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I've been fighting a really weird issue for the last 7-8 months. It's slow debugging because it takes a week to reproduce the problem (read on for more details). Wondering if anyone here could shed some light or give any suggestions. I'm even willing to paypal $10 to anyone that helps me solve the issue... 
Hardware:
Ram: F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR (x2, 16GB total)
Mobo: Asus P8P67 Deluxe (tried several BIOS revisions, currently on latest)
CPU: i-2600k
Video card: MSI Nvidia GTX 560 TI
Primary HDD: Crucial M4 128GB SSD
PSU: PC Power and Cooling 750W
Issue:
In a nutshell, my pc runs great for about 6-10 days. I leave my pc on 24/7 (no sleep/hibernation/etc). After having my pc on for anywhere from 6-10 days, I will all of a sudden start getting a momentary black screen and/or corrupted graphics and the "Display driver has stopped functioning but has recovered" pop-up error. Once I start getting this error, it will continue to repeat every 10-60 seconds for a few minutes until my pc just locks up or BSOD's. This can start in either desktop (2d) mode or in game.
Here's the weird part. Once this has started happening, it won't go away even after reboot. Windows will load and start with the weird graphical glitches, black screen and "display driver has stopped functioning but has recovered" pop-up error. The only way to get my pc running normal again is to actually turn the power off to pc (either pull power plug or flip rocker switch on PSU). After this hard power removal cycle, my pc will boot and run perfectly for another 6-10 days.
Troubleshooting I've done so far:
I naturally thought this was a video card or driver issue. I've been through two brand new video cards (same make/model) with identical results. I've tried under/over clocking the video card with the exact same results. I've been through many different driver versions. I've also reinstalled windows twice with identical results. So at this point I've kind of ruled out the video card or driver as culprit.
I had a couple suggestions that it could be memory related. So I removed two sticks and have now been running 11 days (this might be a record). However, last night (day 10) I did get one momentary black screen with the "Display driver has stopped functioning and recovered" pop-up message. However, it only happened once and my pc is still running just fine as of today.
So now I'm starting to think it may be a memory issue. This was the first thing I've done that has changed the symptom in any fashion. Before taking two memory modules out, once I started getting the problem, it didn't go away until my system froze or BSOD. However, this time, it lasted for a relatively long time and then I just got one glitch and have recovered from it for at least another day.
Going forward:
Obviously its too early to tell if my problem is memory related. Could be motherboard related as well. But removing two mem modules has actually changed the behavior slightly, so that's a good step forward. It takes awhile to troubleshoot because I need to wait a week+ just to repeat the issue.
Suggestions to try?:
1. I need to run memtest on all memory modules and configurations
2. Should I adjust memory voltage or timings? (I've just left all mem settings in BIOS to defaults)
3. Any other ideas? Has anyone ever seen or heard of anything like this? Its just so weird how it runs perfectly for a week+ and then craps out. And even weirder that it takes a complete power removal to get it working normally again...
Hardware:
Ram: F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR (x2, 16GB total)
Mobo: Asus P8P67 Deluxe (tried several BIOS revisions, currently on latest)
CPU: i-2600k
Video card: MSI Nvidia GTX 560 TI
Primary HDD: Crucial M4 128GB SSD
PSU: PC Power and Cooling 750W
Issue:
In a nutshell, my pc runs great for about 6-10 days. I leave my pc on 24/7 (no sleep/hibernation/etc). After having my pc on for anywhere from 6-10 days, I will all of a sudden start getting a momentary black screen and/or corrupted graphics and the "Display driver has stopped functioning but has recovered" pop-up error. Once I start getting this error, it will continue to repeat every 10-60 seconds for a few minutes until my pc just locks up or BSOD's. This can start in either desktop (2d) mode or in game.
Here's the weird part. Once this has started happening, it won't go away even after reboot. Windows will load and start with the weird graphical glitches, black screen and "display driver has stopped functioning but has recovered" pop-up error. The only way to get my pc running normal again is to actually turn the power off to pc (either pull power plug or flip rocker switch on PSU). After this hard power removal cycle, my pc will boot and run perfectly for another 6-10 days.
Troubleshooting I've done so far:
I naturally thought this was a video card or driver issue. I've been through two brand new video cards (same make/model) with identical results. I've tried under/over clocking the video card with the exact same results. I've been through many different driver versions. I've also reinstalled windows twice with identical results. So at this point I've kind of ruled out the video card or driver as culprit.
I had a couple suggestions that it could be memory related. So I removed two sticks and have now been running 11 days (this might be a record). However, last night (day 10) I did get one momentary black screen with the "Display driver has stopped functioning and recovered" pop-up message. However, it only happened once and my pc is still running just fine as of today.
So now I'm starting to think it may be a memory issue. This was the first thing I've done that has changed the symptom in any fashion. Before taking two memory modules out, once I started getting the problem, it didn't go away until my system froze or BSOD. However, this time, it lasted for a relatively long time and then I just got one glitch and have recovered from it for at least another day.
Going forward:
Obviously its too early to tell if my problem is memory related. Could be motherboard related as well. But removing two mem modules has actually changed the behavior slightly, so that's a good step forward. It takes awhile to troubleshoot because I need to wait a week+ just to repeat the issue.
Suggestions to try?:
1. I need to run memtest on all memory modules and configurations
2. Should I adjust memory voltage or timings? (I've just left all mem settings in BIOS to defaults)
3. Any other ideas? Has anyone ever seen or heard of anything like this? Its just so weird how it runs perfectly for a week+ and then craps out. And even weirder that it takes a complete power removal to get it working normally again...
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