Screen Flickered and GPU Driver Automatically Updated w/ WindowsUpdateClient?

[LeSandwich]

I got back from work and wanted to quickly test some coil whine before hopping into the shower, so I set the display to 120hz and put Heaven Benchmark to High/Extreme settings; usually I benchmark all the way but this time I just went for about 30 seconds before turning it off, then snapped back to Settings and set the monitor back to 60hz. I've done this numerous times over the past few months; however, this time, about 10-20 seconds after I do this, my screen flickers a bit, Steam restarts itself, and I get an Error in Event Viewer that says "The NVIDIA LocalSystem Container service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 6000 milliseconds: Restart the service."


this event happened at 3:45:21pm, and at 3:45:12pm, there was a "WindowsUpdateClient" event that said "Installation Started: Windows has started installing the following update: NVIDIA - Display - 31.0.15.3179", which would've been when my screen flickered. I believe that since the WindowsUpdateClient happened first, this is the actual 'issue', since the LocalSystem Container terminates whenever a driver is installed/updated (I combed through the logs and it lines up)
anyway, I check Device Manager and sure enough, my GPU has automatically changed the driver version from 531.29, to 531.79, which I did not have on my PC prior, since I had DDU'd my drivers a few weeks ago. I've gone back to Version 531.29 since it was still there in Device Manager, and I opened a few games, messed around, and then repeated what I did with Heaven Benchmark, as well as ran a full 120hz Benchmark, but it did not flicker or install a new driver this time



what in the world happened? I have an RTX 3070, and a Phanteks Revolt Pro 1000w Gold for context, both of which aren't any more than 6 months old; I got the PC assembled in February. nothing out of the ordinary with the GPU or PSU as far as I can tell, with normal voltages, normal temps, nothing is vibrating or feels hot on the case, and fans are normal, so I don't notice anything external. all the cables seem good too. I've also had Automatic Driver Updates disabled in Windows and GeForce for ages

any ideas? was it maybe a freak driver crash that happened from me rapidly closing HB and switching refresh rates? the fans never really ramped up when this happened or anything, it just flickered unusually, Steam restarted (for some reason), and then I had the WindowsUpdateClient and error events in the Event Viewer. no other events in System or Application, or anywhere else really line up with these events, only thing that happened before was Volsnap deleting the oldest shadow copy; even if this could somehow thereotically have effected the driver in a freak system goof up, that wouldn't make sense because I DDU'd my drivers on June 21st, which is far from the "oldest" copy of anything on my pc. this has got me concerned for both my GPU and PSU, but I can't seem to find anything abnormal with them or anything logical about this,

 

[Bomby569]

you got and update to a newer version, what is the issue? disable automatic updates so it doesn't happen next time and update yourself when you get the notification.

 

[LeSandwich]

you got and update to a newer version, what is the issue? disable automatic updates so it doesn't happen next time and update yourself when you get the notification.

because I don't want a newer version, I also said in the post I have disabled automatic updates ages ago (and re-disabled them when I DDU'd a few weeks back). 531.29 has been most stable for me, newer versions aren't always a 100% bonus


the issue is that updates are disabled and without prompting, either my driver crashed and installed a newer version, or Windows acted on its own and installed something I did not want. I'm not sure if the driver crashed though, there was no error or event in Event Viewer to indicate that, it was just WindowsUpdateClient

 

[Bomby569]

something is clearly not disabled, it's either geforce experience or windows (win can also force install nvidia drivers)

 

[LeSandwich]

something is clearly not disabled, it's either geforce experience or windows (win can also force install nvidia drivers)

both are definitely disabled. checked GeForce, the "Automatically Download Driver Updates" box is unticked; I also went into the Advanced System Settings > Hardware > Driver Installation in Settings, and the "No" option has already been clicked


I enabled "Yes", saved changes, then disabled it again, just for the sake of the "flip the switch on and off again" tactic, but that's what I've been able to see. literally everything in GeForce is disabled, aside from notifications to tell me if there is a new driver, but that doesn't install anything

 

[Bomby569]

both are definitely disabled. checked GeForce, the "Automatically Download Driver Updates" box is unticked; I also went into the Advanced System Settings > Hardware > Driver Installation in Settings, and the "No" option has already been clicked


I enabled "Yes", saved changes, then disabled it again, just for the sake of the "flip the switch on and off again" tactic, but that's what I've been able to see. literally everything in GeForce is disabled, aside from notifications to tell me if there is a new driver, but that doesn't install anything

windows can get weird, and gpu makers software is not the most reliable thing in the universe, if you're sure then it's some bug on either one of them. Console commands and stuff like that will probably be the way to solve that if it happens again

 

[LeSandwich]

windows can get weird, and gpu makers software is not the most reliable thing in the universe, if you're sure then it's some bug on either one of them. Console commands and stuff like that will probably be the way to solve that if it happens again

I assume it was Windows, because if it was GeForce I think it would've updated to the latest driver. Windows Driver updates just throw random drivers at the screen; 531.79 is far from the latest, I think it's like 2 versions ahead of 531.29


hopefully it was just a freak bug incident that doesn't become a regular occurrence. not sure if Event Viewer logs driver crashes for the gpu but there was nothing abnormal in the logs before WindowsUpdateClient decided to install a driver. I did use CMD sfc /scannow, it repaired some files, but I haven't run it for a few weeks so that tells me less compared to if I ran it last night and found no corruption

 

[R0H1T]

both are definitely disabled. checked GeForce, the "Automatically Download Driver Updates" box is unticked; I also went into the Advanced System Settings > Hardware > Driver Installation in Settings, and the "No" option has already been clicked

You need to disable automatic (Windows) updates & probably optional updates as well. Disabling it just from driver manager doesn't always work in my experience.

 

[LeSandwich]

You need to disable automatic (Windows) updates & probably optional updates as well. Disabling it just from driver manager doesn't always work in my experience.

this is the main one I have disabled; I thought this was the only easily accessible way to disable driver updates, unless you start diving into the regedit. don't know if I really want to disable Windows updates as a whole either, I saw that floating around when googling originally


there were also no other updates happening simultaneously, there was a Windows Defender Antivirus update happening around 3-4 minutes prior but those happen all the time and I've never once experienced any hiccup with those updating in the background, plus that seems a little unrelated given the distance

 

[TacticianLyra]

Literally just had this happen, and given that I also am currently dealing with having to RMA my 3060 and am on a borrowed 1080, I'm very nervous.

It hasn't happened again since, correct?

 

[LeSandwich]

Literally just had this happen, and given that I also am currently dealing with having to RMA my 3060 and am on a borrowed 1080, I'm very nervous.

It hasn't happened again since, correct?

didn't realize there was another reply sorry; no this hasn't happened to me since I first made this post. even though no one here really had this problem, I asked on Reddit and Tom's Hardware Forums and at least 5-6 other people said they got this update out of nowhere


as far as I can tell, it was a 1 time forced driver update

 

[3x0]

this is the main one I have disabled; I thought this was the only easily accessible way to disable driver updates, unless you start diving into the regedit. don't know if I really want to disable Windows updates as a whole either, I saw that floating around when googling originally

This disables downloading of apps and icons, as noted in the screenshot, and not drivers.
Go to Group Policies and configure:
Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Device Installation -> Specify search order for device driver source locations -> Do not search Windows Update
Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update -> Do not include drivers with Windows Update