Display driver stops responding GTX 980

On the 18th my monitor just turned it self off twice in space of 10 minutes. The Nvidia driver stops responding and Windows Desktop Manager would end up crashing and turning monitor off.

I updated the Nvidia drivers via Geforce experience and it appeared to fix it

On the 22nd it happened again, so I ran DDU and then installed drivers from Asus that match my card. I wasn't expecting there to be drivers from Aug this year on there.

Odd coincidence is both times it happened was just after 4pm which In NY Time is just after midnight which makes me suspect it was getting some signal to set it off. Just speculation. Another coincidence is 2 of the times I was watching a video on Youtube using Chrome. Going to use Firefox for a while

I then found out about an Nvidia bug that effects Display Port and latest drivers, so even though I had installed old drivers from Asus by this stage, I also swapped to HDMI hoping that would fix it. So far screen hasn't turned off again but I do have "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered." showing in event viewer twice in the last few days.

I did notice my Ethernet stopped working at time I got the last error, as Bitdefender told me I was using an unsecure WIFI which I thought was weird since i wasn't using WIFI. It has crashed a few times in the last week as well which is unusual.

No errors referring to Nvidia GPU prior to this.
No windows updates around this date
No store updates around times.
DXDiag report shows no problems
Hardware troubleshoot shows no problems
Device Manager shows no problems
No BSOD reports as PC doesn't crash, screen turns off and PC keeps doing whatever it was doing at the time, i can hear sound from videos.
SFC /scannow found nothing
DISM seemed to find nothing (its hard to tell, it completed its operation using command prompt)
Chkdsk C: /f stopped at 34% and then jumped to 100

Nothing showing in scheduled tasks
No, I don't have a spare PC to test GPU in. Mums lacks necessary slots and power

Since windows 1809 due in a few weeks, I don't think a reset would be worth doing yet. Researching similar cases, I have found people that still had problems after a reset (fresh install might work but overkill?)

I am not sure what to do next.

In folder options untick "Hide Protected Operating System Files (Recommended)" and apply then check drive C: if it has "Found" folders , would be a good sign that a bunch of system files got corrupted and thus why you get to see errors in such case you might want to use "Windows Media Creation Tool" to reinstall windows (it wouldn't delete nor reset anything just replace windows file by a fresh copy from online) . You might also want to reinstall dot net frameworks installed since if corrupted might generate such errors too .

In case you haven't found any signs of corruption you may well want to scan your system for malware : Malwarebytes & RogueKiller are both free tools and highly effective to spot if your system is being manipulated .

If all came up clean and the errors persisted , you may rather start monitoring if your system heats up , try servicing your CPU and GPU fans (dust removal) , also check with task manager to see if windows persists to have high CPU usage in idle times , sometimes "Superfetch" and "Prefetch" services get crazy and keep up working indefinitely where you might want to set them to manual and stop them from running in services panel .

If you are sure all of the above may not be the cause , your problem might merely be the power supplier unit is wearing out and thus giving random voltage pulses to the mobo which would drive it to error and/or sometimes BSODs as well . So you might want to try a different PSU and see if it helps .

Check your Reliability History and see if 'nvlddmkm.sys" error shows up there.If it does,then run DDU in SAFE MODE only.
Sometimes using win+ctrl+shift+b keys will reset the graphics drivers and will only cause a very,very short black screen,no ill effects.
The nvlddmkm problem has been around for a long time and does not appear to have a one fix only solution,the nvidea site shows that.

@nIGHTmAYOR - I didn't notice any new folders appear, and I might wait for the next version update of WIn 10 since it will replace these folders anyway. If problem persists, I can do a repair install

1st day it happened


2nd day it happened


Since then it hasn't been so dramatic. SInce I installed the drivers off the Asus web site and swapped from using Display Port to HDMI, the amount of errors has dropped dramatically to point its only every few days and its not turning monitor off anymore. Since the 22nd I have only known about these errors by looking in reliability history..
I think the last 3 application errors are Bitdefender whereas the windows failures appear to be the GPU - the view technical details just blames Hardware error, to see if it is Nvidia drivers I need to look in event viewer. Bitdefender just started crashing in the last week, not entirely sure its related to the other thing or not.

@colif i suggest you follow the rest of the suggestion i stated , Malwarebytes & RogueKiller usually have broader scope than Bitdefender , also monitoring heat might come in handy , fyi it had always been recommended by Nvidia to dedicate a separate fan for all of its GTX GPUs but half manufacturers just connect it with a sink rod to CPU fan and call it today to save money & noise , the other half that dedicate one design odd tunnels & vents for air to pass through that usually accumulate dust faster than any other system , while CPUs sign of over-heating is usually slow downs or BSODs , GPUs would just crash .

GPU = Asus Strix GTX 980
PSU = Seasonic 750 watt Gold
Case = Silverstone FT02

if you look at case, scroll down and see where GPU is (its the red thing) so I guess dust could gather at one end of it.
I been watching temps all day, hottest GPU gets is 40c, GPU VRM hits 50c, CPU hits 35C

I flashed the BIOS on my GPU earlier, as there was updated firmware released in June for Displayport. I had never flashed it before so it might help even though I am using HDMI now. It crashed on HDMI last night so that wasn't the final answer. Win 10 1809 also didn't stop it.