All fixes / Any game, Windows

"Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" / screen goes black then comes back

Event ID 4101 Event ID 153

Your screen flashes black, the game freezes or crashes, and Windows says the display driver recovered. This is the milder cousin of the 0x116 blue screen, with the same causes: drivers, overclocks, heat, or power.

Why it happens

When the graphics card hangs for about 2 seconds, Windows resets the driver to rescue the system. If the reset works, you get this message instead of a blue screen. It keeps happening because whatever is making the GPU hang hasn't been fixed yet.

How to fix it

1. Do a clean driver install with DDU in Safe Mode, then install the latest driver from NVIDIA or AMD (or the previous version if this started after an update).
2. Reset any GPU overclock to default and close tuning tools before gaming. Factory-overclocked cards sometimes need a small underclock to be stable.
3. Watch your GPU temperature while gaming with HWiNFO, and clean dust from the card and case fans.
4. Check that the GPU power cables are fully seated, using separate cables for each connector if your card needs more than one.
5. Turn off overlays and close background programs, especially other GPU-heavy apps like browsers with video or recording software.

Still broken?

Open Event Viewer > Windows Logs > System and look for errors around the time of the crash (Event ID 4101 or nvlddmkm entries). If it keeps happening at stock settings with a clean driver, the card or power supply may be failing.

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