Display driver atikmdag/nvlddmkm stopped responding and has recovered

[taltamir]

01-27-2012

How to fix the error:
"Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered".
"Display driver amdkmdap stopped responding and has successfully recovered."

Prior to windows Vista if your video card or video drivers crashed your computer will simply blue screen or get stuck on one picture (usually with it being a distorted picture) and remain that way until you manually reset the power to your PC.

However with the new capabilities first introduced with Vista, it will now terminate the driver, power cyclet he GPU (without power cycling the rest of the computer or disrupting windows), reload the video driver, and reconnect the existing windows instance to it. In some cases a game can even reconnect to the driver and resume operations!
Then it will give you the message listed above... "amdkmdap" for AMD drivers, "nvlddmkm" for nvidia. This is a wonderful thing as it eliminates the need to restart when a video card crash occurs, protects your open data, and even allows some games to continue operating without crashing (not all games unfortunately, some games will crash as a result). Unfortunately, the fact it is happening means you have a problem.

It is unfortunate that there is no way to distinguish from the error message which of the following 2 things occured:
1. The driver itself crashed due to some software issue.
2. The GPU crashed due to some hardware issue.

If this is happening with only one game then it is most likely a software bug in that game. This can be resolved by the game maker patching the game to resolve the issue or by AMD/nVidia releasing an updated driver which addresses that issue specifically.

If it happens in all games then you most likely have a hardware problem. It is also possible but less likely that it is a bug in directX / the driver / windows itself. Those were common very early on when vista and DX10 were just released but have since been resolved.

For example, I get it under a very specific reproduce able scenario in galciv2. I get it whenever the buggy nwn2 crashes, and I got it a few other times with specific games. It stopped occurring after they released patches for said games. Newer drivers also helped some cases...

It is also possible for it only happen with only a few specific games and still be a hardware problem... Around 2006 I built a system that will crash after about an hour of intensive gaming on only two games... those were the only two games I played that were intensive enough to cause it (with frame limitations and non intensive graphics preventing it on others)... The reason was that my power supply was inadequate. Upgrading the power supply eliminated all the problems.

In summary, there are 4 options:
1. It is a bug in the game, highly likely.
2. It is a bug in DX/OS itself (extremely unlikely unless you are using RTM vista. Vista SP1 or Win7 with up to date DX has had those issues ironed out)
3. It is a bug in the nvidia/AMD/ATI driver (somewhat unlikely, unless your video card or OS just came out recently; or the game you are playing is brand new)
4. It is a hardware problem, highly likely.

The solution for software issues is to update your OS, directX, the game, and your video card drivers.

The solution for hardware issues is:

1. Make sure your power supply outputs enough amps on the appropriate rails for your video card. Remember that factory overclocked video cards require more power and that some power supplys cannot maintain the max amount provided over long periods of time... So it should be a certain amount over the minimum.
Note: If available you can test the video card on another computer (which has a good enough power supply) to quickly find out if your video card is defective.
You can test your PSU with OCCTPT
2. Run memtest+ from www.memtest.org overnight, there should be 0 errors... even 1 error means your are overclocking the ram too hard, or that the ram / motherboard is defective.
3. If neither of the above is the problem then get a warranty replacement of your card!
4. If it still doesn't work get a warranty replacement for the motherboard.
5. If you have a factory overclocked card for which the warranty has EXPIRED you can try downclocking it to the "stock" speeds for the chip it uses. This will most likely solve your problem.

Unless you are overclocking or have atrocious blockages in your computer then cooling shouldn't be a problem... but it just might. I assume that if you are overclocking then you would know better and already realize that you simply need to overclock less aggressively.

 

[taltamir]

any feedback would be welcome.

 

[Micke1984]

I have this exact problem and its starting to get reallly annoying, any help is most welcome. I have a factory overclocked Geforce 8800 Ultra whit the 163.75 drivers installed i had the beta 169 drivers awhile but it didnt help so i reinstalled the 'old' ones again.

Ok so usually it happends when i play Crysis but it also happends at other times, and i really dont know how to fix this. I dont know how to check how much jucie the card is getting but i do have a 1200V Power Supply which should be enought eaven for SLI config. I thought it was something whit the drivers or the card being overheated ?

But i got lots of fans and all the other parts in the computer is atleast at good temperatures i dont know how it is whit the 8800 but i THINK its cold enough.

Help !

/Thanks

 

[SlowSpyder]

Here, read this thread. Lots of people with this issue and some helpful things to try. I don't know if there is an actual 'fix' though. Good luck.

 

[taltamir]

Don't read the other thread, read THIS thread... You don't "have the same problem" as me because I don't have the problem, this entire thread is explaining how to FIX The problem. You want help fixing it? Read the original post and follow the steps inside to fix your problem...

And that other thread is lots of people whining about the "problem" (this isn't a problem by itself, it is many problems resulting in your card crashing) saying nvidia sucks... where me and two other guys tried in vain to explain to them how it could be fixed... Eventually I went and SUMMARIZED all the steps for fixing the problem (and the ATI equivalent, which is its own thread) into a single unified step by step solution.

 

[Micke1984]

Originally posted by: taltamir

1. Make sure your power supply outputs enough amps on the appropriate rails for your video card. Remember that factory overclocked video cards require more power and that some power supplys cannot MAINTAIN the max amount provided over long periods of time... So it should be a certain amount over the minimum.
Note: If available you can test the video card on another computer (which has a good enough power supply) to quickly find out if your video card is defective.

1. How do i check how much amp is on the appropriate rails on my video card and how do i know which ones are appropriate ?

2. And how do i know how much is appropriate for my factory overclocked 8800 ultra ?

3. And what happends if i give it alittle bit to much ?

4. I have a 1200 W power supply can it still get to little amp ?

I will do these steps one by one to see if i can get it to work, and i will let you people know how it goes if anyone is interested in knowing.

/ Thanks !

 

[taltamir]

1. The easiest way is to usually open your computer case and look for a sticker that lists those numbers. Alternatively you can find the exact make and model of your power supply and look it up online.
You can also provide us with the make and model and we could help you find the info.
2. Look up that exact make and model and then check the company's website. If you could provide me the make and model I can help you look.
3. As far as I know you can't give a card too much power unless you tamper with it. The card will draw only as much as it needs. if the power supply can provide more it will simply draw less then its max. (but just because it is supposed to work that way in theory doesn't necessarily make it so, I have seen ODD things happen with electronics before)
4. I very much doubt your 1200watt has any deficiency in that regard....

Note: just because your power supply is RATED for far above these numbers doesn't mean it is all roses though... you might have a defective one that outputs less, or unbalanced power.
You might also have a defective card or board.

What situations do you get the crash in?

 

[Micke1984]

Originally posted by: taltamir

4. I very much doubt your 1200watt has any deficiency in that regard....



What situations do you get the crash in?

Ok thanks, i guess there are more likly things that might be wrong then. I ofen crash after playing computer games for awhile but it also happends when i am just surffing the net or watching a movie.

What happends is that my LCD screen goes all black on me then it comes back to life in a few secs and it pops up alittle window in the down right corner of the screen saying something like grafic drivers stopped responding but has recovered.

One more thing that has happend since i got Vista is that i get a blue screen saying something about phys. mem. and i get a countdown and then the comp. restarts. But this has 'only' happend 2-3 times over a 3-5 month period.

So i guess i will do the mem. test thing next then.

 

[taltamir]

Do the memtest overnight... the blue screen with phys memory is MOST likely due to ram issues... which COULD go over to your video card...

www.memtest.org
Download and burn the latest iso image and boot your computer from it. You might have to change the bios setting to boot from a CD first, then harddrive (HDD). The default is floppy>HDD>CD
Even if you have a DVD it will probably still be called CD in bios.

Remember, if you are not overclocking then even a SINGLE error in memtest means you either have defective ram or a defective motherboard! (most likely defective ram)

 

[valo123]

Hia, i've been having this problem while playing nwn2. The game runs smoothly then randomly crashes and gives the message "display driver stopped responding and has recovered nvlddmkm.." all the temperatures are low..my gpu is the highest at 47c when idle.

I have a sparkle geforce 8600 with all the latest drivers, 1 gig of corsair pc6400 ram 5-5-5-12. and a 600 watt coolermaster power supply. These are the specs of the psu
DC output:
|+3.3V | +5V | +12V1 | +12V2 | -5V | -12V | +5Vsb|
Max output:
|25A....|30A...| 18A.....| 18A.....| 0.8A| 0.8A.| 2.0A..|


Also, I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the problem but when i run speedfan it shows this...
Vcore1: 1.46V
Vcore2: 3.34V
+3.3V: 0.00V
+5V: 4.89V
+12V: 11.97V
-12V: -16.72V
-5V: -4.75V
+5V: 4.95V
Vbat: 3.15V

I really appreciate any help you can offer..the -12V: -16.72V thing looks off, i don't know if that could be causing something to over heat or what. Also, when i'm playing nwn2 the -5V: -4.75V turns to -5V: -8.8V, I don't know if i had to set the volts in the bios or something. Thanks in advance...And one more thing, my psu fan seems to always be on max, i think that may have something to do with the odd voltage seen above.

 

[taltamir]

it is nwn2 itself, the game is one of the buggiest games ever made. It crashes consistently. unfortunately you just have to deal with it until they provide fixes for all the various problems with nwn2.

The recently released version 1.10.116 is FINALLY playable, although it is still somewhat buggy it is actually playable. I finally got to play through the official campaigns (original and mask of the betrayer) finishing mask of the betrayer yesturday. And it only took a year since the game was released

 

[valo123]

So the -12V: -16.72V and the -5V: -8.8V isn't a problem? The psu fan is always on max and very loud, i thought that might be the problem...could you tell me why those readings seem off? Also, my 1 gig 800mhz ram says 5-5-5-12 on the module, should i go into my bios and switch it to that or keep it at 5-5-5-32?

Thanks again, i appreciate the help i get on these sites, it's great.

 

[CrispSandwich]

Well i started that other thread where everyone is "whining" and i've tryed all the fixes.

Imho i do not believe it is a hardware problem. Why? because after trying everything possible i decided to go back to XP and since then it has not happened to me once.

Vista64=all my games crashing. XP=No games crashing.

Explain that

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: CrispSandwich
Well i started that other thread where everyone is "whining" and i've tryed all the fixes.

Imho i do not believe it is a hardware problem. Why? because after trying everything possible i decided to go back to XP and since then it has not happened to me once.

Vista64=all my games crashing. XP=No games crashing.

Explain that

I hinted at it in the other thread, that XP seemed to be more fault tolerant than Vista (I had similar experiences leading up to eventual replacement of my RAM in Vista) with regards to memory addressing. Someone else in the other thread broke it down or linked a post where they actually mapped out the memory addresses and found specific memory ranges caused problems in Vista. Unclear if it was Vista or the chipset creating hardware/address conflicts or if the RAM was indeed the problem.

Much of the difference does lead back to Vista though as its driver model creates a duplicate of what's stored in your video cards memory. This is why Vista RAM usage was sometimes 2x more than what you'd see in XP. They reduced the RAM use somewhat and the stop errors by moving it to a virtual allocation instead of a physical allocation (less chance to run into a problem range). In any case, its more of a headache than it should be, regardless of who's at fault.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: taltamir
How to fix the error:
"Display driver atikmdag/nvlddmkm stopped responding and has recovered".

A year ago if your video card crashed your computer will simply get stuck on one picture (usually with it being a distorted picture) and remain that way until you turn it off and then on again.
However with new drivers and the help of some new windows capabilities it will now terminate the driver and power cycle the video card. And then give you the message listed above... "atikmdag" for ati users. "nvlddmkm" for nvidia. This is a wonderful thing as it eliminates the need to restart when a video card crash occurs, protects your open data, and even allows some games to continue operating without crashing (some games can rehook into the driver once it restarts and proceed as if nothing happened).

That actually happened to me once -- in Oblivion? -- framerate was really choppy, but I could still save my stuff and restart the computer without losing data. This is one of the really cool things about Vista. Many games still crash due to their own bugs, though.

Great guide, BTW. Adding to your OP and making a sticky would be a good idea.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: CrispSandwich
Well i started that other thread where everyone is "whining" and i've tryed all the fixes.

Imho i do not believe it is a hardware problem. Why? because after trying everything possible i decided to go back to XP and since then it has not happened to me once.

Vista64=all my games crashing. XP=No games crashing.

Explain that

I hinted at it in the other thread, that XP seemed to be more fault tolerant than Vista (I had similar experiences leading up to eventual replacement of my RAM in Vista) with regards to memory addressing. Someone else in the other thread broke it down or linked a post where they actually mapped out the memory addresses and found specific memory ranges caused problems in Vista. Unclear if it was Vista or the chipset creating hardware/address conflicts or if the RAM was indeed the problem.

Much of the difference does lead back to Vista though as its driver model creates a duplicate of what's stored in your video cards memory. This is why Vista RAM usage was sometimes 2x more than what you'd see in XP. They reduced the RAM use somewhat and the stop errors by moving it to a virtual allocation instead of a physical allocation (less chance to run into a problem range). In any case, its more of a headache than it should be, regardless of who's at fault.

I've used both 32-bit and 64-bit Vista, and gaming under 64-bit Vista is more stable.

My explanation: much driver code had to be patched or rewritten to make the drivers work properly with 64-bit addressing. When that addressing code in the driver does not play nicely with the Vista kernel or other drivers, then the system can become very unstable.

Current rig drivers:

nVidia 7900 GTO (163.69)
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R (Intel ICH9/AHCI drivers, Realtek ALC889 audio drivers)

Creative's 64-bit drivers had distorted audio under Vista x64 with 4+ GB RAM until recently when a new driver was released. Personally, I got so disgusted with Creative that I shelved my Audigy a while ago and only heard about the driver update from a third-party.

Hauppauge's 64-bit drivers have suffered similar problems. Disabling the last 1 GB of my 4 GB RAM enables the card to work in Vista x64; otherwise, the card will randomly fail and experience extreme distortion/stuttering until the computer is rebooted. Sometimes many reboots would be required to make the card work. No ETA on a fix yet...if ever.

EDIT: To be fair, Hauppauge says Microsoft is at fault, and they are "working on it." SP1?

Basically, if a company can install their hardware into Vista x64 box with 4+ GB RAM and have it working fine, then they tend to assume the problem is not with the drivers. However, this is just a coincidence. Driver problems with 64-bit addressing may or may not manifest themselves depending on a variety of factors including the order in which drivers are loaded and the addresses the drivers happened to be assigned by ACPI BIOS. For this reason, companies have been slow to acknowledge (and fix) problems in their 64-bit drivers.

eBay is your friend...if you understand the risks.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: CrispSandwich
Well i started that other thread where everyone is "whining" and i've tryed all the fixes.

Imho i do not believe it is a hardware problem. Why? because after trying everything possible i decided to go back to XP and since then it has not happened to me once.

Vista64=all my games crashing. XP=No games crashing.

Explain that

Two possibilities:
1. You have a defective address in ram at about 3.5GB location... so it shows in vista64 but XP cannot see it, and thus never gets those errors and crashes.
2. You had file corruption in vista and needed to reformat PERIOD. reformatting to XP solved the problem. Reinstalling vista would have too.
For example I tried to install quickbooks 2006 on vista64 two days ago. It immidiately installed .net v1.0 of the wrong kind and broke the OS completely. EVERYTHING was crashing and I had no internet access (not even firefox, which uses its own engine.)...
I had to reformat...
3. The specific GAME/program that was causing the crash was vista incompatible and causing crashes.
4. You were using vista right after its release... back then the major bugs were not yet ironed out in vista and it was unreliable... There are still a few bugs but they are relatively rare (and shouldn't cause the problem described)... you could however wait for SP1.


valo123 your numbers are so far off on the volates that your computer should be on fire, litterally. and all the components broken... (18v on 12v rail? wtf!) If you are only getting driver crashes in nwn2 then there is only one possibility... your motherboard's build in voltage SENSORS are defective. That happens. It is a harmless defect that would cause no hard whatsoever... except for you inability to diagnose the power supply reliably.

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: CrispSandwich
Well i started that other thread where everyone is "whining" and i've tryed all the fixes.

Imho i do not believe it is a hardware problem. Why? because after trying everything possible i decided to go back to XP and since then it has not happened to me once.

Vista64=all my games crashing. XP=No games crashing.

Explain that

I hinted at it in the other thread, that XP seemed to be more fault tolerant than Vista (I had similar experiences leading up to eventual replacement of my RAM in Vista) with regards to memory addressing. Someone else in the other thread broke it down or linked a post where they actually mapped out the memory addresses and found specific memory ranges caused problems in Vista. Unclear if it was Vista or the chipset creating hardware/address conflicts or if the RAM was indeed the problem.

Much of the difference does lead back to Vista though as its driver model creates a duplicate of what's stored in your video cards memory. This is why Vista RAM usage was sometimes 2x more than what you'd see in XP. They reduced the RAM use somewhat and the stop errors by moving it to a virtual allocation instead of a physical allocation (less chance to run into a problem range). In any case, its more of a headache than it should be, regardless of who's at fault.

I tend to agree, and that is a bad thing... With XP for example I can copy files between hard drives at about 3 times the speed then on vista (10 times faster if I only have 2GB of ram instead of 4)....
BUT, I have litterally had cases where files got corrupted (with not notification) when copied from drive X to drive Y both on the same computer, both on NTFS, both modern hard drives. (past couple of years)
So I would welcome slowdown if it means reliability.

 

[Micke1984]

I think this problem is all due to Vista, but also the Graffic card drivers. But they are obviously not working well toghter but this is not the only problem whit Vista alot of things are instable and crash, i just had to reintall Winamp cos it kept crashing over and over. Vista is a real nightmare, hopefully either Nvidia or Microsoft will release a patch that actually works soon !

I have to say i doubt its anything wrong whit my hardware, its all new shit.

 

[thilanliyan]

I started getting this problem only after installing one of the Vista video memory updates. I used to be able to run my video ram at 1300MHz (2600MHz effective) Crysis stable but now I have to back down to 1200MHz to be Crysis stable. I'm gonna do a fresh install of Windows and see if that helps.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Micke1984
I think this problem is all due to Vista, but also the Graffic card drivers. But they are obviously not working well toghter but this is not the only problem whit Vista alot of things are instable and crash, i just had to reintall Winamp cos it kept crashing over and over. Vista is a real nightmare, hopefully either Nvidia or Microsoft will release a patch that actually works soon !

I have to say i doubt its anything wrong whit my hardware, its all new shit.

You might have a vista related bug. But claiming that every person who has a crashing video card is because of vista is silly. Many people have temperature problems, defective cards, etc... In fact, MOST people have that.
I would recommend you follow the diagnostics I suggested. Just because your hardware is new doesn't mean it cannot be defective.


As for winamp. It is one of the two programs I have ever seen windows vista warns you about being incompatible (when you run the installer it warns you that it is incompatible).... the other being quickbooks 2006 (quickbooks 2006 will always automatically install .net framework 1.0 32bit edition... even on vista 64bit. Corrupting windows and requiring a reinstall of vista if you allow the installer to run. I know, I did it )

 

[Mavtech]

FYI: I got this same error starting the other day. It was a bad DIMM. As soon as I took it out, these errors stopped. My OCZ Ram is gone on RMA now.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Mavtech
FYI: I got this same error starting the other day. It was a bad DIMM. As soon as I took it out, these errors stopped. My OCZ Ram is gone on RMA now.

Congrats on the quick resolution.

 

[taltamir]

bump... say, shouldn't this thread be stickied? I just saw someone complaining about nvlddmkm crashing on him again today...

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: thilan29
I started getting this problem only after installing one of the Vista video memory updates. I used to be able to run my video ram at 1300MHz (2600MHz effective) Crysis stable but now I have to back down to 1200MHz to be Crysis stable. I'm gonna do a fresh install of Windows and see if that helps.

I'm assuming that you're now using a 3870? I have also had that same problem with more recent driver updates. I used to be able to run at 1331 in CCC with cat 7.11, but had to back down to 1311 when I installed the crysis hotfix. now with cat 8.1 I can't pass the "test custom clocks" setting at anything over 1301. It runs 3dmark06, crysis demo, etc just fine at these settings, but it is somewhat annoying.

 

[karyan]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: CrispSandwich
Well i started that other thread where everyone is "whining" and i've tryed all the fixes.

Imho i do not believe it is a hardware problem. Why? because after trying everything possible i decided to go back to XP and since then it has not happened to me once.

Vista64=all my games crashing. XP=No games crashing.

Explain that

Two possibilities:
1. You have a defective address in ram at about 3.5GB location... so it shows in vista64 but XP cannot see it, and thus never gets those errors and crashes.
2. You had file corruption in vista and needed to reformat PERIOD. reformatting to XP solved the problem. Reinstalling vista would have too.
For example I tried to install quickbooks 2006 on vista64 two days ago. It immidiately installed .net v1.0 of the wrong kind and broke the OS completely. EVERYTHING was crashing and I had no internet access (not even firefox, which uses its own engine.)...
I had to reformat...
3. The specific GAME/program that was causing the crash was vista incompatible and causing crashes.
4. You were using vista right after its release... back then the major bugs were not yet ironed out in vista and it was unreliable... There are still a few bugs but they are relatively rare (and shouldn't cause the problem described)... you could however wait for SP1.

Ok so onto mine then. This is why I'm thinking its vista. My rig runs the phenom 9500 with eight gigs of gskill ram that passed memtest fine and dandy. So its not the ram issue because with eight gigs of it you can rest assured that I was using x64 xp. No crashes.

I have reformmated vista back onto the machine with full upgrades no less then five times and each time have this issue. With programs ranging installed from all the stuff I have to just EVE and some of my steam games to see what is up. Didn't make a difference.

It happens with all my games. both dx9 (EVE and steam) and dx 10 (Crysis and Bioshock) ones.

I have had this issue in RC1, gold release the day of and a version from December of 07 but have had the same problem using all three.

The fact that this is happening at both the Nvidia and ATI ends point more towards OS issues then it does hardware like you have been saying. especially since it seems the vast majority of the people here didn't have these hardware issues before.

phenom 9500 2.2
8 gig gskill ddr2 800
dual visiontek hd3870
MSI K9A2 Platinum mobo
caviar raid edition 500 gig hdd
crappy liteon dvd player
BFG 650w PSU