remember if the problem persisted before the service. Is it possible that they messed up something?

I'm going to check if I reset my notebook to original state (SSD to ODD) and using older driver might make any difference, but I would like to hear your opinions aswell if you know something useful.

Thanks!

 

[johnnyb105]

Only thing you can do and since its a laptop is make sure the system isn't dirty where the fan blows out and update your drivers and go from there.

 

[Faboulous]

Two days sincs I downgraded my nvidia driver and no signs of the mentioned errors. I thought drivers are for solving problems not for creating them.

 

[hang-the-9]

Two days sincs I downgraded my nvidia driver and no signs of the mentioned errors. I thought drivers are for solving problems not for creating them.

The issue is that you have a laptop. Laptop video drivers are only supported by the laptop vendor, reference generic drivers may or may not work.

"As part of the NVIDIA Notebook Driver Program, this is a reference driver that can be installed on supported NVIDIA notebook GPUs. However, please note that your notebook original equipment manufacturer (OEM) provides certified drivers for your specific notebook on their website. NVIDIA recommends that you check with your notebook OEM about recommended software updates for your notebook. OEMs may not provide technical support for issues that arise from the use of this driver."

 

[Faboulous]

Two days sincs I downgraded my nvidia driver and no signs of the mentioned errors. I thought drivers are for solving problems not for creating them.

The issue is that you have a laptop. Laptop video drivers are only supported by the laptop vendor, reference generic drivers may or may not work.

"As part of the NVIDIA Notebook Driver Program, this is a reference driver that can be installed on supported NVIDIA notebook GPUs. However, please note that your notebook original equipment manufacturer (OEM) provides certified drivers for your specific notebook on their website. NVIDIA recommends that you check with your notebook OEM about recommended software updates for your notebook. OEMs may not provide technical support for issues that arise from the use of this driver."

So I should not update my drivers even if Geforce Experience says that there are available updates? Only if I find them on ASUS's site? And no problems will occur?

 

[hang-the-9]

Two days sincs I downgraded my nvidia driver and no signs of the mentioned errors. I thought drivers are for solving problems not for creating them.

The issue is that you have a laptop. Laptop video drivers are only supported by the laptop vendor, reference generic drivers may or may not work.

"As part of the NVIDIA Notebook Driver Program, this is a reference driver that can be installed on supported NVIDIA notebook GPUs. However, please note that your notebook original equipment manufacturer (OEM) provides certified drivers for your specific notebook on their website. NVIDIA recommends that you check with your notebook OEM about recommended software updates for your notebook. OEMs may not provide technical support for issues that arise from the use of this driver."

So I should not update my drivers even if Geforce Experience says that there are available updates? Only if I find them on ASUS's site? And no problems will occur?

That is the safest thing to do. It also keeps from having an extra variable to look at when there are issues. It's not a 100% true rule not to ever update, but the fact is that it may work fine and it may not work when using reference drivers on a laptop.

We can't really say that there won't be any problems since computers and software do have issues with seemingly random things, but it will minimize issues.