[SOLVED] nvlddmkm.sys/video TDR failure BSOD whenever i attempt to go through windows login on windows startup

[zeus9860]

Howdy, once again i come here in need of assistance on something i have been trying to solve all day long but problem doesn't go away.

Long story before i got this problem:
-Decided to update Razer Synapse 3 about 2-3 days ago before going to sleep, on the next day (2nd february), my pc was having booting issues, it would randomly lockup/freeze during boot sequence untill i removed Synapse and unplugged all usb ports during startup but it would occasionally freeze/lockup randomly after plugging in things in the desktop.
-Managed to make the pc run for that entire day after replacing my mouse with an alternative temporarly and plugged back in the old one, computer ran fine...
-On the 3rd February, same problem popped up but it was slightly more aggressive than before to the point i could not get into desktop anymore, not even in safe mode. So i went ahead and did a repair and removed all apps (partial windows install), after doing this, i started getting BSOD with nvlddmkm.sys error, pc works in safe mode now and occasionally would allow me to boot normally after restarting from safe mode, i ended up trying a few things i googled, nothing worked.
-Decided to go a step further into the problem and make a completely clean installation for windows 10, after 2-3 hours waiting, the damn issue persists. As soon as i finish windows setup after installation, i get a BSOD as it attempts to bring me into the login screen. Now, whenever i get into the login screen and attempt to login, i get a BSOD with the same error. Safe mode is still working, i'm making this topic through safe mode with online connection on.

Some of the things i have tried so far to fix the BSOD problem but did not work:
-2 OS installations (partial one that removed apps and reset windows and a clean one that should have fixed the problem but did not);
-windows updates;
-remove drivers via device manager and update manually 3 times with latest drivers;
-having nothing plugged in but displayport/power cable and internet cable;

I did some other things before the BSOD, unplugged my desktop and removed some of the dust from the computer, it's not 100% clean but, i would say it's around 20% dusty, with most of the dust being on the case or fans (basically gpu/cooler/ram is mostly clean). Highly doubt the issue is related to overheating because these issues occurred instantly on first windows boot of the day. And i managed to run my pc for an entire days before getting the BSOD issues (these popped up after doing the partial windows 10 install, where i kept my personal files, but removed apps and reset windows 10 configs, etc).

One last thing to mention, i have noticed that i have 2 nvlddmkm.sys files.
One is from 21/10/2021 and the other is from 28/01/2022 (noticed this when the BSOD occurred, i searched for the file and found two, device manager was saying the driver being used was from 21/10/2021 when i did the clean driver install for the gpu, but after doing the clean windows installation, it now states the 28/01/2022 is now being used), some guides mention that the file should be found under system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys but in my case, both files are under system32\driverstore\filerepository\nv_dispig.inf_amd64_31a2adf8c49e7799\nvlddmkm.sys

and the other one on a similar path, with only difference being the nv_dispig part having a different set of numbers and letters. This makes me wonder if this is the main issue with the BSOD, there being two exact files with different dates... This makes me even question if i did any clean installation for the nvidia drivers and windows 10 at all. I mean, if it was clean, shouldn't all files be wiped and created again with different dates? I assume this is either a conflict of sorts with system files when they load up or file corruption, but windows fresh installation did not fix the problem...

I'm going to try and update drivers again and see if i can get somewhere with this, but i have no hopes on this solution.

Does anyone know what could possibly be happening? Is it normal to have 2 nvlddmkm.sys files with different dates?

 

[Colif]

I would try running ddu in safe mode and reinstall new Nvidia drivers

How To - How to perform a CLEAN install of your video card drivers.

Updated 9-19-19 How to do a CLEAN install of your graphics card drivers using the Wagnard tools Display Driver Uninstaller A major issue on many systems is the presence of multiple graphics card drivers or drivers that have been incompletely uninstalled followed by the installation of...

forums.tomshardware.com

its normal to have 2 copies of the driver as the Nvidia installer keeps the old ones even after they are replaced.

 

[Colif]

what are specs of the PC?

Can you follow option one on the following link - here - and then do this step below: Small memory dumps - Have Windows Create a Small Memory Dump (Minidump) on BSOD - that creates a file in c windows/minidump after the next BSOD

1. Open Windows File Explore
   
2. Navigate to C:\Windows\Minidump
   
3. Copy the mini-dump files out onto your Desktop
   
4. Do not use Winzip, use the built in facility in Windows
   
5. Select those files on your Desktop, right click them and choose 'Send to' - Compressed (zipped) folder
   
6. Upload the zip file to the Cloud (OneDrive, DropBox . . . etc.)
   
7. Then post a link here to the zip file, so we can take a look for you . . .
   

synapse is a pain. were you getting bsod before you updated it?

 

[zeus9860]

what are specs of the PC?

Can you follow option one on the following link - here - and then do this step below: Small memory dumps - Have Windows Create a Small Memory Dump (Minidump) on BSOD - that creates a file in c windows/minidump after the next BSOD

1. Open Windows File Explore
2. Navigate to C:\Windows\Minidump
3. Copy the mini-dump files out onto your Desktop
4. Do not use Winzip, use the built in facility in Windows
5. Select those files on your Desktop, right click them and choose 'Send to' - Compressed (zipped) folder
6. Upload the zip file to the Cloud (OneDrive, DropBox . . . etc.)
7. Then post a link here to the zip file, so we can take a look for you . . .

synapse is a pain. were you getting bsod before you updated it?

Specs:
-1080ti asus rog strix
-i7 3770k stock
-16gb ram ddr3 1600mhz (4x4)
-asrock z77 xtreme6
-240gb kingstone ssd (main drive with OS and usually some important apps, mostly empty atm)
-1tb western digital HDD (games, random files, less important apps, currently empty)


Yeah, Synapse is bad... I had my razer keyboard plugged in both times i installed W10, both times during the blue screen install process, razer synapse installer popped up over the windows install process and i had to cancel/close it manually, not even sure if this was a windows thing, since it likes to fetch drivers when you are plugged into the internet. I just find it weird the razer synapse installer to pop up on top of the windows installer.

I've been messing around with DDU after posting here, what i managed to pinpoint, more or less, is that, the computer boots just fine only once, if i use DDU to clean and restart instantly, if i restart again or shut down and power on again, problem returns. But this process is a temporary fix as the pc eventually restarts randomly sometime later (like 10 minutes or so) if i install drivers or W10 automatically installs drivers. I have to go back to safe mode to make it work... Another thing i managed to pinpoint is that, the problem is derived from nvidia drivers. If i use DDU to remove drivers and then remain offline and restart pc, it works fine. The moment i install drivers or W10 fetches drivers if i am online, the computer will eventually restart after those get installed one way or another.

Tried updating W10 and using nvidia drivers from august 2021, same issue.

As for the minidump files you requested, i've uploaded them using wetransfer, hope that is fine with you, i'm not familiarised with one drive to upload things publicly since i avoid it like the plague and i can't install drop box (i assume because safe mode, it gives me installation error at the end). Since i've used wetransfer to send projects in the past, i consider it safe in my book, only downside is that the link stays active for 7 days. Anyways, the minidump zip: https://we.tl/t-htGNo2jciz

I'm going to sleep, kinda frustrated and tired of doing this all day/night. Hopefully can get some extra tips later, one thing i have to try is replacing the GPU, like using another PCIE slot or simply resitting the gpu or resit the bios battery even. I've had this same BSOD error in early november and i think i fixed it by moving the GPU to a different PCIE... I took a photo of the same BSOD back then with my phone and i either did that to fix it, or it was a temporary BSOD issue.

 

[vladakv]

I had that problem too on my previous configuration i7 3770k, 4xgGb ddr3 1600MHz, Gigabyte Aorus 1080 Ti and every time I played some game I got game crash with this error nvlddmkm.sys/video TDR. Tried everything and after rma that card, everything worked fine with another one - Gaming X Trio 1080 ti.

 

[zeus9860]

Update: Removed CMOS battery, gpu and ram. Removed small particles of dust on top of the mobo. Put everything back in where they were just like before, booted, got that CMOS boot date warning per usual. Everything working fine atm.

I've been outside of safe mode for 60 minutes thus far, rebooted once to make sure the BSOD was gone on windows login attempt. Seems to be gone.

I assume the GPU somehow needed me to resit it on the slot. So this might be an issue with the motherboard itself or perhaps GPU sag causing connection issues with mobo? I mean the gpu is massive and somewhat heavy, and whenever i resit the GPU when i have any sort of memory issues, it seems to go away temporarily for a while. I just have no clue why it started doing this right after doing the synapse update. But the first time i used synapse, it was causing issues aswell like bad game performance and randomly locking up my pc if the app was running in the background.

@Colif

If you can take a look at the dump files and see something that could help me, i would mark your answer as correct (i would do it myself but i have no clue on how read those even, could google, but can't be arsed anymore, been too long trying to fix these problems and i really want to play Dying Light 2 that launched today). Despite me finding a solution, this is temporarily because this is not the first time i had to do this to get BSOD gone from my system, but it was the first time getting BSOD 100% on windows login screen. Previously i would get them randomly during gaming or watching youtube for example. This stuff seems to happen like once or twice a year, sometimes it goes away.

This rig is from 2012, i've had BSOD issues with my gtx 670 using W7, fixed the problem after 2-3 years (rarelly used the pc for gaming at the time as i was gaming on consoles). So when i picked up my pc to game again, i started exploring guides and managed to fix the issues with the 670. It was simply faulty drivers, so a clean install fixed the problem back then. Then i bought the 1080ti first week of release March 2017 and used it on W7 untill like early summer 2019, a bit over 2 years, without any BSOD issues. I moved to W10 after the pc gamepass announcement and well... since then, i've had alot of random issues with my pc. Perhaps most of those issues was from upgrading from W7 to W10 directly, so this fresh install might have fixed alot of problems i had before.

Since i have a clean install... i'm going to attempt and focus this just for gaming/browsing and monitoring apps, no more synapse or any other similar third party app for me.

 

[zeus9860]

I had that problem too on my previous configuration i7 3770k, 4xgGb ddr3 1600MHz, Gigabyte Aorus 1080 Ti and every time I played some game I got game crash with this error nvlddmkm.sys/video TDR. Tried everything and after rma that card, everything worked fine with another one - Gaming X Trio 1080 ti.

I've had people tell me that before, but i honestly think, the issue is not the GPU, but the motherboard instead. GPU is heavy and that might be the reason why i need to reslot the GPU once or twice per year to fix problems... I have to see if i can find a support for GPU, to help avoid sag and/or keep the GPU nearly even. This might help avoid the problem later on, i hope.

 

[Karadjgne]

The issue is that driver for some reason has a hard time recognizing the gpu. For the most part windows drivers are used when not gaming, you are using 2D drivers. It's when gaming, the nvidia drivers, DX9/11/12 3D drivers are accessed that driver can have glitches.

It's recommended to use DDU through safe mode to delete the old drivers. Part of that is DDU deletes the registry entries where windows delete does not. It's those registry entries that are the source of the confusion, pointing at the 2020 driver when others are referring to the 2021.

Reseating the card can help if there's a pin or oxydation issue, and can help Jumpstart the pc, forcing new driver acquisition and recognition.

Resetting bios can have the same affect, forcing allocation of drivers on boot/reset.

 

[zeus9860]

Okay, got some bad news...

PC worked for 3 hours. Was installing some game launchers and chatting through discord while downloading some games. All of a sudden I started hearing crackling noises from my monitor, I quickly unplug everything from the monitor, even the main plug, waited 15 minutes and plugged stuff back in, the noises returned instantly but my PC instantly shut down and is on a never ending cycle of booting and restarting instantly. I had this issue last year, removing the CMOS battery would fix the issue for sometime but ended up taking the PC to a technician and he said faulty power supply so I got a new one and this issue never happened again untill today. I'm starting to wonder if the old power supply was really faulty.

The thing is, I removed CMOS battery two times already and put the GPU on the top PCIe slot, the old one, and tried using HDMI instead of display port but the computer doesn't boot properly. It keeps restarting every 3 seconds or so.

Edit: during the crackling noise, there was no artifacts, the image was frozen though and PC was still running, not sure if working properly. I'm posting from mobile now since I can't get this thing to work. I'm going to remove the GPU and see if it boots.

 

[Karadjgne]

What replacement new psu did you get?

 

[zeus9860]

What replacement new psu did you get?

The guy from the store recommended an Urano VX 750w. The previous one I had was better than this one.

Removed the GPU and CMOS again, still.no fix. Maybe new CMOS battery?

Edit: Tried a new battery... No fix. Got no clue what to do anymore. ☹️

 

[Karadjgne]

Nox doesn't exactly have 'good' psus. While it says all the right things, even says it has every kind of protection, I don't believe it for a minute. Its a CWT 750w supposed platform, yet only has 2x 6+2pin pcie outputs and afaik it is Not certified by 80+. The Corsair Cx550 has 2x 6+2pin pcie. A good quality 750w will have 4x 6+2pin, not 2x. Nox knows for certain that that psu will never see 750w output (744w claimed 12v), ever. Most likely it should have been rated at 550w at best. Or less.

Consider this, a 6+2pin is capable of 150w @ 12v. You have 2x. That's a 300w max load at 12v from a psu that's supposedly 744w output. I've never seen a cpu and motherboard draw the 444w remaining. Even a xx900K with OC has a hard time with 250w.

In a word, junk with a fancy name and paint job and stats not worth the print on the side panel.

I'd not be blaming the gpu, or other components, I'd be looking hard at the psu as the Prime candidate for all your issues.

 

[zeus9860]

Nox doesn't exactly have 'good' psus. While it says all the right things, even says it has every kind of protection, I don't believe it for a minute. Its a CWT 750w supposed platform, yet only has 2x 6+2pin pcie outputs and afaik it is Not certified by 80+. The Corsair Cx550 has 2x 6+2pin pcie. A good quality 750w will have 4x 6+2pin, not 2x. Nox knows for certain that that psu will never see 750w output (744w claimed 12v), ever. Most likely it should have been rated at 550w at best. Or less.

Consider this, a 6+2pin is capable of 150w @ 12v. You have 2x. That's a 300w max load at 12v from a psu that's supposedly 744w output. I've never seen a cpu and motherboard draw the 444w remaining. Even a xx900K with OC has a hard time with 250w.

In a word, junk with a fancy name and paint job and stats not worth the print on the side panel.

I'd not be blaming the gpu, or other components, I'd be looking hard at the psu as the Prime candidate for all your issues.

I see, but this last issue occured last year with my previous power supply. But with the other power supply I could manage to temporarily fix the problem by removing the CMOS battery and putting it back in. With this power supply, doing the same trick isn't fixing the restart spam my PC is doing now.

I decided to unplug all 3 drives, USB ports and hd audio port from the Mobo, removed all 4 ram sticks, put 2 back in. Powered on the PC with only power cable and HDMI plugged.into Mobo to try and test if CPU or Mobo was acting up. Computer was running for about 2 to 3 times the time from before without restarting but also no display but it ended up shutting down electricity for the entire house. Then I noticed I messed up the ram sticks positions and ended up putting all 4 in, I have no clue what I am doing anymore, just trying stuff I see from other people with similar problems but I don't want to risk unplugging everything and then having no clue what to do if things get even worst.

But this power outage shortly after powering on the computer, idk man. Guess it could be the power supply after all I just don't understand how this issue happened with the previous power supply, which had a higher classification and rank along with 800w, that I had bought in 2012 as future proof for upgrades. It was one of the better supplies back then. I don't remember the name of the supply sadly. But the same issue happening in two different units in like a year?

Guess I have to take the PC in for repairs again and this time request that the PC gets dismantled completely and put back on, piece by piece to try and pinpoint the problem 😐

Edit: the previous power supply was a strike-x 800w silver rating and 80+

 

[zeus9860]

I'm wondering, could this issue be derived from magnetization of the case? I recall googling that before getting the new supply. From what I understood, a PC case that is magnetized can't be fixed, only way is using a new PC case, right? I also brought this up with the guy that sold.me.the new supply back then, one of my bros had the same issue with an older case he had, it became magnetized and only solution for him back then was buying a new one.

 

[Karadjgne]

but it ended up shutting down electricity for the entire house

If that psu has the OCP, OTP, OVP, SC protections is claims it has, then nothing inside the pc will affect anything outside. If the psu itself is the issue or the protections don't work or are set so high they'll never work, then it could affect the room breaker. Seriously doubt a psu can short out hard enough to knock out the entire house grid.

If that happened, I'd be looking at the plugs/breaker for that circuit. Constant use on a heated breaker will force a trip. You've either got too much load on the breaker, loose connection at the panel somewhere or a bad plug somewhere in that circuit starting at that plug and going back to the home run.

 

[zeus9860]

If that psu has the OCP, OTP, OVP, SC protections is claims it has, then nothing inside the pc will affect anything outside. If the psu itself is the issue or the protections don't work or are set so high they'll never work, then it could affect the room breaker. Seriously doubt a psu can short out hard enough to knock out the entire house grid.

If that happened, I'd be looking at the plugs/breaker for that circuit. Constant use on a heated breaker will force a trip. You've either got too much load on the breaker, loose connection at the panel somewhere or a bad plug somewhere in that circuit starting at that plug and going back to the home run.

I'll mark this as best answer, the stuff you said is probably as close as we can get to this last issue. Going to need to take the pc to a technician next week and see what's going on. Pc still restarts nonstop with USBs/hd audio/sata cables off and only plugged in to receive power. Also tried plugging in on 3 didferent spots in the house, problem is the same everywhere.

So it has to be power supply, cpu, mobo or pc case causing the issues.