kosmaaa

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Mar 20, 2019
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Hello. Today while using my PC I've been noticing artifacts(certain UI elements in my browser and/or steam were glitching out) and my monitors flashing black. I've decided to reinstall my drivers via geforce experience leading to my second monitor not being detected. I booted into safe mode and uninstalled with DDU, installed new drivers and the real problems started happening. My PC wouldn't show any display whatsoever, no post, no Windows, no nothing despite being on, it would only show display while in safe mode. Couple of driver reinstalls later it somehow managed to fix (or break) itself enough to be able to boot into windows without safe mode. The real issue left was that installing nvidia drivers would either cause a black screen or nvidia wouldn't even detect the drivers being present as it gave me the option to download them through geforce experience. I looked at the event viewer and it seems that nvlddmkm is unable to start or something of the sorts. After looking for guides turns out that such file doesn't even exist on my PC despite installing standard and DHC drivers. I'm unsure what to do now as I'm not keen on reinstalling Windows as I don't have any place to backup all of my files.

I'm certain this is either a driver conflict or nvidia drivers being corrupt by something. Nothing with my hardware is wrong as I've never had any issues up until yesterday evening even though I haven't made any changes in months.

TLDR: nvidia drivers cause black screen for some reason, thing called nvlddmkm is causing errors in event viewer, geforce thinks i havent installed drivers, sfc & dcim don't fix anything, hardware is not to blame (i think)

SPECS:
motherboard: gigabyte aorus elite b450 (bios version: f63)
CPU: AMD RYZEN 5 2600
GPU: MSI RTX 3070 VENTUS 3X (undervolted to about 1650 mhz, but i don't think that makes a difference anymore since msi afterburner doesnt detect the gpu anymore and i uninstalled it just in case)
RAM: 2X16GB ADATA GAMMIX D10 3200MHZ
PSU: be quiet! Pure Power 11 FM 850W

Any help will be appreciated. I'm more than willing to provide more info if needed.
 

kosmaaa

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Mar 20, 2019
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Update: I've tried disabling Windows from installing drivers with DDU, installing NVIDIA drivers(both DCH and standard) with no internet access and windows defender turned off, Device manager shows error 43 on the display adapter and upon disabling and enabling it the screen turns black. I'll try checking my BIOS settings if something is off even though it shouldn't as I've set them to default and removed the CMOS battery.
 

kosmaaa

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Mar 20, 2019
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Update: it fixed itself???? I have genuinely no clue what I did to absolutely fix it but to anyone who has this problem in the future and is reading this thread:
Try updating your motherboard bios
Try using the error 43 fixer as sketch as it sounds
Disable Windows downloading drivers with Windows update via gpedit.msc in Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates>Windows Components>Windows Update>Do not include drivers with Windows Updates

I'm unsure as to which of these fixed it as I haven't tried installing drivers after each individual step but rather after I did all of them. Good luck to anyone else dealing with this.
 

kosmaaa

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Mar 20, 2019
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Thank you for your help but I've already tried that. Same issue persisted. Error 43 in Device Manager and while installing drivers it'd either black screen or nothing would happen. I'll be trying a different PC and seeing how that ends up. Maybe it is time for me to completely format my PC as it's been running without a proper format for 9 years. I just really hope it's either a RAM issue or a PSU issue.