FIXED nvlddmkm gaming/video crash error (Bad RAM).

I wanted to share how I resolved the frustrating nvlddmkm issue many people continue to experience.

TL;DR:
One of two DIMMs (RAM sticks) on my computer was faulty, causing errors in the GPU's ability to consistently access the graphics driver.
Removing the faulty DIMM solved the issue.

The issue:

Many users (myself included) experience a crash while playing games or using graphic-intensive applications.

This can manifest as a black screen, crash to desktop, unresponsive system or sometimes immediate system restart.

In Windows Event Viewer, this can show as a Warning from Source: Display, Event ID 4101:

"Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and successfully recovered."

It also appears in Unreal Engine crash reports as an Unreal Process crash:

"Unreal Engine is exiting due to D3D device being lost".

Issue appears in 3D Mark as a crash during benchmarking, with a benchmarking score of 0 and notification "an error has occurred".

Interestingly, Heaven Benchmark did not encounter this issue.

Attempted fixes:

Many people have posted solutions to this issue, and sometimes they work for some users, but never did for me.

These solutions include:

• Clean Re-install of graphics driver.
• Removal of old drivers using DDU.
• Manually updating every system driver on the computer via Windows Device Manager.
• Automatically updating every system driver on the computer via DriverEasy.
• Changing Timeout Delay Recovery (Tdr) in the system Registry**.
• Ensuring all overclocking is set to default settings.
• Underclocking the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).
• Setting all system power setting to maximum performance.
• Replacing Graphics Processing Unit with new and improved GPU.
• Replacing Power Supply Unit with new and improved PSU.
• Replacing Hard Disk Drive with new and improved Solid State Disk Drive.
• Clean install of Windows.
• Command Prompt diagnosis and file repair via System File Checker command.
• 3x visits to local PC repair shop.
• Checking computer Memory Integrity via Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool.

**I must stress, updating the system Registry can have negative repercussions on system stability if done incorrectly.

The solution that worked:

The Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool didn't find any issues with my RAM, but it got me thinking. If there was a problem with only one of the two DIMMs, could the tool determine this?

From some late-night YouTube watching, I learned that RAM is actually pretty darn important to the system, and also that RAM performance can degrade or even fail over time. Luckily, it's comparatively cheap to replace relative to the other computer components.

I removed one of the two DIMMs, and found the computer wouldn't boot when powered on.

• Swapping the DIMMs resulted in a successful power-on and boot to Windows.
• Running off one DIMM, I was able to successfully run application without the nvlddmkm crash.
• Running off one DIMM was stable, albeit with performance limitations due to only 4GB RAM being available.
• Re-inserting the faulty DIMM caused nvlddmkm errors to return.

I bought two new DIMMs to replace the old RAM, and hey-presto, 3-years of nvlddmkm problems were now resolved, and has never re-occurred 6-months later.

Summary:

If you are experiencing nvlddmkm error crashes, driver updates/software solutions may work for you.

If not, you may have faulty hardware, and this could be the RAM, like I experienced.

Test your RAM by removing one of your two DIMMs, and then swapping them and testing again.

Luckily, RAM one of the easiest and most affordable components to replace.

Hope this helps.

Ben.