Geforce GTX 660 TI - BEWARE 305.68 driver, can cause crashing "nvlddmkm" errors

[Burticus]

The short story is the WHQL drivers that Nvidia released for the 660 TI 305.68 have PROBLEMS and caused me grief and nonstop crashing.  Use the 304.87 drivers that are available on the driver CD and for download  from Gigabyte.

I won't completely repeat myself, as I chronicled my pain already here:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1295690/nvidia-drivers-305-68-gtx-660-ti-suck-cause-constant-crashing-in-games-with-nvlddmkm-errors

Others on that forum experienced similar problems.

I got my shiny new Gigabyte GTX 660 TI on Friday 8/17, and decided to use the latest possible drivers, so I download 305.68 which Nvidia had just released.  (I was upgrading from a GTX 460 using the 296.10 driver).  Immediately games start crashing and my event log is showing these errors : "Event 4101, Display : Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered."

I tried to downgrade to the 304.87 several times, using the clean install option included in the drivers, and also by using a driver cleaner in safe mode to purge the Nvidia drivers.  No luck, couldn't stop the crashing.  I even went back to 296.10 and my GTX 460 and still crashing.  The 305.68 driver hosed up something very nicely in my system.  I had to restore from an older drive image (slightly less painful than doing a clean reinstall) to solve the problem.

Since I have no way to report this incident to Nvidia, all I can do is try to spread the word and hopefully someone will take notice.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome.

Thanks for the heads up for anyone in a similar situation or even to stop someone before they get there ! 

[santz76]

Me too just got my 660 ti oc edition yesterday uploaded new driver from nvidia website, now battlefield 3 has froze several times and when i start a match it stutters pretty bad, i noticed if i go to desktop during game play and then go back to full screen the stuttering stops and plays fine. Does anybody know of a solution?

[Dark Mantis]

From the sounds of it I think the best thing is to remove the new driver and revert to the previous one.

[severency]

Could someone forward me to the 304.87 download? I would deeply appreciate it. I have been suffering from multiple crashes in games like Left 4 Dead 2 and when I tried to stress test my new 660 ti with Heaven Dx11 benchmark. It really worried me as if something was broken but now im certain it is the 305.68 driver.

Edit: I found the 304.87 driver - installed. I got Heaven to run through max settings perfectly fine. At this point I thought everything was fixed. I log back in to Left 4 Dead 2 and I tab out to open the MSI Afterburner program to up my fan speeds on my GPU to ensure it isn't overheating and literally right after I tab back in and take a few steps my computer crashes. I reboot and try heaven again and it crashes. I am speechless right now and very frustrated. Not sure what to do.

[walmate]

I installed the gigabyte gtx 660 ti into a hp and when I installed the driver from the cd the computer starts up and goes into sleep mode has anyone have some advice cheers

[Burticus]

Me too just got my 660 ti oc edition yesterday uploaded new driver from nvidia website, now battlefield 3 has froze several times and when i start a match it stutters pretty bad, i noticed if i go to desktop during game play and then go back to full screen the stuttering stops and plays fine. Does anybody know of a solution?

Clean uninstall and downgrading did NOT work for me, I had to revert to an old image prior to the 305.68 install.  System restore may work for you, I forgot I had disabled it  .  Pick a restore point from before the driver install.  Other than that, you get to reinstall windows.

[jdroid]

Installed latest 306.02 driver, NO issues, no problem at all. Played so far, BF3, Diablo3, Portal2.
Old GPU - HD 6950 Flex Edition

Gigabyte OC Edition 660 Ti
i5-2500K
MSI Z68MA-ED55
8 GB RAM
Thermaltake Grand 650W
Windows 7 64 Bit

[ghosty87]

Hello,
I recently purchased an EVGA 660 TI Superclocked 3gb from my local Microcenter. I got home uninstalled my old ATI 5850's and ran driver sweeper. Installed the 660TI and installed the 306.02 drivers. All was well for around 6 hours I tested Planet Side 2, Battlefield 3, and Guild wars 2. All were running fine. Then I tried Arma 2 OA and the game hard locked after 5 minutes. Since that the card has been freezing the entire PC at the desktop and in any game at random time intervals. Could be 5 minutes or 5 hours. I have reformatted, ran memtest for 8 hours and used my other PCIe 2.0 16x slot. It all seems well when I transfer the card of update drivers for a few hours then the Hard locks continue and the only way out is to restart my PC manually. I ended up formating my C drive and reisntalling windows and the problem continues. I even went to Microcenter and exchanged the card thinking the frist one was defective and the second card continues to crash. Oh yea and today I installed the 306.23 drivers and still my PC is hard locking. I do not know what to do I tihnk I am going to return the card again tomorrow and either get a 670 or a gigabyte 660 ti that my friend has an confirms working.. I have never had an issue like this with graphics cards before and I previosuly ran Crossfire XFX Ati 5850s.  I have found people on other forums with the same issue and have heard the 660 Ti has a bad batch out there so many cards may be broken from factory. If anyone knows of a way to fix this issue please let know. Or if you are having the same/similar problem please post about it.
 
My PC Specs
Processor: Intel i7 930
Mobo: Gigabyte X58a-UD3R BIos F6 most up to date non Beta driver.
Ram: Gskill Ripjaw ddr3 1600 tripple channel (tried running at 1033 still crashes)
Drives: Crucial SSD 128gb, 1TB Seagate, raid0 2x500gb Seagate, 1.5tb USB3 seagate
Sound card: Creative X-fi Fatality
PSU: Antec 800w
Video card: EVGA GTX 660 Ti Superclocked 3gb

[jdroid]

@ghosty87, Try the Gigabyte brand, you must have gotten lemon units. I have used both 306.02 and 306.23 and did not encounter any issues. Temp is is also good at 60 degrees. Did you check your PSU if it is failing? Your PSU wattage is more than OK but maybe the unit is failing.