nvlddmkm Error - Crashing during Gameplay in mostly graphically intense games

[SynicalFox]

Hi All

I've been having an issue for a while with my PC crashing during gameplay where it crashes on mostly graphically demanding titles.
It's not a consistent crashing issue and happens only under instances (mostly when trying to write stuff to memory it seems).
Error: nvlddmkm

I'd like to know if anyone in the Durban area has a GPU I can possibly borrow to test on my current build and see if my GPU may be the culprit.
(See below for steps taken and background info)

Background info:
What I can recall is the issue started after I changed out the following:

1. added 2 Memory modules (2 x 8GB kit)
   1. This kits were not from the same batch
2. Changed motherboard (from previous to current system above)

Steps tried already:

• Tried format and clean install of Windows 11
• Tried DDU to remove GPU driver and clean install of GPU driver
• Removed a kit of RAM and running on 1 kit of 2 x 8GB sticks
  • Tried both my original kit that had no issues
  • Tried the newer kit purchased
• Bios updated to latest version

Error being received:
I've managed to identify the issue using Event Viewer in windows to be nvlddmkm
This seems to point to an issue with the GPU trying to access memory while in game and it takes too long to respond leading to the driver being restarted.
This subsequently crashes the game I'm currently playing.

So far it's become a bit more consistent than it was a couple weeks back and happens more frequently in Forza Horizon 5.
Other games where it Occurred is:

Sea of Thieves​

Grounded​

Horizon Zero Dawn​

Ready or Not​

Games it never happens in:

Insurgency​

Day of Infamy​

Military Conflict Vietnam​

Current System Specs:
Ryzen 7 5700x
2 x 8GB 3200MHz G.Skill F4-3200C16D
MSI B550 Gaming Carbon Wifi
MSI GTX 1070 8GB Quicksilver
Super Flower 850w Leadex III 8 Plus Gold
Sabrent Rocket 512GB PCI-E 3.0
WD Black 6TB
Montech King 95 Pro Case

Previous components:
Gigabyte B550m Aorus Pro
4 x 8GB 3200MHz G.Skill (2 separate kits of 2 x 8GB)
Phanteks P400A

 

[Switch]

Do a bios update if you haven't, disable 4g decoding (and resizable bar) if it is on, switch off xmp settings and use default jedec speeds, and then try again and see if you get any crashes.

 

[AceSwiftShooter]

GeForce experience installed? Uninstall

I had the issue for a long time a while back. Don't remember exactly what caused it but for some reason I think it was driver related and GeForce experience

 

[SynicalFox]

Do a bios update if you haven't, disable 4g decoding (and resizable bar) if it is on, switch off xmp settings and use default jedec speeds, and then try again and see if you get any crashes.

Thanks for the pointers.
Let me try switch off xmp and see if that helps. Haven't done this yet.

Will look at the 4g decoding as a next step and resizeable bar.

GeForce experience installed? Uninstall

I had the issue for a long time a while back. Don't remember exactly what caused it but for some reason I think it was driver related and GeForce experience

I'll uninstall Geforce experience.
I was using it to get the updates. Usually always ticket clean install option when doing updates.
Have since started doing it via DDU in safe mode.

 

[SynicalFox]

Do a bios update if you haven't, disable 4g decoding (and resizable bar) if it is on, switch off xmp settings and use default jedec speeds, and then try again and see if you get any crashes.

Seems to have stopped crashing now since I've switched off XMP profile.

Wonder why it just stopped working properly with XMP enabled 🤔

 

[Switch]

4 x 8GB 3200MHz G.Skill (2 separate kits of 2 x 8GB)

Check if you mixed up the matched pairs when you installed on 2 x 8gb, as in you took 1 stick from pair A and 1 from pair B and ran that as 2 x 8gb. For 4 x 8gb, you should have each pair on the same channel which for your board pair A should be in dimm slot A1+A2 and pair B will be B1+B2. Also when you used only 2 sticks did you only use A2/B2 on the board?

Try one pair in A2/B2 and switch on xmp and see if you get a crash, do this for both pairs separately.

 

[SynicalFox]

Check if you mixed up the matched pairs when you installed on 2 x 8gb, as in you took 1 stick from pair A and 1 from pair B and ran that as 2 x 8gb. For 4 x 8gb, you should have each pair on the same channel which for your board pair A should be in dimm slot A1+A2 and pair B will be B1+B2. Also when you used only 2 sticks did you only use A2/B2 on the board?

Try one pair in A2/B2 and switch on xmp and see if you get a crash, do this for both pairs separately.

I'll triple check it. The current pairs have different dates (as they're from different batches), so they shouldn't be mixed right now.

I've currently got the 2 sticks occupying A2/B2 slots.

I'll try adding back the other set with the correct channel placement as described.

Thanks again for the help 🙏

 

[SynicalFox]

To give an update:

I haven't yet added back the other pair. Left it with 2 x 8GB sticks (16GB Kit).

I had a friend come over and managed to test with his GPU in the system briefly.
(Disclaimer: I did not go through uninstalling and reinstalling drivers for his GPU).

GPU: MSI 750Ti 2GB

I re-enabled XMP and launched Forza Horizon 5 (as I know mine was consistently crashing in this a few minutes in).

The poor GPU struggled to do more than 15fps (very low settings in game).
There was no crashing even with doing the super wheel spin (which would usually crash).
Tested this for around 15 minutes.

I swopped back to the GTX 1070 and kept XMP on.
Within the first 10 minutes the game crashed as per usual.

I'm going to maybe try a new set of RAM. I want to consider getting a kit of 2x 16GB from the same batch.
At least then I'm safe on the whole mixing kits thing

 

[souljazk]

"Tried DDU to remove GPU driver and clean install of GPU driver"

When you did this, did you select something like "dont install microsoft driver" . Sometimes the Microsoft signed nVidia driver can cause issues and if I'm not mistaken, when using DDU, its default is to let Window install that driver and then the nVidia driver.

GPU: MSI 750Ti 2GB

PERHAPS your PSU is the culprit. THe 750Ti is light on power, which *could* be why it didn't crash. You have reinstalled and the issue persists, which would point either to hardware or a BIOS settings.

 

[limadelta26]

@SynicalFox Hey hi, this does look to be a RAM fault.

Most likely why you arent seeing it on the MSI 750Ti is that it might not be using enough of shared memory and when you drop the 1070 back in it does, ie it only gets to an issue on that specific module of memory on that specific DIMM during gameplay (old link on MS forums Redirecting )

Run OCCT on the machine to do a stability test (you dont need the paid version - check out this vid from JaysTwoCents

It also has some nice monitoring features that you see in HWInfo and AIDA64.

Windows MemTest might not always give you the result you are looking for. In this case, download MemTest86 and drop it on a bootable USB (Ventoy in my case or Rufus will work fine - links below)

You can also use BurnInTest and run on of the compute and RAM tests (you can make a custom test n the GUI) I've used that before many times to find bs errors that normally don't surface, and I have also started using OCCT more often as well as one of the cool things about it, it has a little "loading worm" kind of graphic that if there are issues, you will visually see it get stuck (designed to do that) to try pinpoint exactly what happens when it froze up.

Also, something random to use to test, download a 1GB test file from ThinkBroadband, and then on if you have 1 SSD, self replicate the file inside a folder a few times, or copy the file over a few times between 2 separate SSD's (going via USB also works). Something you will notice is that file transfers (even download P2P or Steam) do cache data in RAM and a 1GB file will be a nice test for that. That is also one of the random tests I do on machines with stability issues as there will be random spikes of transfer speed, or sometimes even a lock up (of course using as best as possible HDD / SSD / USB so limiting errors there).

Hope this helps

MemTest86: https://www.memtest86.com/downloads/memtest86-usb.zip
Ventoy: https://sourceforge.net/projects/ventoy/files/v1.0.97/ventoy-1.0.97-windows.zip/download
BurnInTest: https://www.passmark.com/downloads/bitwindows.exe
1GB Test file: http://ipv4.download.thinkbroadband.com/1GB.zip

 

[limadelta26]

@SynicalFox

Agreeing with @souljazk with the PSU issue here. Again, something might only be accessing a certain section of that specific module on that specific DIMM or in this case on the GPU as it hits that block, might be a power issue either from the PSU or hopefully not, the actual GPU itself.

"Tried DDU to remove GPU driver and clean install of GPU driver"

When you did this, did you select something like "dont install microsoft driver" . Sometimes the Microsoft signed nVidia driver can cause issues and if I'm not mistaken, when using DDU, its default is to let Window install that driver and then the nVidia driver.

GPU: MSI 750Ti 2GB

PERHAPS your PSU is the culprit. THe 750Ti is light on power, which *could* be why it didn't crash. You have reinstalled and the issue persists, which would point either to hardware or a BIOS settings.

 

[SynicalFox]

"Tried DDU to remove GPU driver and clean install of GPU driver"

When you did this, did you select something like "dont install microsoft driver" . Sometimes the Microsoft signed nVidia driver can cause issues and if I'm not mistaken, when using DDU, its default is to let Window install that driver and then the nVidia driver.

GPU: MSI 750Ti 2GB

PERHAPS your PSU is the culprit. THe 750Ti is light on power, which *could* be why it didn't crash. You have reinstalled and the issue persists, which would point either to hardware or a BIOS settings.

I don't recall changing any of the default settings so it is quite possible Microsoft caused some issues.
Wish they made it easier for us to setup a PC properly 😔

Yeah, the 750ti uses power through the motherboard only.
I'd be better off trying a GPU that is similar to the 1070 in this case.

@SynicalFox Hey hi, this does look to be a RAM fault.

Most likely why you arent seeing it on the MSI 750Ti is that it might not be using enough of shared memory and when you drop the 1070 back in it does, ie it only gets to an issue on that specific module of memory on that specific DIMM during gameplay (old link on MS forums Redirecting )

Run OCCT on the machine to do a stability test (you dont need the paid version - check out this vid from JaysTwoCents

It also has some nice monitoring features that you see in HWInfo and AIDA64.

Windows MemTest might not always give you the result you are looking for. In this case, download MemTest86 and drop it on a bootable USB (Ventoy in my case or Rufus will work fine - links below)

You can also use BurnInTest and run on of the compute and RAM tests (you can make a custom test n the GUI) I've used that before many times to find bs errors that normally don't surface, and I have also started using OCCT more often as well as one of the cool things about it, it has a little "loading worm" kind of graphic that if there are issues, you will visually see it get stuck (designed to do that) to try pinpoint exactly what happens when it froze up.

Also, something random to use to test, download a 1GB test file from ThinkBroadband, and then on if you have 1 SSD, self replicate the file inside a folder a few times, or copy the file over a few times between 2 separate SSD's (going via USB also works). Something you will notice is that file transfers (even download P2P or Steam) do cache data in RAM and a 1GB file will be a nice test for that. That is also one of the random tests I do on machines with stability issues as there will be random spikes of transfer speed, or sometimes even a lock up (of course using as best as possible HDD / SSD / USB so limiting errors there).

Hope this helps

MemTest86: https://www.memtest86.com/downloads/memtest86-usb.zip
Ventoy: https://sourceforge.net/projects/ventoy/files/v1.0.97/ventoy-1.0.97-windows.zip/download
BurnInTest: https://www.passmark.com/downloads/bitwindows.exe
1GB Test file: http://ipv4.download.thinkbroadband.com/1GB.zip

Thanks for the extensive details and info. I'll give this a shot over this week or by the weekend and see what comes of it.

PSU was bought new recently (around 8 months back). Would be bleak if it is this but then maybe can be warranty repaired.

 

[limadelta26]

@SynicalFox

Good luck with both the GPU and PSU. RAM is a lot easier to replace considering its a barley legal PSU (only 8 months is basically new still) and to match the 1070 will be costly. Really do hope its just drivers or software bs or at most RAM that was faulty.

 

[Stingrat]

I had the same issue and ran the ram at lower speed. Problem solved

 

[limadelta26]

@SynicalFox this makes a good case for the RAM on the GPU itself. If you can get a hold of another 1070 of similar spec to test with it will help rule that out (if the issue continues on the other 1070)

I had the same issue en ran the ram at lower speed. Problem solved

 

[Cavie]

Are you by any chance using a Riser?

 

[SynicalFox]

Are you by any chance using a Riser?

Nope, plugged straight into the motherboard.

 

[SynicalFox]

Update:

I tried out Ready or Not today, even more intense game and it crashes consistently within the lobby.
so not even able to get into a session in this game without a crash.

"Tried DDU to remove GPU driver and clean install of GPU driver"

When you did this, did you select something like "dont install microsoft driver" . Sometimes the Microsoft signed nVidia driver can cause issues and if I'm not mistaken, when using DDU, its default is to let Window install that driver and then the nVidia driver.

GPU: MSI 750Ti 2GB

PERHAPS your PSU is the culprit. THe 750Ti is light on power, which *could* be why it didn't crash. You have reinstalled and the issue persists, which would point either to hardware or a BIOS settings.

I tried DDU in Safe Mode and enabled "Don't install Microsoft driver".
I then reinstalled latest driver for the 1070 (552.12).
Still experiencing the same issue.

@SynicalFox this makes a good case for the RAM on the GPU itself. If you can get a hold of another 1070 of similar spec to test with it will help rule that out (if the issue continues on the other 1070)

@SynicalFox

Good luck with both the GPU and PSU. RAM is a lot easier to replace considering its a barley legal PSU (only 8 months is basically new still) and to match the 1070 will be costly. Really do hope its just drivers or software bs or at most RAM that was faulty.

I'm going to need to get hold of another 1070 to fully isolate the issue.

Honestly I'm ok with GPU being the issue as this was the last component that's due for an upgrade.
If it's PSU it would mean I need to RMA it and then pickup another one so I'm not left without a PC in the interim.
Will be more hassle at this point but definitely easier on the wallet.

 

[souljazk]

Update:

I tried out Ready or Not today, even more intense game and it crashes consistently within the lobby.
so not even able to get into a session in this game without a crash.



I tried DDU in Safe Mode and enabled "Don't install Microsoft driver".
I then reinstalled latest driver for the 1070 (552.12).
Still experiencing the same issue.





I'm going to need to get hold of another 1070 to fully isolate the issue.

Honestly I'm ok with GPU being the issue as this was the last component that's due for an upgrade.
If it's PSU it would mean I need to RMA it and then pickup another one so I'm not left without a PC in the interim.
Will be more hassle at this point but definitely easier on the wallet.

You could get any power hungry card with 8G VRAM, prob even less.