Computer Help! (nvlddmkm error)

[Knails]

For the last couple of weeks randomly whenever I would play a game my screen would go freeze, go black, and prompt me with a "Display Adapter has stopped working and has recovered." I would check the event viewer and it was saying it was coming from the file "nvlddmkm". That file is directly linked to Direct X & Nvidia. I did some Google searching and there's a list of possible problems that it could be with the worst being that your graphics card is just shot.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/t...ng-this-issue/ is the main website for the problem and I've done every possible fix I could think of to try and alleviate the issue to no avail. I even swapped out my current GTX 660 for my old 460 and still got the issue.

I thought the worst and I was going to have to buy a new card until I realized it happened on my GeForce 460 as well. I decided to backup my important files and do a fresh format and reinstall of Windows. I install the basics including Steam download and install "Shadows of Mordor" and had no problems in about 10 hours of game play.

I come home today I go to play and it asked me to install "steamservice.exe" as I clicked to launch the game and as soon as I did it loaded up fine but as soon as I got into the game it froze and gave me the same error again. I was like "WHAT THE FUCK!" I did a system restore to just before I installed Direct X loaded up the game and once again no issues.

So I've narrowed down the problem to simply being a Direct X error not working with my system on a freshly installed version of Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit.

Can anyone give me advice on how this could be....or maybe another way to alleviate the issue in case another game I install happens to install it without permission and I'm forced to having the same issues?

Edit: Including a link of my CPU temperatures via CPUID. http://imgur.com/J0Hf7yC

System Specs:
i7 4770k @ 3.5GHZ
8GB/DDR3 PC3-12800 RAM
Nvidia GeForce GTX 660
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit

[abracmike]

Last time I had that happen, it was because one of my ram sticks had a few bad sectors on it.

Try checking with memtest

[Darkrulerxxx]

could be multiple reasons.

first off check your temps at full load, not idle. sometimes that can be the trick because it could be overheating which means may getting another additional fan.

another one is bad RAM

another issue is a driver issue conflicting with an older version on your graphics card.

sometimes it can actually be the game itself is not truly optimized for your system, try other games and see if you can duplicate the results.

that happened with me with crysis 3 and i could not play the game for the first 3 months because they never nailed down the problems associated with my graphics card.

- - - Updated - - -

oh and the biggest issue i had was that my mobo actually needed to be flashed (updated) and that actually fixed a lot of things for me.

[Knails]

could be multiple reasons.

first off check your temps at full load, not idle. sometimes that can be the trick because it could be overheating which means may getting another additional fan.

another one is bad RAM

another issue is a driver issue conflicting with an older version on your graphics card.

sometimes it can actually be the game itself is not truly optimized for your system, try other games and see if you can duplicate the results.

that happened with me with crysis 3 and i could not play the game for the first 3 months because they never nailed down the problems associated with my graphics card.

- - - Updated - - -

oh and the biggest issue i had was that my mobo actually needed to be flashed (updated) and that actually fixed a lot of things for me.

Before I reinstalled Windows I would have EVGA Precision on in the background and the maximum temp I was getting was around 58-65 degrees.
I also did a full MemTest86 for around 8-10 hours and came up with nothing.
As I just reinstalled Windows on a freshly formatted drive I only have the most up to date version.

I'm gonna load up "Shadows of Mordor" and then upload a screenshot of my temps after some play time.

[Aruhen]

Do you have Geforce experience installed? I know my friend had issues with drivers if he installed anything except Physx and the base graphics driver in custom install.

[Knails]

Do you have Geforce experience installed? I know my friend had issues with drivers if he installed anything except Physx and the base graphics driver in custom install.

I do have it installed but I didn't use it to install my driver. I used the basic Windows update to install the driver. Like I said though it works perfectly until Steam tries to get me to download "steamservice.exe" that single file makes everything go nuts.

- - - Updated - - -

Here's an updated version of my current temperatures as of this moment (10:27PM Chicago) with Shadow of Mordor running on High settings. http://imgur.com/EXLtwzm

[Barracks00]

Could also be a power supply issue.

[Knails]

Could also be a power supply issue.

I was thinking the same. My power supply is 650w btw.

[Darkrulerxxx]

650w should be plenty. im assuming its optimization on the game developers side.

the critical question is if this problem is being duplicated on different games beyond shadow of mordor.

[Knails]

650w should be plenty. im assuming its optimization on the game developers side.

the critical question is if this problem is being duplicated on different games beyond shadow of mordor.

Yes, actually it was doing it for both Batman: Arkham Asylum & Arkham City & Black Ops 2.

[Darkrulerxxx]

driver issue for sure then. try rolling back to a previous version of your graphics card. or post your error along with your graphics card to get a search of people who have the same issue.

[Knails]

driver issue for sure then. try rolling back to a previous version of your graphics card. or post your error along with your graphics card to get a search of people who have the same issue.

Like I said I just did a complete reformat of my drive & reinstalled Windows so all I have installed is the 340.52 driver and when I did install the newest 344.11 driver the same thing happened. It's happened on all drivers I've tried from drive sweeping and rolling back, to drive sweeping and getting the newest ones possible.

Also, I haven't gotten the error since I did a system restore earlier today and everytime I load up a game when UAC asks me to run the install I tell it "No" and have no issues.

Right now I am having NO issues, but it's going to happen if I install that file.

[Cyanotical]

have you set power management mode to 'prefer maximum performance' in the nvidia control panel (manage 3d settings > global settings)

[SoulForge]

another issue is a driver issue conflicting with an older version on your graphics card.

Is this a serious statement? There aren't drivers on the graphics card.

You have a firmware that I've not seen anyone need to update since.......back in the days people would soft mod cards to unlock functions that were software locked.

[Knails]

have you set power management mode to 'prefer maximum performance' in the nvidia control panel (manage 3d settings > global settings)

It's currently set in Adaptive.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not over-heating. I've posted two screenshots already of my temps & here's another one after 2 hours of gameplay with the game still loaded in the background as I type this. http://i.imgur.com/gkKUARV.jpg

[Knails]

163 degrees/76c is kinda hot...

Back when I had my old GPU, my computer automatically shut off after 70.

My GTX 460 doesn't run past 60 now.

Yes, but the thing is, I'm not having the issue at all right now. IF I was having the issue it would be within the first 5 mins of loading up a game & even Firefox. I can do EVERYTHING on the PC at the moment, but as soon as I accept that redistributable file which again is the steamservice.exe file I get the error. I'll see if I can post the event viewer error from earlier this morning.

[Darkrulerxxx]

Is this a serious statement? There aren't drivers on the graphics card.

You have a firmware that I've not seen anyone need to update since.......back in the days people would soft mod cards to unlock functions that were software locked.

is this a serious reply?

graphics cards have drivers that are made for...wait for it... GRAPHICS CARDS.

sometimes drivers have conflicts or bugs that make it unusable for certain programs, even if labeled as "stable".

if you dont completely remove your older driver versions, it CAN conflict with newer versions. P.S. i'm a CS/Computer engineer i think i know what i'm talking about.

[SoulForge]

is this a serious reply?

graphics cards have drivers that are made for...wait for it... GRAPHICS CARDS.

sometimes drivers have conflicts or bugs that make it unusable for certain programs, even if labeled as "stable".

if you dont completely remove your older driver versions, it CAN conflict with newer versions. P.S. i'm a CS/Computer engineer i think i know what i'm talking about.

Your comment indicated that the drivers were ON the card. Not FOR the card.

[Sicarius87]

Uninstall your GPU drivers. Run CCleaner's registry tool a few times. Remove anything it finds. Reinstall the latest and greatest NONbeta version of your GPU driver for x64.

- - - Updated - - -

163 degrees/76c is kinda hot...

Back when I had my old GPU, my computer automatically shut off after 70.

My GTX 460 doesn't run past 60 now.

76*C is fine for a GPU. GPU's and CPU's dont follow the same thermals. If it was approaching 100*C then id worry. But even stil id bring a 76*C GPU temp down a bit to lower 70's high 60's. That's just personal preference.

[Knails]

Uninstall your GPU drivers. Run CCleaner's registry tool a few times. Remove anything it finds. Reinstall the latest and greatest NONbeta version of your GPU driver for x64.- - - Updated - - -

I've tried that before and even used Drive Sweeper to do it to no luck.

Also, today I was playing the game with no issues at all and just 5 mins ago I get home from work and load it up and it crashed on me again with the same error & again I clicked NO to installing the steamservice.exe which I thought was related to the issue.

Okay now I just went into Device Manager and uninstalled my webcam software and again....no problems. Seriously this is the most fucked up error I've ever encountered.