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.

I'm hoping you are still following this thread, I have a question as I'm testing my RAM atm did you run any OC on the ram or try XMP to see if that made any differnce, I only ask as a passing thought on if the issue was down to timings rather than just bad ram.

Very strange so I just recently or thought it was recently that I started having this issue it seems that it started right when I got the graphics card which just happens to be the exact same model of graphics card that you're using and ASUS rog stricks 4090. So when I look at my event log it begins in August of this year which was when I got the graphics card, and I see it error everyday sometimes multiple times a day and then more recently getting progressively worse. I believe this manifested as flickering on my screen which I thought was due to my DisplayPort cable possibly going bad so I've actually ordered another DisplayPort cable. I decided to check the logs after I noticed that this time my computer rebooted itself, which has happened another time before as well, and I saw the exact same model run time error that everybody else is writing about here... And that's what led me to your post. Apparently the error that we're discussing here can actually be caused by many different factors so it doesn't just come from one thing like memory sticks, there are many other things that can cause it as well. Going through some other event logs I found that there were some errors for this program NVtopps and some attempts to delete a sys user copy of nvcontainer that had failed. It looks like my GPU may have been looking for a power table and been unable to find one. Don't know if you noticed anything like that? I'm wondering if it has to do with either our model of graphics card or perhaps something that changed with Windows or nvidia's display drivers. Or perhaps even needing to reflash the Vbios of the GPU...

Im getting the same problem when i play call of duty crashing or not launching, or trying to play lethal company, im am leaning towards the RAM issue as my ram is RGB it likes changing its own colour or become unresponsive on the ICUE software i have sometimes forced fireware update on my RAM. i have run DDU as i have gone from amd graphices card amd (5700XT) and coming to a GIGABYTE 4070 oc edition never had issues with AMD but nvidia was home to me now im getting black screen flickering and freezing and crash reports. these are separate crash reports copied from EVENT VIEWER in no order. my pc Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10850K CPU @ 3.60GHz 3.60 GHz 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable) GIGABYTE 4070 oc edition my PSU is an old CORSAIR GAME SERIES 800 watt. A caller specified the SDC_FORCE_MODE_ENUMERATION flag in a call to the SetDisplayConfig() API. ---- new report The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID {2593F8B9-4EAF-457C-B68A-50F6B8EA6B54} and APPID {15C20B67-12E7-4BB6-92BB-7AFF07997402} to the user HOME-GAMING\josh2 SID (S-1-5-21-1099033127-1714940762-3984604361-1001) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC) running in the application container Unavailable SID (Unavailable). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool. ----- new report Fault bucket , type 0 Event Name: LiveKernelEvent Response: Not available Cab Id: 0 Problem signature: P1: 141 P2: ffffc38dde7ce050 P3: fffff805bf4f5390 P4: 0 P5: 7c04 P6: 10_0_19045 P7: 0_0 P8: 768_1 P9: P10: Attached files: \?\C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports\WATCHDOG\WATCHDOG-20231203-2120.dmp \?\C:\Windows\TEMP\WER-2793109-0.sysdata.xml \?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERB181.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml \?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERB1C0.tmp.xml \?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERB1BF.tmp.csv \?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERB1EF.tmp.txt These files may be available here: \?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\Kernel_141_92599782ee4ec5b58da92770857d552be8244f4_00000000_cab_405bffbe-845a-4cae-9398-26c89706e750 Analysis symbol: Rechecking for solution: 0 Report Id: 405bffbe-845a-4cae-9398-26c89706e750 Report Status: 2049 Hashed bucket: Cab Guid: 0

I'm having the same issues since November 2023, after the Nvidia driver update. I've tried everything, to the extend of building the PC from scratch and a fresh install of Win 11. It's so weird. It's so frustrating.

For the people still searching for a solution without replacing ram, try to disable Resize BAR or "above 4G decoding" in BIOS. It might be worth a try because so far it solved my issue which sounded similar. I was running into this issue when testing my system with MemTest64 for stability after adding an unmatching pair of RAM in my system. Once started my screen started to blackscreen at random which recovered after the GPU driver restarted by itself. Once i disabled ReBAR the memory tests have been successful and my system runs stable again. Specs: CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700x GPU: ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4080 MB: ASUS X370 Crosshair VI Hero RAM Pair 1: 2x 8GB Corsair Vengeance RGB RAM Pair 2: 2x 8GB Crucial Ballistix RAM running at DDR4-3200MHz with 16-17-17-35-75 timings

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

Anonymous

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.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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41 answers

Anonymous

2023-11-20T18:10:46+00:00

I'm hoping you are still following this thread, I have a question as I'm testing my RAM atm did you run any OC on the ram or try XMP to see if that made any differnce, I only ask as a passing thought on if the issue was down to timings rather than just bad ram.
Was this answer helpful?

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Anonymous

2023-12-03T08:31:56+00:00

Very strange so I just recently or thought it was recently that I started having this issue it seems that it started right when I got the graphics card which just happens to be the exact same model of graphics card that you're using and ASUS rog stricks 4090. So when I look at my event log it begins in August of this year which was when I got the graphics card, and I see it error everyday sometimes multiple times a day and then more recently getting progressively worse. I believe this manifested as flickering on my screen which I thought was due to my DisplayPort cable possibly going bad so I've actually ordered another DisplayPort cable. I decided to check the logs after I noticed that this time my computer rebooted itself, which has happened another time before as well, and I saw the exact same model run time error that everybody else is writing about here... And that's what led me to your post.

Apparently the error that we're discussing here can actually be caused by many different factors so it doesn't just come from one thing like memory sticks, there are many other things that can cause it as well. Going through some other event logs I found that there were some errors for this program NVtopps and some attempts to delete a sys user copy of nvcontainer that had failed. It looks like my GPU may have been looking for a power table and been unable to find one. Don't know if you noticed anything like that? I'm wondering if it has to do with either our model of graphics card or perhaps something that changed with Windows or nvidia's display drivers. Or perhaps even needing to reflash the Vbios of the GPU...
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Anonymous

2023-12-03T22:36:15+00:00

Im getting the same problem when i play call of duty crashing or not launching, or trying to play lethal company, im am leaning towards the RAM issue as my ram is RGB it likes changing its own colour or become unresponsive on the ICUE software i have sometimes forced fireware update on my RAM. i have run DDU as i have gone from amd graphices card amd (5700XT) and coming to a GIGABYTE 4070 oc edition never had issues with AMD but nvidia was home to me now im getting black screen flickering and freezing and crash reports. these are separate crash reports copied from EVENT VIEWER in no order.

my pc

Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10850K CPU @ 3.60GHz 3.60 GHz

16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)

GIGABYTE 4070 oc edition

my PSU is an old CORSAIR GAME SERIES 800 watt.

A caller specified the SDC_FORCE_MODE_ENUMERATION flag in a call to the SetDisplayConfig() API.

---- new report

The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID

{2593F8B9-4EAF-457C-B68A-50F6B8EA6B54}

and APPID

{15C20B67-12E7-4BB6-92BB-7AFF07997402}

to the user HOME-GAMING\josh2 SID (S-1-5-21-1099033127-1714940762-3984604361-1001) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC) running in the application container Unavailable SID (Unavailable). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.

----- new report

Fault bucket , type 0

Event Name: LiveKernelEvent

Response: Not available

Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:

P1: 141

P2: ffffc38dde7ce050

P3: fffff805bf4f5390

P4: 0

P5: 7c04

P6: 10_0_19045

P7: 0_0

P8: 768_1

P9:

P10:

Attached files:

\?\C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports\WATCHDOG\WATCHDOG-20231203-2120.dmp

\?\C:\Windows\TEMP\WER-2793109-0.sysdata.xml

\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERB181.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml

\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERB1C0.tmp.xml

\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERB1BF.tmp.csv

\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERB1EF.tmp.txt

These files may be available here:

\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\Kernel_141_92599782ee4ec5b58da92770857d552be8244f4_00000000_cab_405bffbe-845a-4cae-9398-26c89706e750

Analysis symbol:

Rechecking for solution: 0

Report Id: 405bffbe-845a-4cae-9398-26c89706e750

Report Status: 2049

Hashed bucket:

Cab Guid: 0
Was this answer helpful?

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Anonymous

2023-12-12T09:25:11+00:00

I'm having the same issues since November 2023, after the Nvidia driver update.

I've tried everything, to the extend of building the PC from scratch and a fresh install of Win 11.

It's so weird. It's so frustrating.
Was this answer helpful?

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Anonymous

2024-01-14T00:09:41+00:00
For the people still searching for a solution without replacing ram, try to disable Resize BAR or "above 4G decoding" in BIOS. It might be worth a try because so far it solved my issue which sounded similar.

I was running into this issue when testing my system with MemTest64 for stability after adding an unmatching pair of RAM in my system. Once started my screen started to blackscreen at random which recovered after the GPU driver restarted by itself. Once i disabled ReBAR the memory tests have been successful and my system runs stable again.

Specs:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700x
- GPU: ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4080
- MB: ASUS X370 Crosshair VI Hero
- RAM Pair 1: 2x 8GB Corsair Vengeance RGB
- RAM Pair 2: 2x 8GB Crucial Ballistix
RAM running at DDR4-3200MHz with 16-17-17-35-75 timings
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