I hate software updates . . .

[dr_kromm]

I got Left 4 Dead late last year – let's say I've had it for about a year. During that time, I think I had one crash, and that was my fault; I left the wrong thing running in the background. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I downloaded the Left 4 Dead 2 demo. When I started it for the first time, it recommended that I update my GeForce drivers. Okay, "new game, new drivers"; that's how 3D games have always done things. This was fine until the middle of last week.

Sometime last week, Left 4 Dead crashed abruptly – we're not talking "stutter" here, or even a BSOD. The game just stopped hard and left me with a black screen; in fact, my monitor displayed its "looking for video signal/no signal" message, which it normally only shows when my PC is off or the monitor isn't plugged in. With this, I got looping sound; a sample of the last sound I heard in-game before the crash, over and over again. To resolve this crash, I had to use the power button.

When the PC came back up again, all was fine. No corruption, no problems . . . I ran diagnostics on the hardware, checked the integrity of Vista, even scanned for viruses. Nada. My system scored high on the "no issues at all" scale. Well, that's good. Maybe it was a fluke.

No such luck. Since then, both Left 4 Dead and the Left 4 Dead 2 demo have crashed repeatedly. Sometimes, it's once in a night; other times, it's five times in an hour. It's always the same crash: instant blackness and a sound loop, forcing me to cycle power. Afterward, Windows recovers as if nothing had happened.

It's fairly clear that this is linked in part to the GeForce drivers. They're the main delineator here: I crashed once – only to desktop, I should add – with the 181.xx through 186.xx drivers I had used for most of my fun times with Left 4 Dead. I've crashed lots of times, rather badly at that, with the 191.07 driver.

The obvious thing would be a driver rollback, right? Oh, if only it were so simple. I did that. It didn't solve the problem.

So I checked the Event Viewer for other possible causes. The only errors it had were all WMI errors, code 10. But when I ran diagnostics on WMI, it was fine – the repository was in good shape and all the WMI components were present and healthy. In fact, this computer has loads of code 10 errors logged, and I rather doubt that's the cause. I think it logs a code 10 whenever the system halts unexpectedly for any reason at all.

My conclusion is that some other recent change in the environment is somehow conflicting with the GeForce drivers. Windows does like its updates, and there have been a dozen or more of those between when I downloaded 191.07 and when the crashes got bad. There have also been updates for my AV software (McAfee), Java, and probably six or eight other things. This complicates the sleuthing.

Anyway, I'm ranting on the off chance that somebody who knows me has a bright idea. The relevant bits of my system are as follows:

Motherboard: ASUS P5Q-E
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 9300
Memory: 4GB OCZ DDR2-1066 Reaper
Hard Drive: Seagate ST3500320NS
Video Card: ASUS EN9800GT Hybrid Power
Display: Samsung 2253BW
OS: MS Windows Vista Home Premium x64, SP2

My sound and ethernet are on the motherboard; I don't have separate devices for those. All drivers are up to date, according to pcpitstop.com. (Of course, this might be the problem.) As for Left 4 Dead and the Left 4 Dead 2 demo, I run them at maximum detail with multicore rendering turned on, in my monitor's native resolution (1680×1050).

Any constructive input would be appreciated. By "constructive," I mean, "Please avoid, 'Check for viruses and malware,' 'Scan for Windows integrity,' 'Verify hardware function,' and, 'Try a driver rollback.'" I've done all that twice, and no joy. It's clearly something a little more subtle, like a specific security update for Vista SP2 and the 191.07 driver fighting over some bit of paged pool memory.

And please, no "Get a Mac!" or "Use Linux!" Vista is working like a champ for everything else. I lay this one squarely at the feet of nVidia.