NVLDDMKM.SYS help... I think I fried my gpu...

Ok, I purchased this NP9262 in August 2008. From the moment I got it, it would (very occasionally) BSOD on me, usually when I was playing a graphically intense game such as Fallout 3. It would lock up, the sound would go nuts, and then BSOD. After a little while this went away, and I thought of it as nothing more than teething pains. I did notice that keeping a fan on it to vent excess heat helped with the frequency of the BSODs.

However, about 2 months ago, something happened, and my OS froze at the start screen, BSOD'd, and crashed. It would repeat that every time I restarted the machine. I could not get in through safe mode, as some file or other had been corrupted as well (meaning I was completely locked out of my system). I did a clean format and reinstall (lost my itunes). Since then,that issue with NVLDDMKM.SYS has come back in full force. Even with a recent clean install, the most recent graphics drivers, and having cleaned out the fans with duster.

What currently happens is the computer freezes, the sound stutters, then the screen flashes black. Then everything goes back to normal, and that little “NVLDDKMK.SYS has crashed, but recovered...” message comes up. Occasionally, it BSODs, especially when the computer is running particularly hot.

In the last three games I have played, Fallout 3, X3 Terran Conflict, and Star Trek Armada II, what happens is the screen freezes, then flashes black and resets without the message. However, these games have all gotten quite laggy as well, but each lag freeze lasts as long as 15-30 seconds. Even in Star Trek Armada II, which I believe is from 2002 or somewhere thereabouts. Even Skype video calls and occasionally youtube cause the driver to crash.

I'm at my wits end. Cooling it doesn't really help anymore. Is this hardware or software? Did I critically overheat my graphics card?

 

Which is the graphics card?What are the temps?Did you clean the system?Overclock/Increase the voltage of the card?Did you try changing drivers?

 

Sir,

You should have sent it back in August of 2008. Something was critically wrong from the start.

 

I am in a very similar situation to you, OP. I have an NP5796 w/ 9800m GT purchased in July '08 which has run fine apart from a couple of rare overheat shutdowns (causes known and dealt with via dusting & minor CPU undervolting).

A few months back I had that "“The display driver has crashed, but recovered...” error twice while playing Eve Online after a new patch for that game. It disappeared after the game was subsequently re-patched by the devs, so I assumed it was a software-related once off.

Last night, though, it came back with a vengeance. With freshly de-dusted innards, working fans and temps well within ordinary levels (considering I've played GTA4 for hours on end with no problems in the past), I got in game artifacting followed by the 'crashed, but recovered' crash-to-desktop within minutes of starting up GTA4 and TF2. A further attempt gave me artifacts which lasted out of game, but which went away on reboot. I assumed a recurrence of the mysterious glitch from months ago and left it alone for the night.

When I cautiously tried a game this morning I got artifacts which lasted on POST even after a reboot - I booted to safe mode and cleaned/updated drivers, which cleared the artifacts away and gave me hope that I had resolved the problem. I booted and ran a brief gaming test - once again, within minutes, long before overheating should have been a problem, I got artifacts and the screen blacking out as if Timeout Detection Recovery was trying to restart the display. It didn't happen, however, and this time the artifacts are here to stay - immediately after powering on, regardless of how many times I switch drivers back and forth.

Furthermore, if I try to start windows normally with any kind of drivers installed other than bog standard VGA, I get a blue screen blaming a 116 error: NVLDDMKM.sys timed out. I can get into Windows with my GPU installed as a default VGA device, but then I have artifacts in the form of faint yellow lines and of course anything which requires decent hardware graphics can't run.

To sum up: Sorry to jump in on your thread, OP, but the BSODs and TDR errors are leading me to suspect we have the same if not very similar problems. The sinking feeling I share with you is that my GPU has got cooked somehow, but can anyone offer alternative explanations or a means of being sure? If it is dead, can anyone tell me if it would it be possible to RMA the card without sending in the entire laptop, since I live outside the USA? Finally, if shelling out on another mxm 2.1 III slot card is the only option, can anyone tell me which ones are available, where from, and if there are any good installation walkthroughs online?

 

Laivasse, those symptoms are all eerily similar (exactly the same as me). And something else: It does not seem to matter how old the game is that I am trying to play. I have a lot of older games, like World in Conflict, the Star Trek: Armada series, Freelancer, Freespace 2. All of these games both trip that driver failure, and also suffer from that long freeze lagging when trying to calculate for anything more than the background and one ore two objects (whether or not the object is on screen).

I am with laivasse: I do not want to send the computer away for service, as I prefer to fix issues myself. If I can just pop the graphics card and send it back to sager with a "It's broke, need a new one" post-it note on it, I'd really just prefer to do that.