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.

Glad your issue was fixed. B550-a pro motherboard Corsair vengeance 2x16 3600mhz ddr4 ram MSI rtx 3080 Ryzen 5600x My first issue was games just started crashing. PC was working fine for months. First thing I did was upgrade to Windows 11, but the issue persisted. I then checked the temps/utilization of the CPU and GPU. Everything seemed normal, but GPU was at 100% utilization and 100% vram usage. I turned down settings and it didn't stop the crash. So I wiped the graphics drivers using DDU, updated the driver, ran stress tests and they didn't have an issue, but the games I played still had this issue. I reseated the GPU, found it was noticably hot, and the issue persisted. I lowered graphics even further and the issue persisted. I checked Event Viewer>Windows Logs>System and found this error code, nvlddmkm. I searched it in Google and found this post. Someone said it had to do with RAM so I swapped to 1 slot of ram that I know works, and the issue persisted. I checked all ram slots with the 1 stick of ram and the issue persisted. I reduced ram frequency to 2400mhz and the issue persisted. Then I found a post telling me to disable the BIOS setting named "resizable bar support." I did that and also used MSI afterburner to make my GPU run stock again and limit itself to 99% usage instead of 100%. It fixed it for now. I'm assuming the fixes posted here were different per person because the "resizable bar support" requires both a compatible GPU and RAM, which is why replacing RAM worked for some and replacing the GPU worked for others. But seemingly it isn't exactly necessary since this setting was forcing the GPU and RAM to be compatible in a way that turning it off doesn't necessitate. I did a BIOS flash and chipset update after fixing the issue, made sure this setting was still disabled, and it's still running like it should, all well and dandy. Hope this helps and I hope this issue doesn't reappear. If anyone else finds any other fixes other than replacing parts I'd sure appreciate you posting it here in case the issue reappears, since many here are finding that replacing hardware doesn't exactly solve the issue. Thanks.

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

2025-01-11T22:17:04+00:00

Glad your issue was fixed.

B550-a pro motherboard

Corsair vengeance 2x16 3600mhz ddr4 ram

MSI rtx 3080

Ryzen 5600x

My first issue was games just started crashing. PC was working fine for months. First thing I did was upgrade to Windows 11, but the issue persisted. I then checked the temps/utilization of the CPU and GPU. Everything seemed normal, but GPU was at 100% utilization and 100% vram usage. I turned down settings and it didn't stop the crash. So I wiped the graphics drivers using DDU, updated the driver, ran stress tests and they didn't have an issue, but the games I played still had this issue. I reseated the GPU, found it was noticably hot, and the issue persisted. I lowered graphics even further and the issue persisted. I checked Event Viewer>Windows Logs>System and found this error code, nvlddmkm. I searched it in Google and found this post. Someone said it had to do with RAM so I swapped to 1 slot of ram that I know works, and the issue persisted. I checked all ram slots with the 1 stick of ram and the issue persisted. I reduced ram frequency to 2400mhz and the issue persisted. Then I found a post telling me to disable the BIOS setting named "resizable bar support." I did that and also used MSI afterburner to make my GPU run stock again and limit itself to 99% usage instead of 100%. It fixed it for now.

I'm assuming the fixes posted here were different per person because the "resizable bar support" requires both a compatible GPU and RAM, which is why replacing RAM worked for some and replacing the GPU worked for others. But seemingly it isn't exactly necessary since this setting was forcing the GPU and RAM to be compatible in a way that turning it off doesn't necessitate. I did a BIOS flash and chipset update after fixing the issue, made sure this setting was still disabled, and it's still running like it should, all well and dandy. Hope this helps and I hope this issue doesn't reappear. If anyone else finds any other fixes other than replacing parts I'd sure appreciate you posting it here in case the issue reappears, since many here are finding that replacing hardware doesn't exactly solve the issue. Thanks.
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