NVIDIA has acknowledged reports of black screens and video playback freezes following the release of GeForce Game Ready Driver 621.01 on October 21, 2026. The company has registered a bug report and is collecting diagnostic information from affected users as it investigates the issue.
The problems have been documented in NVIDIA’s official driver feedback forum, where users describe temporary display failures while watching videos in web browsers and media players. Several reports involve GeForce RTX 5080 graphics cards, although at least one RTX 4090 owner has reported similar symptoms.
Affected users describe video playback freezing in Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and VLC Media Player. In some cases, connected monitors turn black for several seconds before recovering automatically. The problem can occur during ordinary desktop use without a game running, while another report describes triggering the failure by launching a game during video playback.
Multiple users experiencing the issue have systems with two or more monitors connected. However, NVIDIA has not established whether multi-monitor configurations contribute to the failures, and the available reports do not identify a consistent trigger across all affected systems.
Some users have also documented Windows error records associated with the crashes. These include Event ID 153 referencing NVIDIA’s nvlddmkm display driver, alongside LiveKernelEvent 141 and 117 errors. Such events can indicate that Windows detected an unresponsive graphics driver and attempted to recover it.
One detailed RTX 5080 report describes six driver interruptions within approximately 24 hours of installing version 621.01. The user reported that the failures occurred during light video playback, with no indication of unusually high GPU temperatures or power consumption. The same system reportedly operated without these interruptions on the previous driver.
NVIDIA representative Manuel confirmed in the company’s official forums that a bug report had been filed. NVIDIA is requesting Windows watchdog crash dumps from affected users to help identify the cause. These diagnostic files may be available in the C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports\WATCHDOG directory and can be submitted to NVIDIA’s driver feedback team.
For users already experiencing the problem, reverting to GeForce driver 617.42 appears to be a potential workaround. Several users report that the interruptions stopped after reinstalling the earlier version, which NVIDIA released on October 6. These results suggest a possible driver regression, although they do not establish that the rollback will resolve every reported case.
Driver 617.42 previously introduced Game Ready support for Modern Warfare 4 and Star Wars: Galactic Racer, alongside optimizations for other recent releases. Users considering a rollback should check whether the older driver supports the games and features they currently use.
The newer 621.01 WHQL release also includes Game Ready optimizations for Phantom Blade Zero, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, NBA 2K27, Cyberpunk 2077 and Crimson Desert Enhanced: Charting the Unknown, making the reported instability particularly relevant to players who recently updated for new game support.
NVIDIA has not confirmed the underlying technical cause, the full range of affected graphics cards or whether the issue is specific to certain Windows and display configurations. The company has also not announced a timetable for a corrective driver update.
For now, the black screen reports remain under investigation, with rollback results and diagnostic submissions providing the main available information for users experiencing the failures.
