Posts Walk on by this post UNLESS you are thinking of getting a laptop running Vista soon. It documents a solution to a problem that I hope you will never have.
Work bought me a new *red* Dell XPS 1530 laptop which is running Vista. Delivered last Thursday. Brand spanking new. Ready to serve, for the next three years or so, someone with the cryptic job title of “Emerging Technologies Specialist”. A primary need is that I can run Second Life. So we went for pretty high specs.
There is a know problem with NVIDIA and ATI graphics cards and Vista and the position of the planets and goodness knows what else. No-one seems to know (=take responsibility) for the problem. People attribute it to badly written driver, overclocked machines, Vista bloat, overheating PCs, not enough RAM – who knows.
THE PROBLEM
High intensity graphics use causes the individual program to freeze, flicker and then the screen to go black … and the dreaded error:
DISPLAY DRIVER NVLDDMKM STOPPED RESPONDING AND HAS SUCCESSFULLY RECOVERED
Googling “nvlddmkm” brings back 63800 results – waaaaay back to the advent of Vista, and still no solution. It seems that some fixes work for some people some of the time. Sometimes replacing the graphics card works, sometimes not. Sometimes it just appears and sometimes it goes away.
WHAT COULD HAVE WORKED BUT DIDN’T
1.Upgrading the graphics drivers and the bios
2. Administrative tools > Task Scheduler > Scroll to the bottom, in the bottom box, scroll down till you see ‘TMM’. Double click ‘TMM’. Right click it and select disable.
WHAT DELL SAID:
Dell didn’t really have any solutions but suggested:
3. Going to control panel > personalise and turning off AERO (That thing in Vista that lets you see blurry windows under the current one)
4. Going to the Second Life icon, right clicking on it and selecting “properties”, then running it in XP SP2 compatibility mode (yes, *turn off* DirectX10 – which is why I wanted Vista in the first place )
5. Installing this Vista update: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938194
6. That they send out a technician to replace the video card in my laptop.
WHAT I DID IN DESPERATION
More goolging. Came to this post on the SteveX Compiled blog: Display driver stopped responding and has recovered - from 15 months ago. Among the 115 comments, I found the comment from klasu that *I hope* provided the fix for me . It involves tweaking the settings on the NVIDIA control panel. Reproduced below:
My fix is here:
1 unninstall nvidia drivers
2 Let Vista install display driver itself. Now display driver is 11.9.2007 / 7.15.11.6369 (check device manager/display adapter)
3 Use following settings in nvidia control panelanisotropic filtering = 4x
antialiasing gamma correction = ON
antialiasing mode = override ….
antialiasing seting 4x
antialiasing transparency = OFF
conformat texture damp = OFF
error reporting = ON
extension limit = OFF
force mipmaps = none
multi display…= SINGLE…
texture filtering anisotropic sample optimization = OFF
Texture filtering negative lod bias = ALLOW
texture filtering quality = HIGH QUALITY
texture filtering trilinear optimization = OFF
triple buffering = OFF
Vertical sync = use 3d application settings
I’ve been running Second Life for the last three hours or so with no crashes. I haven’t switched DirectX10 back on, but it seems fine without. I’m crossing my fingers.
I note, however, that today UnliscensedFish left a comment on the post indicating that no solution is working for her and that she thinks it’s time for class legal action.
UPDATE 4 hours later: Aaaaand … I took a screenshot in Second Life using Jing ….. and I had the same problem. I hate the idea of asking Dell to replace the video card when it may not fix it … and of being deprived of my PC …. any ideas anyone ?
UPDATE 30 June 2008: I tried installing a different driver for the card about 2 weeks ago, available from here: http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18049
Since then the whole system seems to run a bit slower, but I’ve only crashed with the nvlddmkm error three times. If it keeps doing it, however, I will be asking Dell to replace the card.
I have a (RED) XPS M1330 and didn’t have any issues with the nVidia drivers whatsoever.
Same with one of our techie people, except I think hers is a 1520??
That’s the frustrating thing – there is no consistency about the error. Almost like some PCs have a genetic disposition.
I’m sure that there is a bit of mass hysteria around it too (I was beginning to get hysterical). Knowing nothing about the architecture underneath, I think that unistalling Aero sounds a bit like witchhunting…
Aaaaaand …. I just used Jing to take a screenshot in Second Life and the problem came back .. Breathe in, beathe out …calm…..calm…
GAH – I feel for you that you are stuck now in the Vista world. I am dual booting XP / Vista at home, and use XP 99% of the time – Vista is pretty much only for gaming. And even with DirectX 10, I don’t really notice that big of a difference in graphics quality. Why? Because my graphics card cannot handle the latest DirectX 10 games pumped up to full bore. It’ll almost handle em on DirectX 9, but I have to lower settings in 10.
That said, from the little I have used Vista, and from the complaints I get from family and friends (I’m the fixit guy for family computers), I don’t know that I want to experience Vista as my primary OS…
First, get Dell to do the replacement, just to make sure that it isn’t a component problem. If that doesn’t work, in all honesty, I’d try to convince them or your tech department to upgrade you back to XP, and return to Vista when there is better driver support. I realise it leaves you with DirectX 10, but I don’t think on, on a laptop, that you’d see a huge uptick in quality using it instead of 9. Given Vista’s reputation as a resource hog, you may well get better overall performance and stability in-game using XP, simply because less of your memory will be concerned with keeping the operating system running and can therefore be devoted to the game. I will also note that that the 8600M GT seems to have some issues with 10 (scroll to the bottom) that may also suggest that XP is the way to go.
What were your reasons for wanting DirectX 10?
Thanks for your help. I should point out that I’m *voluntarily* using Vista. The SOE for the uni is still XP. Since students are buying new PCs, and they have Vista loaded on them, I wanted to get some in-house knowledge of how Vista works.
DirectX10 is bcs this PC needs to last me for 3 years, and I’m sure that graphics intense interfaces with 3D effects will be part of that. Until then, I wanted to see the pretty waves and light in SL. (Actually I want to take screenshots so that I can show people what SL can look like. I believe that a more immersive environment changes the social relationships in there and people need to be able to apprehend that )
Thanks, bookbuster, for the link to the evaluation of the 8600M GT. I did my research before asking for this machine, so it’s frustrating to find all those pages that I should have looked for, but didn’t.
For now, I’m going to try not using Jing and see whether it falls over in any other circumstances. This morning I managed to take some screenshots with Jing without it falling over.
It’s just that sneaking suspicion that I’ll be in the middle of a demo and it will start crashing that freaks me out ….
Simple answer – Get a Mac!
Two quick things I’ll mention:
First, not that its important, I’m a ‘he,’ rather than a ‘she’ as you assumed.
Second, my latest update on the driver issue is that I’ve gone into Bios and turned on “NVidia Ex,” after checking what it was online. In frustration, I also *under*clocked my RAM, lowered its timing, and underclocked my CPU. With all of that done (I had left them alone because I had them all set to what they’re **supposed** to be), I was able to run a few 3D apps without stability issue.
Then, I went back into Bios and started resetting things to how they ought to be – RAM timing at standard values, removed underclock settings – one by one, with minimal stability tests between each one. Now my bios is as it has been these many problematic months, except I’ve left “NVidia Ex” enabled.
I’ll be testing it continually, and if I (pray for me here!) DON’T encounter the TDR again within a week, I’ll return and let you all know.
If it does pop up, I’ll be back sooner….
*Edit*
The bios in question is on an Asus Striker Extreme Motherboard, and I’m running DX9 & DX10 apps in Vista Ultimate 64bit with a GeForce 8800 Ultra and 4gigs of RAM
Kathryn -
It is June 29 here in USA but half a world away from you my situation is identical: I just got a new Dell XPS1530 primarily to run Second Life and am having the same problem you were reporting on earlier this month … plan to try your solutions tomorrow … wondered how things have progressed since your last post on this issue. AND thanks for writing your story … I now have faint hope emerging from my frustrations!
Hi Peter. I tried installing a different driver for the card about 2 weeks ago, available from here: http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18049
Since then the whole system seems to run a bit slower, but I’ve only crashed with the nvlddmkm error three times. If it keeps doing it, however, I will be asking Dell to replace the card.
Woo Hoo ! ! ! No crashes in six hours … *fingers crossed for future …
W00ty w00t w00t w00t ! Fingers crossed for you. Now that the error seems to have settled a bit more, I’m really enjoying the machine.
Only one nvlddmkm error in two weeks … with profound gratitude, I nominate you for your “Librarian of the Century” *smiling
I was having the same problem with Fallout 3. I also have a Dell Laptop with a Nvidia 8600M GT. I downloaded the driver from Dell’s support website and everything seems to be working fine now. I also disabled ffdshow beforehand which seemed to work for awhile.
To disable ffdshow on Vista:
1. Start Menu type in search bar “ffdshow”
2. Click the ffdshow video decoder config program
3. Click DirectShow control on the left pane
4. Check the box that says “Don’t use ffdshow in:”
5. Click edit and add the .exe file for whatever game
Hi. I’m trying to collect all of the data about this stupid nvlddmkm error and put it all into one place so people won’t be spending that much time scouring all over Google for the solutions. This website is at http://www.nvlddmkm.com please let me know if there should be anything that I should add to the website. Thanks!
-Nick