I've had a couple of incidents over the last few days where the display driver has stopped working, froze the screen & then recovered.

My OS is Win7 (64 bit)
I've got an NVIDIA Geforce GTX 550Ti graphics card. I updated the driver on 01/03/2012 & have: nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2 version 8.17.12.9610

My PC is less than a year old & I'm worried about what is happening here?

I have had the exact same thing chrissie.

Probably just bad drivers, but it could be a sign of malware.

Thanks Jenny100. If it's a case of bad drivers how can I check & what can I do about it?

I'm inclined to think it could be a sign of malware as it's only happened in the last few days - I've got Microsoft Security Essentials & have recently ran a full scan - are there any other programs that would help? I would appreciate any recommendations.

I use Malwarebytes Pro, and it's wonderful. There's a free version also which is good but with fewer features. Highly recommended.

Here's a link:

Malwarebytes

I also use Microsoft Security Essentials for virus protection, and it is compatible with Malwarebytes Pro for real-time protection. (Some virus software isn't, such as McAfee -- in my experience, anyway!)

Thank you Rushes! Just the advice I need! I've downloaded the free version for now but may think about buying the Pro later! (Although if nothing shows up it's back to the drivers!)

Let us know if it finds anything.

I agree with Rushes - MSE plus Malwarebytes Pro is hard to beat for the money invested.

I have the same thing. I ran the free Malwarebytes, but it found nothing. So I ran Spybot and found adware. It fixed the problem (I hope). Their site says that it will. It was an installer that I pick up when I downloaded 7zip.

I don't know if this was the cause for the driver problem, but I do know it started after the 7zip download.

Thanks Rushes & Draclvr - I've just done a complete scan & Malwarebytes hasn't found anything!

Thanks lindy236 for posting your experience & info.

Would I be better of trying soming like Spybot; or Lavasoft Ad Aware which I used to use & is it compatible?

chrissie,
The info on malware cleaning is all well and good but only if it corrects your problem.

The first thing you should try is to revert the video driver to the previous version and see if your problems go away. If they do not, then explore the possibility of malware or hardware issues.

The prime rule in troubleshooting is CHANGE ONE THING AT A TIME!

Thank you Robert, the version of the driver I've got is a new one from the beginning of March - never had any problems before that so yes! it does make sense to me to try reverting it to the previous version first (which I don't think is that much older!)