Screen 'flashes' back to desktop during games...

[Pedro UK]

Hey guys. First post, first question...

I just got an M11x R3 (i7, 8 gig RAM, 540m GPU) from evilBay the other day. I'm enjoying it immensely but I have a problem when I'm playing a game. Every once in a while the screen flashes back to the desktop just for a split second. Then the game continues to run fine. It is a little disconcerting though.

I'm running Windows 7 Pro 64bit and I also have the latest nvidia drivers from their site.

Is this a known problem? Is there a fix? Is my GPU dying already!?!

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MattyB]

Not 100% sure. Maybe try using the Nvidia 314 driver. I hear the 320 is a bit buggie especially with the 500 series cards.

That's an easy fix to try first. Make sure you do a custom install and select the box to do a clean install so you remove all the 320 driver bits and pieces.

 

[Pedro UK]

Thank you. I'll give it a try.

 

[AeonSoul]

If the game is not crashing or the pc crashing or anything like that, but you just get a quick glimp of the desktop, it might just be some piece of software underlying while you're running full screen that asks the system for the focus, hence the flash back to the desktop.
Check what programs are running while you play games.

 

[Pedro UK]

Well, after some experimentation with nVidia drivers and then looking for focus-grabbing background software. I think I've found the issue. It seems to be a conflict with the Intel HD 3000 driver that was installed even though I wasn't using the integrated GFX for gaming. I updated it to the latest and so far I've had no problems with the loss of focus.

I'll keep you posted if the issue rears it's head again...

 

[MattyB]

Good news so far then. I hope it's sorted itself out for you

 

[MattyB]

It can be good to turn your automatic updates off too. Some software can try to update itself while you're doing other things which can be annoying.