nvlddmkm BSOD

I've been getting this when I game, be it Crysis OR warcraft 3 TFT and its just driving me F'ing crazy. I've tried the fix where you delete the numerous nvlddmkm.sys files, but that didnt seem to work. Any and all suggestions would be very appreciated. 7805 running 64bit Vista home premium. THANKS

 

When i got this error is was a cause o f bad video card drivers.

 

I got that error a few times while trying out different drivers. With the newest Dox drivers, I never get that error. But each laptop is different so your going to have to see which drivers work the best on yours.

 

Thats the thing, im pretty sure i've tried every dox driver, new and old Nvidia driver, and a few forceware drivers... whats next?

 

Bump~~~~~~~

 

bump!~~~~~~

 

You need to totally clean out the Nvidia drivers before installing a new one. It is even possible you have a driver file(s) that refuses to fully clean out. This has caused more fresh OS reimages than probably any other single cause and may be your fate.................

 

1.
Download the latest drivers from here:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_drivers.html

2.
Device Manager > Right Click and Uninstall > Check "Delete the driver software for this device > Ok

3.
Next, you restart your computer then install the latest drivers you downloaded from Nvidia.com. Restart after installation.

The BSOD shouldn't occur again.

 

I do clean. I even go through safe mode, and I did the cmd commands blah blah to clean out the x number of nvlddmkm.sys files.

Ill try that now.

 

@Masked - I assume your talking about the display adapter in the Device manage, but better safe then sorry?

 

Yes, the display adapter refers to your graphics card.

 

@Masked - I did as stated, and its as if there are no display drivers even installed. I downloaded the driver that went with my windows, then i uninstalled the previous drivers as stated. Then I restarted, installed the Nvidia driver, then restarted once again. I checked device manager and theres an unkown Video Controller still and theres no "display adapater". Also, no games will run.

Is there some kind of reason the driver isnt installing?

 

It looks like Vista doesn't even recognize the Nvidia drivers. I suggest uninstalling the drivers, then restart your laptop. After that, run Windows Update. It should either get Vista to start looking for display drivers labeled "Standard VGA adapter" or something similar and install itself. From there on, you can install custom or Nvidia's official drivers. The one you got from Nvidia's site works perfectly for me and it should for you too. After Vista installs its own drivers, reboot and set your resolution to what you want then install the latest drivers from nvidia. It should work then.

 

On restart after uninstalling, right after log in a window poped up saying "Windows needs to install drive software for Video Controller. I clicked Locate and Install driver software, but it doesnt do anything. One time it said it found it, but was unable to install due to "access denied" but im the administrator account. Also, another time it said "ready to use" but after i installed the stock driver it did the same thing as before, not recognizing the install even though it installed.

It seems to be only the stock driver from the sight, Dox installs, but thats just reverting it to exactly what it was before. Ill run some stress tests and see if anything just fixed itself and the Dox took.

 

Bump~~~~~~~~~~

 

Try disabling UAC (User Account Control) in the Control Panel then try repeating the steps. That should take care of the problem. Enable it after you sort out your graphics driver problems.

I believe you would be wasting your time performing "stress tests" because that does not address the drive problem at hand.

 

You need to install Driver Sweeper to uninstall drivers completely.

1. Uninstall the NVIDIA Drivers using the control panel. It will ask you to restart, restart.
2. Boot into Safe Mode by pressing F8 at startup. In safe mode, run Driver Sweeper on NVIDIA Display files.
3. Restart, and install new drivers in normal mode.
4. Finally, restart one last time.

That's the most complete way to uninstall drivers. It gets rid of all unnecessary files, and makes for a completely clean install with no errors. If you uninstall any other way, files get left behind. Using the Add and Remove Programs method isn't going to cut it. Sure, it's a pain. But it saves you a lot of time later dealing when your not dealing with BSoDs.

 

UAC is disabled already, and the stress test was to see if it would still BSOD, which it did.
@Bombshell- I do use driver sweeper, I have done the safemode driversweeper and it still didnt work.

 

Have you overclocked or undervolted your laptop in any way? Reset everything back to stock settings if you have.

 

No overclock or undervolt. Im at a loss... Seems like theres just something wrong with it, but I really don't want to send it to gateway. It will take forever to get it back, and if they replace it ill most likely get a smaller screen (I have the 1920x1200 now).

 

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=nvlddmkm+BSOD

 

Lol i've tried about 3 of those "nvlddmkm.sys fixes" before. None of them have helped.

 

Try running HWmonitor, does your computer even recognize your GPU? You should at least transfer any important files to another hard drive and clean install. That is probably they'll do if you turn it in to gateway as it doesn't sound like a hardware issue to me.

 

It definitely should not be a hardware issue. His graphics driver is interfering when his gfx. card has to handle intense applications and games.

Vista doesn't seem to recognize that he's trying to install his graphics card. Teh-kun, you must have played around and installed a bad set of drivers. The Nvidia drivers have basically corrupted the interaction between Vista and your graphics card. The only option right now is to either not run anything graphics intensive (which is ridiculous) or a clean Vista installation. It should iron out everything.

 

The reason why I got the error code on my machine was because i was installing forceware for the first time. I didn't uninstall the default drivers and it caused a system conflict. Like you said, it was also a cause of some sort of corruption. This was while installing the xfastest 180.70 drivers.

 

I wanted to avoid this but I guess theres no getting around it...

 

Fwiw, I'm in the same boat. Everything's been working fine, no over or underclocking, nothing new installed, temps have always been low...

Finished Fallout 3 and got bored, so about a month later I started playing it again w/ a new character and it crashes after a few white flashes (almost looked like someone took a picture w/ their flash going off in the game).

Now I can't ever boot up in normal mode (w/ new or older Nvidia or Dox drivers). Always the same error message: "attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed"

I can boot up in safe mode, uninstall Nvidia drivers, and then reboot in normal mode. This only works if I delete the Nvidia drivers and let Vista install standard VGA drivers. (Don't know if this means anything, but if I try to watch a movie w/ these drivers, it will play but with vertical flashing green lines over the image.)

I've tried suggestions from others who've had this problem or think they might know how to fix it. No luck yet.

I hate to send mine back too, but I'm thinking that's what I'm going to have to do...

 

I reformatted, however got exact same BSOD. Theres the stock OS on there right now, using the stock Nvidia driver! Any other possible fixes?

 

Can you specify when this BSOD started to happen? Was it after installing new drivers? Installing a new game? Did you ever run graphics intensive applications before you encountered this error? If not, then it's more likely that your laptop's graphics driver has a problem.

 

I was playing Dota and it crashed about 10 minutes in. Everything installed smooth. What driver do you recommend? I just used the newest from nvidia

 

A possible fix, some drivers try and reasign the hardware IRQ. This can cause many an issue including the one experienced.

1.) You will need to obtain a good known driver and then have the ssystem boot under VGA only with all other drivers uninstalled.

2.) Shut the system down under this. and let is sit offf at least 30 seconds.

3.) Turn the system on and while bios is posting hold the power button down to cause the system to shut down.

4.) again wait 30 seconds and power up to full boot and bios.

5.) go to the bios and reset to bios defaults.

This should cause the cmos tables to fail/reset and alow the system to reset the irq tables. Now it could also be another driver reseting some other hardware causing the conflict with the video card. If this is the case unless you can track it down a full system OS restore and bios reset may be required.

Again this isn't a garentied fix but a possible one...............


EDIT; WARNING Raid owners beware, this could reset your stripe and you could loose all data................

 

man that sounds like a hella lot of trouble. Will reseting the bios to default have any effect on my system? Is there an option to reset bios to default? I have never messed around with my bios..

 

Yes it is not for the faint of heart. If you are not running Raid you can't really hurt the system as you are not hurting the bios just reseting the cmos tables the system uses to assign resources. All systems read the hardware and assign to tables. so long as the tables are set the bios by default does not change it but Windows through ACPI is infamouse for changing what the hardware wants to run at bios boot time.......

 

Ok well I tried it now I guess i gotta play some games and see if it BSOD's me!

 

I reformatted and used Gateway's recovery DVD to reinstall windows. Can't finish the install process because I still get BSOD when the install process needs to reboot. Now I can't even get into safe mode (I get a message saying I have to use normal mode to finish the install first).

Never got to try TANWare's suggestion. Hope it works for you. I'm calling Gateway tomorrow.

 

Sadly after I game of Dota it still BSOD before I could even finish. The fix didnt work T____T

 

So I tried to email gateway tech support with the issue, and all the possible fixes I've already attempted and see what they have to say...

 

Was this as soon as you bought the laptop or weeks later when you first started playing a graphics intensive game?

It's important to know because it could identify whether this problem is due to a defect or a simple driver issue. Is Dota the first game you installed? How many weeks after you bought the laptop, did you install a graphics intensive application or game?

 

Well when I first purchased the laptop i reformatted and installed XP, however I had some compatibility issues and i decided to reinstall Vista about a month after. It went about half a month fine before I started getting the BSOD.
I had Crysis on the laptop day of buying the lap after installing vista, then day of after reinstalling vista.

 

bump ~ anymore possible solutions?

 

Woooooo gateway sent me back a new message. It was their typical response of http://support.gateway.com/s/Checklists/BPC/ck20070928123.shtml even though i already mentioned I have gotten this before, and i do not wish to get it again! Yay for tech support -_-.

 

You need to install a new driver for the gpu. Try any, maybe Xfastest just make sure you clean install. Also make sure your vista power scheme is set to performance or balanced.

 

I've tried every Dox, and a few XFastest, however I got the same error, even with the stock drivers. My GPU doesnt seem to like anything I throw at it...

 

Hey I have the same problem AND the same laptop! It could be the model itself is ****ed up. Maybe we should return this piece of ****.

Games that crashed:
-Audiosurf
-Stepmania
-Unreal Tournament 2004

Games that didn't:
-Unreal Tournament 3
-Mass Effect

Funny how less hardware intensive games crashed...

 

Do you get artifacts? I dunno, ive been very tempted to get rid of this one for something else. I got it so I could play games and also if need be take it to school, but honestly its really tempting to get a desktop+netbook. Lol but I do enjoy this laptop when its working so mehhhhh

 

What are teh artifacts? (didn't read all the posts)

Anyway, I googled for a while and found many more people with the same model and problem. Gateway should discontinue this model. Too bad I'm gonna return this tomorrow though, it was such a good deal.

 

lol I googled and saw it for alot of models. Usually Dell.

 

w/e, they should be discontinued then too. I mean if so many people get this bsod on the same model, there's no doubt the problem lies in the model itself.

 

Ehhhhhhhhh but 30/thousands isnt "many"

 

It is when I say it is

jk, but what else do you think could cause this error then? I've basically tried every suggestion I could find:

-Installed latest drivers from nvidia and gateway

-Ran a memory test with no problem reported

-Switched between opengl and d3d

-Disabled Aero theme

-Decreased clock speed up to 10%(did work on one game)

-Formatted to factory condition