Is this a bad sign? Does it mean my Video Card is going out? It never happens with any game or other programs, only when I am using blender. It seems to do it randomly. The message "Display driver has stopped responding and has successfully recovered" pops up.

Nvidia or AMD?

And also what OS. I got this a lot when running an SLI chipset (Nvidia) on Vista with stock drivers.

Hell, just post your Dxdiag, and I'm sure Defron or another one of our IT specialists will hit it home for you.

The problem in question only happens with Windows Vista and Windows 7 as it's due tohttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg487368. This replaces a lot of GPU-related BSoDs that plagued Windows XP.

Really the only thing that matters is what your GPU is and what driver number you are on. For example, Nvidia drivers from 270 up until the 285 driver series had a bad TDR problem.

That makes sense. My stock driver was 280.26

Is this just a case of architecture conflict from GPU OS/software development to x64? Or a Dx incompatibility with Vista? Laymen's terms please...

Neither, it was a change to the underly kernel handling of graphics by Windows. It's partially caused by some irregularities and bad habits of GPU drivers, but primarily when TDR gets triggered, what would have happened in the past with Windows XP was a BSoD, basically TDR provides a bit of a grace period for graphics (hardware or software) to become responsive again instead of just BSoDing. The problem was that it also means that a lot of bad coding habits had to be undone by driver and software manufacturers.

Neither it is MSI ATI, and Windows 7.

Also it is Blender 2.62. I am already liking the older version better.

1. Update your driver.

2. Roll back the software until a driver update appears (if there isn't a driver update).

Those are pretty much the only option when dealing with TDRs, assuming it isn't an actual hardware problem.

Just another question, both of my sticks of ram has 2 gb x 2 on them which means they each have 4 gbs on them. Why is it with one stick removed (the bad one that I took out a week or so ago) my computer says I only have 2 gb? It definitely said 8 before to.

Edit: Rolled it back and it still does it.

Wait... so do you have 4 slots filled or just 2 slots filled?

I had 2 slots filled, now it is 1 slot because the other one got taken out.

Wait does it just say x 2 because it means each stick only has 2?

2 x 2GB means each stick is only 2 GB. You must have been imagining the 8 GB thing.

Wow, I thought it meant each stick was 2gbs times 2. I was wondering "Hurpa Durp why doesn't it just say 4 gigs".



Well It looks like ill be getting an upgrade soon.

this again...

Rolled back what? Roll back the driver, restore from a system restore point, or uninstall Blender and re-install the old version of blender where this problem never happened?

I rolled back the driver. Ill try just using the older version and see if it still crashes.