Does GeForce driver 621.01 cause black screens?

For a subset of users, yes. Since the driver shipped on October 21, 2026, owners have reported monitors going black for several seconds and video playback freezing in Chrome, Edge and VLC, usually recovering without a reboot. An Nvidia representative on the official feedback thread confirmed a bug report has been filed. Nvidia's own release notes list no open issues for 621.01, because they were written before the reports came in.

Which version should I roll back to?

617.42, released October 6, 2026. It is the last driver on the previous branch and it was already Game Ready for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. Rolling back is the workaround most affected users and outlets are using. Nvidia itself has not told anyone to roll back; it has only asked for crash dumps.

Which graphics cards are affected?

Most reports come from RTX 5080 owners, with a smaller number on the RTX 4090. That is a picture built from forum posts, not a list Nvidia has published, so an RTX 40 or 50 card that is not named can still be affected. Many affected systems run two or three monitors or very high refresh rates.

What does nvlddmkm Event 153 mean?

nvlddmkm is Nvidia's kernel display driver. An Event 153 entry in Windows Event Viewer is logged when the GPU stopped responding and Windows reset it, which is Timeout Detection and Recovery. The screen going black for a few seconds and coming back is what a TDR looks like from your chair. One event is a hiccup; a cluster of them that started on October 21 points at the driver.

Will rolling back lose anything?

A little. 621.01 added Game Ready profiles for Phantom Blade Zero and the Crimson Desert Enhanced update, plus driver support for Advanced Shader Delivery, which Modern Warfare 4 uses to install precompiled shaders. On 617.42 Modern Warfare 4 still runs, but builds shaders locally, so expect a longer first load and some early stutter after each update.

GeForce 621.01 Black Screen Fix: Roll Back to 617.42

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Nvidia released GeForce Game Ready driver 621.01 on Wednesday, October 21. It is the first driver on the new R620 branch, and the release notes aim it at Phantom Blade Zero, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, NBA 2K27, Cyberpunk 2077 and the Crimson Desert Enhanced update. It fixes a list of older problems, including a black flash on 360Hz QHD monitors. Under "Open Issues in Version 621.01" it says "N/A".

That section aged badly within two days. The official feedback thread filled with the same two complaints: monitors cutting to black for several seconds, and video freezing mid-playback in Chrome, Edge and VLC. On Friday the 23rd an Nvidia representative replied that a bug had been filed and asked affected users to send their crash dumps in, which ComputerBase and WinFuture both reported on the 24th. There is no hotfix and no date. The next scheduled driver is the realistic hope.

So the status is: the bug is acknowledged, the scope is not, and nobody at Nvidia has told you to do anything except send logs.

Is it this bug, or something else?

Plenty of black screens have nothing to do with 621.01, and rolling back a driver that is not the problem wastes an evening. The pattern that matches looks like this:

It started on or after October 21, on a system that was stable before.
The screen goes black for a few seconds and comes back on its own. No reboot, no blue screen, usually no crash of the game or browser.
It happens during video playback, or when a game launches while a video is playing.
Your setup has more than one monitor, or a very high refresh rate. WinFuture found 480Hz G-SYNC panels dropping out every 10 to 15 seconds.

Most of the reports come from RTX 5080 owners, with some on the RTX 4090. That is who is posting, not a list from Nvidia, so a different RTX 40 or 50 card is not ruled out.

The other place to look is Event Viewer. Press Win+X, open Event Viewer, go to Windows Logs, then System, and filter by the source nvlddmkm. Entries with Event ID 153 are logged when the GPU stopped responding and Windows reset it. Microsoft calls that Timeout Detection and Recovery, and a black screen that comes back is exactly what one looks like. Some affected users also see LiveKernelEvent 141 or 117 in Reliability Monitor, which are GPU-timeout codes too. A run of these that begins on the 21st is about as clear a fingerprint as you will get without Nvidia's internal tools.

If your black screens come with a full reboot, a blue screen reading VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE, or they started weeks ago, that is a different problem. Microsoft's own list of causes for that bug check includes overclocks, memory timings and cooling, and those deserve a look before blaming a driver that has been out for three days.

Rolling back to 617.42

617.42 came out on October 6 and is the last driver on the R615 branch. Its release notes already list Modern Warfare 4 as Game Ready, so the biggest launch of the month is covered either way.

The quick way is Device Manager: open it, expand Display adapters, right-click your card, Properties, Driver tab, Roll Back Driver. If the button is greyed out, Windows did not keep the old package and you need the clean route.

The clean route takes ten minutes and is what we would do:

Download 617.42 from Nvidia's driver page using the manual search. Pick your card and the Game Ready branch, then choose 617.42 from the list of older versions. Save the installer.
Disconnect from the internet, or Windows Update may quietly install a newer driver in the middle of the process.
Run Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) in Safe Mode and let it remove the Nvidia driver and restart.
Install 617.42. Choose Custom and tick Perform a clean installation if you skipped DDU.
Reconnect. When the Nvidia App offers the next driver, read its release notes before installing; skip it unless they list this bug as fixed.

There is also a cheaper thing to try first if you run a 480Hz monitor: drop it to 360Hz in Windows display settings. Several affected users report that stops the dropouts on 621.01, which is useful if you want to keep the new driver for Phantom Blade Zero.

What you give up

Going back costs you the Game Ready profiles for Phantom Blade Zero and Crimson Desert's Enhanced update, and driver support for Advanced Shader Delivery, the system that installs precompiled shaders instead of building them on your PC the first time you play.

That last one matters for Modern Warfare 4, because 621.01 is the driver Activision pointed players at for it. On 617.42 the game still runs (it was Game Ready for it), but you are back to compiling shaders locally, which means a long first load and some stutter in your first matches after each update. That is an annoyance. A monitor cutting out every few minutes is not, so for an affected system the trade is still easy. Our Modern Warfare 4 requirements post covers the parts of that launch that actually stop PCs from starting it, which are TPM and Secure Boot.

Helping get it fixed

The Nvidia rep asked for the crash dumps Windows writes on every GPU reset. They live in C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports\WATCHDOG. Zip the recent ones and email them to driverfeedback@nvidia.com with your card, monitor setup, and what you were doing when it happened. It will not fix your PC today, but this kind of bug, triggered by particular monitor and playback combinations, gets fixed faster with more dumps.

What we do not know

Nvidia has not said what causes it. WinFuture's guess is that something changed in the move from the R615 branch to R620, which would fit a bug that appeared on day one, but that is a guess and we are not presenting it as more. Nvidia has also not said which cards are in scope, whether multi-monitor setups are part of the trigger, or when a fix ships. Outlets suggesting "the next driver or the one after" are guessing too.

Our view: if you have the symptoms, roll back now rather than wait. A driver is the easiest change in a PC to undo, and what you lose is a couple of game profiles and some shader stutter for a week or two. If you do not have the symptoms, there is no reason to touch anything.

The short version

Driver: GeForce 621.01 WHQL, October 21, 2026, first R620 driver. Release notes list no open issues.
Symptoms: monitors black for a few seconds, video freezing in Chrome, Edge and VLC, recovery without a reboot. Most reports from RTX 5080 owners, some from RTX 4090 owners, many with multiple or 480Hz monitors.
Nvidia's position: a representative confirmed a bug report on October 23 and asked for WATCHDOG dumps. No hotfix and no date as of October 24.
Check: nvlddmkm Event ID 153 in Event Viewer starting on the 21st.
Fix for now: roll back to 617.42 (October 6, Game Ready for Modern Warfare 4 but without the shader-delivery support), with DDU for a clean install. 480Hz users can try 360Hz first.

GeForce 621.01 Black Screens and Video Freezes: What Nvidia Has Confirmed and How to Roll Back