Computer Crashes / Freezes - NVLDDMKM.sys

[Greatham]

Hello, hope someone can help me with this one. Basically I have been getting a lot crashing while playing computer games, these is so far only proven on steam games.

Originally I was getting the NVLDDMKM error message with a blue screen, I followed the known fix to replace the file in the Nvidea folder but the only thing that sorted was stopped the blue screens, instead of the blue screen I now have one of 3 different issues,
1. either the game window will go black,
2. the whole PC will completely freeze and I cannot do anything - No keyboard or mouse commands will work,
3. The game freezes and i get the error message saying my graphics card has stopped responding and windows has recovered the problem - game either continues eventually or completely crashes out.

I have tried a number of suggested fixes, I have a feeling its all to do with the "NVLDDMKM" error am getting but I am unsure if it is possibly another issue because i have swapped my graphics card with one of my friends - although my friend might have had issues with this card before.

PC Specs

OS: Windows 7
Processor: AMD Phenom(TM) II X4 965 Processor 3.40GHz
Ram: 8 GB
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA 890GPA UD3H
Current Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTS 250
Old Graphics card (Downgraded to see if it made a difference): GeForce GTX 285 Black Edition
SSD As boot Drive
HDD for holding Games (2 HDD's in total)
Case: Antec Nine Hundred
PSU: Corsair 650W
Disk Trays 3 (1 Blue ray, 2 DVD RW)

This issue mainly started happening after I upgraded my computer to an SSD, I clean installed windows 7 and all my drivers onto the SSD and games onto SSD i then started having issues, so I wiped my SSD again, reinstalled all my drivers, and installed my computer games on a different HDD to see if that will make any difference which it did not.

I was originally using my GeForce GTX 285 when I started getting these issues, it was happening fairly frequently, I then borrowed my friends Graphics Card which is a Nvidia GeForce GTS 250, the issues still happen but not as much, (I will be swapping the cards back soon to see if it happens more or less again soon) I am fairly sure my friend occasionally got the "Graphics card not responding and windows has recovered from this issue" error message

I had a thought it might be my power usage which using a website estimated my max usage to be around 550w which put me off that idea, although I could be wrong or put something in incorrectly.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[sam80jr]

completely remove your current driver with a utility like DDU, or use a system restore to an earlier point to ensure no traces of the current driver are left. Then do a clean install of the newest driver 344.16 (if thats the one your using, then downgrade to the driver before 344.11 - since .11 and .16 use the same base files you will have the same issue with both).

This is a common problem with the latest revision of drivers for some reason. With some ppl, like me, the last batch of drivers (the 340.76 or whatever) was the culprit, and i had to wait for 344.16. But with other ppl, 344.11 and .16 are the issue and they had to rollback to 340.76 or eariler - try 340.53 if this sounds like you.

 

[sam80jr]

just keep rolling back drivers till you get one that works, but remember to COMPLETELY remove the current driver, dont just do a windows control panel uninstall. Its def a driver issue, not hardware so dont worry. THis a known issue that I and many, many others have faced. Its all over the forums from here to steams game forums and nvidia is well aware.

 

[Greatham]

Thanks Sam80jr
Have tried this and so far so good will keep fingers crossed on this.
If that is the issue am gonna be annoyed tbh.... something I shoulda tried.....

 

[Greatham]

Sadly this does not seem to be going well for me, I used the DDU Utility as recommended I have then installed each of graphics card software but this issue seems to keep happening, Granted with different software drivers it seems to be happening at different times, for example the GeForce 340.43 BETA lasted about 2 hours. where the 335.23 driver lasted like.. 20 mins...

I have been using official website for downloading the drivers and so far I have tested the WHQL

Using Currently- Geforce 340.43 BETA
GeForce 337.88
GeForce 335.23
Geforce 334.89
Geforce 332.21 Driver WHQL
Geforce R331 Game Ready Driver WHQL

From what I know the Beta Drivers are pretty unreliable, should i still go through and test these as well?

Thanks again

 

[sam80jr]

so you've tried all those drivers with 2 different video cards and you're still getting the same issue?

 

[Greatham]

Sorry no, I have gone through all of the WHQL drivers for the 285 card, not gone through them for the lower end card yet.
Currently running a 327.23 driver i found on a different website, so far so good!

 

[JohnSeers]

Hi Greatham
I had similar problems to yours. And they seemed to be getting more frequent to the point I was thinking perhaps I needed to buy a new video card. Instead I tried taking the covers off my PC, removing the dust from the fans and components, pressing in the connectors and the memory cards and reseating the video card. I do not know which action actually fixed the problem but I would bet on reseating the video card. I suspect one of the contacts was not very good and caused the occasional timeout failure.
I hope this might help if you still have the problem.
JS