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FIX: nvlddmkm.sys has stopped responding and has recovered [VISTA ERROR]

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It appears that there seems to be two groups those that think of it as a hardware problem and those that view it as a Nforce <-> Vista problem, but here is when i should throw a monkey wrench in to the works why does the "memory overun" occur on an XP system and only on Lost planet (side note the system is not more then 3 weeks old and no overclocking) well that said if theres a thread i should be viewing to solve my little xp delema, just direct me to it and I'll shutup and go away. thanks for your time.
 
Expand Method?

I have been having the same issue now for about a week. Installed a second vid card and things went to crap.

Can you "expand" on the expand method? I have had windows vista 32 update fail several times trying to install "NVIDIA Corporation driver update for NVIDIA nForce 590/570/550 Serial ATA Controller". I have a Striker Extreme and do not need this update. I am not overclocking anything at this point either.

Other system specs:
QX6700
2 x 8800 GTX in SLI
2 sticks Corsair 1GB Ram

Things were running pretty smooth prior to adding the second 8800. Any help would be appreciated.
 
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2

I am having basically the same problem, when I load up Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 it loads fine but right after it loads the level and puts me in the game the screen goes black, it then flashes on and off and I can see myself in the game but cannot do anything, the audio is working but the video is not. I am having the same error in my error logs. I too have been watching many excruciatingly long threads around the net for a fix to this and there are many suggestions. I am certain that the solution is going to be slightly different for everyone's situation. I will be watching this one as well as trying to help others solve this. I know for a fact it is not faulty hardware because I quad boot Ubuntu, XP, OSX86 and Vista and all my hardware works fine in every OS even Vista except for when I try to play GRAW2. The game works beautifully in XP :)
 
NVIDIA Releases ForceWare 163.11 BETA

NVIDIA has released new BETA ForceWare drivers version 163.11. This driver supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI technology on DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and OpenGL for GeForce 6, 7, and 8 series GPUs. This driver fixes numerous game and application compatibility issues. It also has improved compatibility for World in Conflict.​

NVIDIA ForceWare 163.11 BETA - Windows Vista 32-bit (30.5MB)
NVIDIA ForceWare 163.11 BETA - Windows Vista 64-bit (43.4MB)

Source: nZone
 
Some...if ur getting problems then I cant really comment on it. Search around the net and see if someone has found a fix in XP for it - sry. XP seems to be the most stable of OSs at the moment so if ur having a problem I would uninstall the drivers cleanly via DCleaner method and then manually remove any other traces of the drivers and then install.

Jim...http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=697286

Maxi - tried these...still got the NVL error and I am pretty sure I know how to install them cleanly. Might work for some though. Currently sticking to .45 as they seem to be the most stable on my PC. I am gonna give the latest beta's another go over the weekend and try few things and see what happens.

Just a note...trying searching for info...this is not the beginning and ending of all things related to the NVL error...other threads in other sites are way more informative. I am just one person trying things out...feel free to help me out...if u can - thanks :-|

Edit: Started playing with 163.11 beta's and so far the NVL has not come up and that includes playing LP, Halo2, CSS and playing files, etc. I was actually trying to make it crash but it seems my gunshot method worked well. Still testing it out. If the NVL holds throughout Saturday morning I post up exactly what I did. Most warn people in advance....some of the things I did were kind of strange :eek: NOT!!! LOL...sry...sad joke...just SOOOOO happy I can play LP now :santa:
 
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According to the nVidia forums, the new Beta drivers still do not fix this issue.

I also wanted to add more of my experience. This error has tracked over to my new machine. I moved from a 680i, E6600, and 4G G.Skill ram over to my new Abit IP35 Pro, E6850, and 4G Mushkin ram. The problem still presents itself exactly how it did on my old system without any overclocking whatsoever.

I also should mention that this problem has NEVER tracked over to WinXP for me. I have a spare hard disk that I have XP loaded on and it works flawlessly on both systems with my 8800 Ultra.
 
Surf...like so many other people...the problem does not appear in XP and if it does usually a clean driver install fixes the problem.

Just to update people on my 163.11 beta adventure...so while the drivers are not giving me the NVL error I am getting BSODs. Everytime I login back in after the reboot the error recovery thing pops up saying the sidebar died basically – BSOD is sporadic at best as its happened twice since Friday 6pm. I managed to catch the flu on the hottest day of the year here in London...so the thought of disabling the sidebar and seeing if it still crashed did not even occur to me. I think this flu is killing my last braincell of it mounting its attack. Oh the way it was done...

1. Drivers 158.24 were installed and stable thus far. Norton360 was the FW/AV and the latest updates installed. Defender was running. UAC was turned off
2. Disabled the AV and removed the 'only remove display drivers' in the control panel and rebooted manually
3. Clicked the 163.11 beta exe which did the usual extract and install. Threw up the usual unidentified driver error which I accepted and completed the install. Clicked ‘NO’ to reboot now as I wanted to do some things before restarting
4. Opened a command window in the C:\Nvidia\winall\163.11 folder and entered
5. EXPAND.EXE nvlddmkm.sy_ nvlddmkm.sys
6. This gave me a NVL file around 7MB in size
7. I then copied this file into the following locations:
\system32
\drivers\
8. Did a search on the system32 folder to see if I could find any other NVL files and managed to see that there was one in the NV4_disp folder in the ‘FileRepository’ folder so I tired copying it into there. For some reason it would not allow me and gave me the ‘permission denied’ error.
9. I used the takeown and calcs commands to give myself permissions the all the files in the NV4_disp folder via *.* wildcards
10. I was then able to copy and replace the NVL file.
11. I was effectively manually copying across the NVL file everywhere that already had an instance of the file
12. I then restarted the PC after allowing the changes defender has noticed
13. Played LostPlanet and Halo2 for 10 mins each before running 3Dmark06 in a loop all tests for few hours while I went shopping (yep…clothes…got this awesome diamond blue tank top which is like soooo awesome). No NVL error…then left only uTorrent running and left the PC alone…went to the cinema to watch Transformers…which is like uber-awesomely-kool…
14. When I came back the PC has had crashed and as waiting at the login screen. Vista said the sidebar had crashed.
15. I am going switch off the sidebar and see if the BSOD still occurs. There is no mention of the NVL error anywhere in the logs
16. If the sidebar is not the cause of the BSOD then the power manage features of vista is causing it in my eyes and then will look into that
17. I usually have everything maxed out in the power tab and disabled poweMgt for the NICs and USB devices if the tab appears…might have to regedit and hardcode it if it still occurs

So that’s what I did. Notice that I did not boot into safe mode at any time or use driver cleaner. Chipset drivers where 15.00.

I tried to make the NVL error come up by opening 100 explorer windows and running bsplayer, mpc, WMP11 and GOM all playing different files (HD 1920x1080p60fps *.tp files) while CSS was running in a window (I was spectator on a server) and switched continuously between basic theme and aero with all this happening while the AV, spybot were running a scan and a defrag running and 2 instance across 4 cores of ortho were running…yep…totally hammering the PC and HDDs…not once did the NVL error come up. Usually opening a few windows and flipping between aero/basic theme was enough to bring NVLs up but not this time.

Few things to bear in-mind. I was going from what I consider stable drivers, so if u don’t even have those then u might make things even worse.

Just to re-cap…PC was the one in the sig, one ram dimm 2GB with rivetuner setting the fan to 100% for the 88ultra

Let me know what happens on ur PC and what you did and if the NVL error does not appear let ur PC run for a few days before telling me

Update: Since Sunday night 9pm till now the PC has been rock stable since disabling sidebar with all my lovely (really gonna miss the notes one and the CPU usuage one ooo...totally loved the recent documents one as well) widgets or gadgets. Bearing in mind I have been stressing the PC left right and center...think its good enough for me so far. Peeps...think we might have a botched solution that allows us to use the latest drivers :-|

My advice would be to get the the .24 or there abouts drivers installed and stable. Only downer is that I am still stuck with one stick of ram instead of 2 (£400 pounds worth of ram is pretty much useless to me right now)...not gonna cry about it though as still have 2GB of RAM which is shweet...if it was 1GB then I'd be miffed. OK so get some stable drivers installed and give my method a go. Its working for me so far and dont forget to disable sidebar...I have aero enabled. Also...my UAC is turned off...everyone has there preference but I personally dont want to enable UAC because it might screw up my shotgun-but-stable install of the drivers.

Its really amazing...over 1000 visits and very few people are letting me know there progress...if ur still having problems post up specs' etc and we can see what we can do together :)

I will update the thread if anything new happens until then I will most likely only respond to post in the thread...yep...being lazy as I fixed mine...
 
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I did what you suggested in the first post and now I am having a big problem. that being I cant reinstall the driver! I have dried downloading from 100 different sites, from nvidia and many 3rd party, and when the startup thing goes it says it detects no hardware for that specific driver (8600m GT) I know the ones I am downloading are for that video card yet none of them work.

What do I do?

BTW I tried system restore and it fails every time no matter what point I try to restore from.
 
Ball...ah...had this problem myself when I was playing with the drivers. You need to really CLEAN uninstall ur drivers.
First thing to do is to get a copy of DriverCleaner and run the Nvidia option in safe mode. If your drivers are already uninstalled then running DC, reboot into normal mode and try installing.
Also, make sure the FileRepository folder has no nv* folders (as per the first post) as this can also make thing difficult.

If ur still having problems then do what I do after crying my eyes out...google for it. When I had this problem I literally had go through the whole system32 folder and remove it all...nvidia chipset drivers, etc and took it from there. One thing u dont want to do it remove the NV4_DISP folder and u PC wont boot if u do anything to this folder.

Sorry I cant be of more help. I personally think that the archived folders are causing the problem and if u remove them then vista wont have anything else to use but the drivers u put in. Also u could try manually updating the drivers via the hardware devices and see if it lets u install a set of drivers.

PM me to let me know u get on.

Update: Its Weds 9:48-pm-ish GMT and still no crash after playing LP for an hour and STILL no crash...:clap: :clap: :clap:
 
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Dave...from what I heard from people it seems it affects vista fullstop
If u dont have the problem then be very grateful. I've been getting emails from soooo many places asking me to re-write the my procedure with pics, etc but I current just dont have the time. I might get around to doing it once my work life dies down

NVL: Just to update people...My PC has been running since Sunday until now and it still rock stable. Piece of advice...if ur a novice then do things at ur own risk. If ur kinda know ur stuff then remember to clean the system. The MOST important thing is to have existing install without the NVL error so try the drivers until u find that one (hint...its not the latest one) and then install the lastest beta ones. On my baby sis's PC I could not get the beta's stable no matter what I did so I installed the .24 which were stable and then followed my method to get the beta's running - which then turned out to be stable...dont ask me why but it seems to work for now so I am sticking with this method:D

Update: Corrected a typo-sry...it was bugging me. Just got back from a wedding...totally do not enjoy weddings...seem so boring unless ur friends are there...in this case they were too drunk so I had to put them into taxi's...oooo....the bill from taxi is gonna soooo hurt them :-|
 
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Hi All,
Please allow me to join your topic. I am having the Display driver ...responding problem error with my new Vista Ultimate 64bit. My rig is AM2 x2 6000, 4 x 1GB 5400 RAM, 600W PSU, these are just 1 month old, it used to run with X850xt and it was running perfectly well. then I upgraded to a 7900GTX 2 weeks ago and now I am getting the Display driver error as you guys mentioned while gaming.

It seems I am getting lots of Artifiacts while the GPU temperature is around 80C, sometime the screen goes blank or stopped for few seconds, then back to work and then display the "Display driver error" etc. installed the latest V163 driver and used the rivatuner to reduce the clock from 650 to 500MHz. Neither of them work. I have been told that is possble the hardware faulty.

Cheers
 
Well, I am officially done with Vista until this is resolved officially. I have had nothing but a half install of Vista for the last 8 months trying to fix this error with multiple new installs. Nothing has fixed this problem yet. I thought I had some luck this week, when I tried an old 158.45 series Beta driver someone had linked. I had no error for 3 solid days of 5+ hour long gaming sessions and it ran flawless. Then, I tried to use dual monitor and run two instances of EQ2 and it started spitting the same old "nvlddmkm not responding" error. Whatever triggered it made it replicate instantly the next time I try loading a single instance of the game.

So, for now, Vista is gone and XP is loaded back full-time onto my RAID0. I am through spending hours, days, and weeks of my time trying to resolve this issue. I am going to enjoy XP stability until this is fixed through official channels.

Good luck JB and to the rest of you trying to get this crap working.
 
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I wanted to make users aware that if they take ownership and change permissions of the file repository folder it *WILL* prevent you from adding new devices such as USB thumb drives camera etc. I spent hours freaking out that I could no longer install devices and remembered that I had done all this fancy business of using cacl and monkeying with ownership. YOU MUST PUT IT BACK if you expect vista to run properly afterwards.

Another thing to take note is KB938194 and KB938979 which were just released this week. They address performance and reliability and one of the issues is the NVL error. Many people have posted positive results, let me know how it works for you!
 
cwizard said:
...Another thing to take note is KB938194 and KB938979 which were just released this week. They address performance and reliability and one of the issues is the NVL error. Many people have posted positive results, let me know how it works for you!

On the contrary, most posts on the nVidia boards say that this hotfix didnt help the problem at all.
 
Hotfix did nothing for myself...as mentioned in my post and in other forums.

I can understand people switching back to XP but I would only do that for crysis...until then I can survive...even then I'd only use XP to play the game...like vista way too much...its sooooo stable for me when not trying to play games :)
 
Yea JB, as I said its a shame. I love the look and feel of my computer with Vista. Unfortunately 80%+ of my time on it is gaming, so its just out of the question at this time.

I really have a sad sneaking suspicion that we will see the 9800 series rollout in November and they will work flawlessly. nVidia will keep ignoring the current issues and the unofficial fix will be "buy a new videocard". Maybe I am being a bit pessimistic, but it wouldnt suprise me in the slightest.
 
Thanks to JB for putting so much effort into informing us in a clear concise and very helpful way - going to enact the suggestions now; it'd seem it is a developers' as much as NV or MS fault, in that 3dMark and MS's FSX don't show the problem at all, yet others like FarCry seem to like crashing to desktop without so much of a precursor of a whimper. Good luck all.

James
 
surf...think ur totally right...magically the 9800 will cure the problem...maybe this is the reason nv are going to abandon the whole dx10 and move to 10.1. I think the industry is just like that...even now we get duped into buying £400+ gpu's and get left stranded. Maybe this is the price we pay for being the first ones there...we suffer monetary losses and later on when everything is fixed u'll hear people complaining about how awesome vista is when windows7 comes out in 2010 or so. I think to keep my sanity I will be simple minded and just say what can we do? Take them to court (like a group of people are planning) or stop buying there products...wait for ati to deliver us a gpu like the 9800 again? I've so many threads about the whole nvl error and received so many emails on it...people seem to think I am some sort of expert on it or something...to those people...I AM NOT AN EXPERT...get that through ur heads. I am just someone trying things instead of giving up. I mean its not like throwing money at it will cure the problem (not now anyways)...[sighs]...only thing that still bugs me is that so many people have read this thread yet so few are willing to give use feedback...thank god all things related to my PC are not so bad...Bleach anime filler epis are about to finish...I totally luv ichigo...lovelycomplex...otani is so clueless...claymore is just plain awesome...JuMong (kdrama)...got 62-72 2watch....awesome...HeroicAge...awesome...but still the saving grace...naruto...oooo...he is sooo cute...wish I could take him home (^-^)....yep...surviving on anime at the moment...well thats what happens when my gaming life dies on me...bring on 9800 and hope that the nvl dies with it...oh well....damn...think I way to positive...thing negative...[DMCry e9 intro music plays]...
 
Have you folks seen this MSKB article ( KB940105 ) yet, which also includes information about a hotfix that many are saying fixes the nvlddmkm.sys related errors?
Microsoft is changing the way that the video memory manager maintains the content of video memory resources. This change is being made so that a permanent virtual address range does not have to be used for each virtualized allocation. With the new approach, only allocations that are created as "lockable" consume space in the virtual address space of the application. Allocations that are not created as "lockable" do not consume space. This approach significantly reduces the virtual address space that is used. Therefore, the application can run on large video memory configurations without reaching the limits.
Virtual address space usage in Windows game development
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105

Prerequisites for KB940105
If you are running a Windows Vista-based computer that has multiple graphics cards, we recommend that you first install the hotfix that is included in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 936710. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: KB936710 When a DirectX 10 application runs on a Windows Vista-based computer that has multiple graphics cards, the computer does not use the secondary graphics card
You can find the downloads for the hotfixes here...

KB940105 x86 and KB940105 x64
 
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