NVIDIA GeForce 397.31 WHQL Drivers Put GTX 1060-Powered Systems Into Endless Restart Loop

[rtwjunkie]

Yet is strange people in here try to minimize the impact these drivers are causing problems but everyone loses their friggin mind when AMD has a goof.

What I find strange are the number of people minimizing Nvidia driver mistakes. I, however, know I have run out of fingers to count the number of bad drivers this organization has put out in the last 3-4 years. There are people in this thread that will remember I have remarked numerous times that Nvidia seems to be trying to give MS a run for their money with releasing bad updates....like they hired some ex-MS employees. Yet today, here we are with minimizing....

 

[arbiter]

Have 2 GTX1060 on Win without driver install or restart issues.
Same goes with GTX1070 system.
Nvidia likely tested this, but it is end user most times in their system that would cause this.

Well only so many configurations you can test in on. Take 10000 machines from customers and you so many diff parts that will make them slightly different plus on top of that OS differences make 10000 different machines. Only so many variables you can test and even if you test for that, it might not show up but 1 outta every 1000 computers.

 

[silentbogo]

What I find strange are the number of people minimizing Nvidia driver mistakes. I, however, know I have run out of fingers to count the number of bad drivers this organization has put out in the last 3-4 years. There are people in this thread that will remember I have remarked numerous times that Nvidia seems to be trying to give MS a run for their money with releasing bad updates....like they hired some ex-MS employees. Yet today, here we are with minimizing....

Yet is strange people in here try to minimize the impact these drivers are causing problems but everyone loses their friggin mind when AMD has a goof.

It's definitely not minimizing - if the issue was widespread we would've had at least one GTX1060 owner on TPU with this problem.

I've just read through first 3 pages of NVidia forums and 10 pages of 397.31 feedback and so far it's the same 4 people complaining about artifacts, ERROR_43 and BSODs, which are a clear indicator of device failure or a driver conflict (judging by timing and wording, the same people complained on reddit). Previous versions of NV drivers were also prone to this exact issue when combined with Lucid VIRTU(now-defunct company with non-existing website).

BTW, my assumption about Windows 7 was wrong, cause the OP symptom description was made up. There was no reboot prompt, and all affected users are on Windows 10 x64. No bootloop, just artifacts and BSODs.

Also, this quote from NV Reddit sums it up well:

Bear in mind that people who have no issues tend to not post on Reddit or forums. Unless there is significant coverage about specific driver issue, chances are they are fine. Try it yourself and you can always DDU and reinstall old driver if needed.

People always complain about drivers on both sides, but fail to troubleshoot their PCs beforehand or provide details afterwards. I think in the past 10 years I only had 3-4 problems with any GPU drivers:
- AMD APU drivers showed wrong temps (or stuck at constant value)
- AMD Mobile graphics driver completely disabling backlight on ASUS laptops w/ 5000-series dGPUs
- NVidia forgetting to disable eGPU mode in one of their Maxwell drivers
- Timeout detection on NV drivers w/ 700-series cards from 2 years ago(don't remember the exact version).

Those issues were really widespread (and could be replicated with 100% accuracy on the same hardware), but I'm pretty sure that they had way less public attention than 4 dudes with broken GPUs.

 

[Vya Domus]

These boot related problems are a reoccurring issue for Nvidia , I can't remember how many times I have been greeted with a black screen after updating the driver on my old Nvidia powered laptop.

 

[Vayra86]

Having had my fair share of issues with Nvidia driver releases I have stopped directly moving to newest a long time ago. Ever since the GTX 660 days infact

Most of the time you don't need them unless its a big release that touches on architectural improvements, and not game specific ones. A good example is the one that introduced Shader Cache

Also, staying clear of Geforce Experience and clean installing each update, is something I can still strongly recommend. This will make you go look for a driver only when you really think you need it, not every day when the popup appears.

 

[AmineBouhafs]

Never ever have "any" driver problem and ALWAYS having the very latest GeForce drivers?

Try this,

Unplug network cable from pc.
Copy/install al games on a second volume
Secure Erase your boot-SSD/-HDD.
Install Windows including DirectX and all latest Visual C++ versions starting from 2005 and up.
Install latest GeForce driver and reboot.
During boot, plug in network cable in pc.
Run complete Windows Update and follow all instructions.

Et voila!
Working like a charm since 1999.

Atm running a 1060 3GB

 

[sutyi]

Never ever have "any" driver problem and ALWAYS having the very latest GeForce drivers?

Could be a problem only affecting those who didn't have the previous one or two drivers installed beforehand and this release through GFE works like a commulative update. Although getting into a boot loop suggests a Secure Boot issue rather then a driver problem me thinks.

Any way I'll be steering clear of this release just to spare the possible headaches.

 

[coonbro]

''BTW, my assumption about Windows 7 was wrong, cause the OP symptom description was made up. There was no reboot prompt, and all affected users are on Windows 10 x64. No bootloop, just artifacts and BSODs.''


sure seems since the release of that malware service called win-10 NVidia has struggled with support , as guys put it now ''they seem to brake as much as they fix one drver to the next ''

I still believe here shortly look foir everyone to drop support of anything under win -10 to if its not 10 its no longer supported . its pretty close to that now . good thing theres Linux to fall back on . matter of fact if it was not for the ease of gaming that's about all Microsoft got going for them . face it if all the games installed and run as point and click as in windows with Linux why on earth woud you use windows ? and Linux is far more open and also free to use even 98% of any programs you may need .

pc gaming is all Microsoft got a strangle hold on everyone to use it/windows with out that they would be done for ..[opinion] anymore I game on a windows pc with a non activated copy [retail] the rest is all Linux after that .

 

[Captain_Tom]

Hey at least those 1060 owners paid more money than the stronger RX 580 for "Nvidia's superior drivers"... Right guys?

 

[Fluffmeister]

Hey at least those 1060 owners paid more money than the stronger RX 580 for "Nvidia's superior drivers"... Right guys?

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

 

[syrup]

People always complain about drivers on both sides, but fail to troubleshoot their PCs beforehand or provide details afterwards. I think in the past 10 years I only had 3-4 problems with any GPU drivers:

Jealous of people with such fantastic recall. Pretty sure I've forgetten the vast majority of past software/hardware problems I've encountered. Actually, not so much forgotten - they're just irretrievably buried at the back of my mind unless I'm reminded of a particular instance from seeing old notes, e-mails, forum posts, etc. I could've been going through *hell* over an issue, yet have no ability to recall it today unless something jogs my memory.

Most recent issue I do recall having with NVidia drivers is startup lag with MPC-HC a couple of releases back. That was annoying.

 

[JusALulGuy]

So if I only really play PUBG, as far as games that have any type of graphic intensity, is there any point for me to install the new Nvidia driver, "397.31"?

 

[silentbogo]

Jealous of people with such fantastic recall. Pretty sure I've forgetten the vast majority of past software/hardware problems I've encountered.

I remember most of it, because recurring issues is what I make my living with (I fix laptops and PCs).
Anything from software issues to burned motherboards and GPUs.
So, if it happens more than once - it's worth remembering it cause next time it'll save me tons of time.

 

[lexluthermiester]

A good example is the one that introduced Shader Cache

Haven't noticed much of a difference with it enabled, so it generally gets disabled.

I have not had any issues with Nvidia drivers in the past few years.

 

[jaimeta]

Msi gtx 760 here with windows loop reset

 

[eidairaman1]

Msi gtx 760 here with windows loop reset

Boot into safemode, disable automatic windows restarts.

 

[Duke456]

I'm not getting this exact problem but something similar on my two 1080's.

I didn't notice any problems at first until I fired up a movie with VLC. The movie was blocky, de-ressed (if there's such a word)

After updating I'm presented with the same update needed. No restart loop though. Reverted back to the previous update.

 

[Xzibit]

Apparently it was not just 1060 that were effected.

Fix incoming

We will be releasing a new driver very soon with a fix for this. I understand how inconvenient it is. For now, if you hit this issue, do the following:

a) In the device manager, disable and then re-enable your GPU. This will reload the driver.

or

b) Revert back to driver 391.35 until our new driver is released with a fix.

 

[TheHunter]

GeForce Hotfix Driver Version 397.55
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4661?linkId=100000002342089

This is GeForce Hot Fix driver version 397.55 that addresses the following:

- After driver installation, Device Manager may report Code 43 error on a few GTX 1060 cards models.
- Netflix playback may occasionally stutter.
- Added support for Microsoft Surface Book notebooks.
- Windows 10: Driver may get removed after PC has been left idle for an extended period of time.​