I agree with you. By your same argument others CANNOT 100% dismiss this as being a hardware problem. I was using Vista for a while without any problems and only developed problems when I began installing the driver updates, and since then have not been able to get rid of the problem.

The point I am trying to make is that some people have been discussing this problem on this forum for quite some time. And now a few people are coming onto the forum and without reading the entire forum are just dismissing our pains as a simple hardware problem, when a lot have folks have gone to a lot of trouble to explain why they think it is not a hardware problem.

And in any case whether it is a problem with the chipset as you suggest that still makes it NVIDIAs problem.

Jay

I meant US as in Us, not the United States. I am in South Africa and fall under the UK when it comes to video card sales. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Jay

aah. no harm done

Anyway, have anyone from NVIDIA replied on this issue?

As far as I know the only official statement Nvidia has made is as follows:

NVIDIA statement on TDR Error Messages


Some Windows Vista users have reported that their systems are displaying an error message that says: "Display driver stopped responding, but has successfully recovered." This is called a Timeout Detection and Recovery error message.

Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) is a new feature of Windows Vista that attempts to detect problematic situations and recover to a functional desktop without forcing a reboot. Hangs can occur when the GPU is processing intensive graphics operations, typically during gameplay, and nothing is being updated on the monitor. To the user it appears that the system is frozen with no resolution to the problem; in previous operating systems users generally had to wait a few seconds and then reboot.

The TDR error message "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" lets the user know that the NVIDIA display driver (specifically the "nvlddmkm.sys" file) has been re-initialized and the GPU is reset without requiring a reboot. The only visible artifact from the recovery is a screen flicker, the result of a screen redraw. Note that some older Microsoft DirectX applications may render to a black screen at the end of the TDR, requiring the user to restart these applications.

TDRs are not specific to a single driver problem, and can occur for a variety of reasons. When they occur, diagnostic information is collected in the form of a debug report that is sent to Microsoft through the Online Crash Analysis (OCA) mechanism if the user opts to provide feedback.


NVIDIA encourages users to submit their own bug reports via the NVIDIA Vista Quality Assurance Program, using the keyword "TDR" in the description of the problem. The NVIDIA bug report link is here:
https://surveys.nvidia.com/index.jsp?pi=749...8f09e040b4a437a

We understand that many users have expressed frustration with this issue, and we apologize for the inconvenience. Since the NVIDIA v101.41 beta driver release, NVIDIA has been fixing many TDR issues reported by users. Our software team is currently preparing a new driver which will dramatically reduce the number of TDR errors that users have reported on the forums. Thank you for your patience.

More information on TDRs can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/displ...dm_timeout.mspx.

Jay

my nvlddmkm.sys error died suddenly and without any visible reason... Just like it have appeared.

I`ve done only 3 things:
1. Reinstalled nForce drivers.
2. Reinstalled ForceWare drivers.
3. Not allowed Windows to install that strange updates with word NVidia in its names.

What driver u using?
Mine has gone after installing new beta drivers

It's both hardware and software causing this problem. This has been discussed in great lengths in this thread.

Stopping Windows Update from installing drivers is a great idea. IMO it is well known that Windows Update is notorious for installing old or disfunctional drivers.

The driver release notes mention on page 7 one of the fixed issues is from files remaining after the driver is uninstalled. I wonder if this is the reason two people have just posted that their problems vanished after installing a new driver?

i also used a driver cleaner b4 installing beta drivers.
i mean i been gaming normally from thursday for the 1st time on vista since installing in march no game would last longer than 5 mins without error appearing also i never had desktop produce error thankfully!!
But i wont say its gone for good just yet it could come bak,ill keep posting on my progress!!

I have reinstalled the beta drivers after first using driver cleaner, and manually deleting any references to the drivers, regsistry included. I also did all of this in safe mode.

I also thought this solved the problem but after awhile the problem recurred but at a lower frequency. I do not think that reinstalling the drivers is a fix - at least not a permanant one.

Jay

I had this same problem for some time now. I quess I'm one of the lucky ones 'cos the problem was only happening with lord of the rings online. Got the problem solved with the oldest(probably the best too) solution. Reinstalled Vista. After that, did not let windows update update any of the following drivers: nForce, forceware (installed the 163.11 beta version btw) and soundcard (integrated HD-audio in my case). With couple of hours playing and trying to get the error anyway, so far not a single error. So its working like a charm.


Specs: Vista Ultimate 64
GeForce 8600 GTS
4GB DDR2
ASUS P5N32E-SLI PLUS Mobo
etc.


Hope this might help some of you guys, just format your windows drive and reinstall (Seems to be only solution when you have serious problems with any windows version)
And do a clean driver install.

I have the same problems with my Toshiba A100 646, with GEForce GO 7600 (128 MB) but the problem is that NVidia and another site doesn't update drivers...
i try to install the ForceWare 162.22 Vista 32-bit (taken from Guru3D)(http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1670) but system tell to me that I haven't supported video card... and now? I have try ALL drivers nvidia and another but the problem is always the same: APPCRASH... etc etc

Hi folks I have been watching this for some time now. For me (finally) the fix is the new beta drivers (but do not install the mobo drivers). I have had this problem for many months and nothing worked until this beta driver(with out board drivers which have not been updated since Febuary). Here is my sys. Asus M2NE, amd 64 am2 x2 athlon, nvidia 7600gt, 2 gigs corsair ram(533 they are just stocking the 800 ram here now) 2x sata seagate 80gig drives onboard sound(sblive value does not work in vista), I'm running Vista Ultimate 64. I really hope this helps others out there with this prob.

Hi all, I have been having trouble with Vista Ultimate 32 bit for about 2 weeks now. I've done 3 different installs but none fixed the BSOD's I was getting. Note, my pc was not overclocked during this time. Last sunday (3 days ago) I received the first "display driver not responding" dialog box. Along with it came a series of a BSOD's which is the stop error & .sys file you guys all mentioned.

My setup: Asus p5n32-e sli - Bios 1102
E6600 not overclocked at this time
BFG 8800GTX - tried drivers such as 158.24/45 and 163.11
Team elite 2x1gb chips DDR2 800
250gb Seagate HDD
Vista Ultimate 32bit (Had XP before with NO problems, dunno why I had to upgrade to vista )
Antec True Power 2.0 480W (with 18A on each 12v rail)

So after receiving this display error in windows, my games just started giving me artifacts all over the place. I monitored the heat, but found that 72'C load was NOT the problem. So I formatted Vista ...twice and the little specs and checkerboard boxes & other artifacts always display. I've tried XP too and I still experience the artifacting of my 1 & half month old 8800GTX.

Now I live in South Africa and due to the prices here, I bought my card in Canada. I've emailed BFG about a replacement card and they are willing to take the card back & check it out.

Now my questions are this:
1. Is it my card thats damaged? I tried a 7800GT in my pc and it worked no problem.
2. Could this be a power issue? I only have a 480W psu but I do have 18A on both the PCI-E connectors, so it should work right? At first I did have trouble with the pc not booting if I plugged in the card with both connectors, so instead I used 1 pci-e connector and then used a converter that came with the card, to plug into the 2nd pci-e connector on the card.

Please guys, help!!

no is VISTA PROBLEM... try last driver on www.nvidia.com or guru3D site...

u tell

and it's is the problem, XP is ok, vista no, is new and how all new things have problem, we must wait good drivers

Well I agree its a problem with Vista. But I believe its now damaged my hardware.

I have tried different drivers dude, its got nothing to do with them anymore. I'm telling you, its damaged my card. I have formatted 3 times since Sunday, twice back to Vista and last night back to XP. I have these artifacts even in BIOS and when my pc is booting. I tried a 7800GT which worked perfectly with my vista install, displayed everything correctly - no artifacts which means my card is now at fault.

To add to the problem, last night after installing XP, I couldn't get my motherboard audio drivers to install. It keeps saying there is no audio hardware found and winamp and other audio applications do not work due to their being no hardware to play through.

So it looks to me as though my onboard sound has now "gone".

This is very concerning. In this, and other threads some people have noted that they had fully working rigs under XP, upgraded to Vista and encountered the problems, then when going back to XP they continued to have problems . I sincerly hope that the problems with the Vista drivers (fan speed control for example) is not damaging the hardware .

...When I was reinstalled drivers for the last time, I`ve forget to do some important thing - to turn SLI on... When I`ve realized that I`ve forget to do it and turned SLI on, driver crashed in start menu during next 10 seconds So, Vista DirectX 10 SLI is not working properly. Waiting for solution...

P.S. In early drivers, where`s SLI support is only for DX9, it crashes only in DX9 games... Do I have faulty videocard, or it`s a buggy Vista drivers, or it`s the video memory addressing problem (it have size of 1,5 Gb)?...

Well in my case it wasn't the fan speed control from the drivers, as I was using riva tuner to set my fan speed to 100% just to make sure that its not overheating.

I'm so upset about this - really I am. I had a beautiful rig 2 weeks ago and now I'm sitting with dead hardware. I hope Microsoft get sued outa their asses for this one...

I've decided to test my theory of my card being damaged now, I will take my pc in to a shop where they can assess it and see if they come to the same conclusion I'm at now.

Well I fixed the problem for the only game I was having it with. Unfortunately the game is under an NDA so I can't tell you which one but here's what I did.

I am using Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition. I installed the new 163.11 beta drivers, then forced antialiasing to off in the Advanced 3D controls in the nVidia control panel. I then restarted my computer (trying it without restarting didn't fix the problem). After the restart, my nvlddmkm problem disappeared. I just played the game in question for 5 hours straight (it is a really good game!) and didn't have a single error.

I hope this helps others!

Nevermind - this didn't solve the problem. The game ran fine for the 5 hours like I said, but now I can't get it to run because of the nvlddmkm error. I've redone the exact steps I went through the first time too. I'm going to revert back to what I had before, 158.45 drivers with ntune installed, then uninstall ntune and reinstall 163.11 beta drivers and turn off anti-aliasing to see if I can play again.

Seriously this bug is annoying. Oh, one other thing I noticed - the nvlddmkm.sy_ in my install folder was 4.5 megs, but when the bug started again the nvlddmkm.sys in my \System32\Drivers folder was 9.7 megs. Could the actual file be getting corrupted?

I was having plenty of "Not responding" issue till the latest Nvidia Beta Driver.

(knock on wood)


I use 8800's SLI cards. The lastest beta Driver apparently has fixed this for me. Since installing it I have not had any of these nvlddmkm problems in nearly a week.

So good luck.

Make sure all old nvidia adaptor driver files are removed first before reinstalling new ones.

OMG YOU HAVE TO READ THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just got my setup up and running, clean install etc, because of the new 162-3 nvidia beta drivers, cause sli actually works.... anyways
I saw something on the bf2142 not working with the new drivers-

I got the stopped working, brushed it off because of what I read, then I had a thought.

I crashed during the optimizing shaders. I didn't even think to try it a 2nd time before trying this out. I don't know if perhaps there was even a cancel button on the 'end the program' window...

So
I relaunched bf2142, as soon as I clicked instant action on the single player menu, I alt+tabbed.

Let it run a few minutes, alt+tabbed back into it, it was loading then switched to optimizing, dunno why, cause that's backwards from the usual routine.
So I alt+tabbed again, let it run few minutes longer, went back in, and it finished up, I clicked 'join game' and everything was good until the punkbuster kick because I forgot to 'run it as admin' in the compatibility tab!

Just a thought, hope this works for ya.

I thought perhaps there may be a way to edit the program timeout value? If this is the source of it....
GL

I have tried that (alt + tab) trick. All it does is reload all the geometry etc. from whatever game you're playing. I tried it in Rainbow 6 Las Vegas when the artifacts appear badly, I used alt + tab then went back into the game, the artifacts literally appear within 3 or 4 seconds again.

I read a couple pages back, another guy experienced the same problem as I'm having, with artifacts and little dots and square boxes all over the screen. You all suggested his video card is giving way, now my card is brand new, doesnt get overclocked and doesnt overheat. It was working fine in XP and even worked for awhile in vista.

Anyway, to that guy that had the same problem as me, what did you do to fix the artifacts? Change your graphics card?

UMMM
oh dear as posted earlier everything is great after installing 163.11 drivers but i just noticed they are 8 series drivers lol silly me i never read into stuf enough and i am using 2 7600gts in sli will this damage my cards or should i just keep these drivers going as they working great!!!
some advice please incase i fry my cards.

I got the same issue with my Gigabyte 7600GS AGP card. Turns out it was caused by my stupid mistake - I did not connect the supplementary power required by the video card. The card worked fine for a few weeks (apparently at reduced performance unbeknown to me), then I suddenly began to receive frequent driver errors in Vista.

So this driver issue could certainly be caused by hardware as well as software.

The new beta driver for the 7-series (162.22), kinda solved this problem for me. I always got the well known error when opening a medium heavy file in Cinema4D in the OpenGL viewport mode. After installing the new beta driver I can open that same file without the annoying error popping up. The selectiontools are a bit jumpy now, but I can see the improvement of this driver on my machine.

Some issues with the older Flash MX 2004 Pro version were solved too.

SLI still doesn't work the way it should though. The Cinebench OpenGL Hardware results are still way behind on the XP results (2122 on Vista compared to 5151 on XP). I get the same results whether I use one unit or both units of my 7950 gx2 card.

Yup I think the 162.22 drivers have solved most of my problems.

I have not encountered the "nvlddmkm stopped responding" error again in the midst of video or games, nor the ""attempt to reset graphics driver time out" error during occasional bootups.

The 162.22 driver seems to solve the problem for a lot of peeps, but for those of us with 8800 GTS the 154.45 beta drivers do not seem to solve the problem yet.

How about the 163.11 drivers?

Hi I didn't realise there were new beta drivers, downloading now. Will try and report back (holding thumbs). I do not have World in Conflict and reports are that 162.22 are stable so I am going to try that first.

Yeah the 163.11 drivers are for World in Conflict, and since I'm not playing that, I didn't install that and settled for the 162.22 drivers, since they are stable for me. I must emphasize though, that I'm using the 8600GT instead.

Good luck on your test too!

I haven't done a whole lot of gaming since I installed the new drivers 163.11. But......... I haven't had a game crash with the stupid nvdllm... stuff yet. Plus my fan speed control works in Ntune now but that might not be connected. Atleast they have finally seemed to get on the right track IMO. Not 2 thumbs up just one. Oh and the digital vibrance works to.

Now that you mention it, I wonder when they are going to update the motherboard drivers so we can have all the features we paid for, but I guess they are more worried about the gfx drivers then anything else right now.

Since I purchased my new video card I have not had even one nvlddmkm stopped responding in Windows Vista error! If your having major problems it's bad hardware not the driver. I spent 6 months trying to fix my old card's (7600gt) issues. Got a new card(8600gtx) based on the new Nvidia G core processor and not one error or freeze. BF2 and bF2142 I play on high settings. It's been 2 weeks. RMA your old card or buy a new one and the problem will be solved. Hey Sticky! I'm a happy Pirate...... Cost me 183.00 at Newegg.com

I too am having these f*cking display error messages for quite some time now! The thing is, first I had these problems with all previous drivers except for the 154.45 drivers (or something). They were completely stable, the only thing I had to do was to set my Corsair Dominator 8888 memory (1111 Mhz.) to 800 Mhz. Of course this is not quite ideal, but at least it worked for months! Now I downloaded these 163.11 drivers and am having the problems again! Even at 800 Mhz. memory speed! I cannot believe it! Of course this is all in Vista Ultimate x64. I use two 8800 GTX cards in SLI on an Asus Striker Extreme board. I will install the 162.22 drivers first for I read that helped a lot of people here, so here we go again...

Also what I did is to uninstall the motherboard nVidia drivers version 15.00. That seemed to work as well, except now it didn't recognized any network adapters, so I only installed the nVidia Network drivers and there is was... back again... the annoying display message...

I'm not sure if it's bad hardware, i have the same problem two different mobo,
and the same problem on an ATI RAdeon 9600 card. I have got the 7600GT to work now, but i hade to force Vista to use the Standard VGA driver.

I'm expecting a new rig on Friday, so then i will be able to test the display adapter
on a third mobo.

Also if the cards work on XP system but not on Vista, i would belive that there
is either something completly wrong with Vista or the drivers.

Just to let you guys know - I tried the latest driver and got the error about 1 hour into playing AA. Starting to wonder if it isnt perhaps a bad mem stick.

How come it is happening to almost everyone?

How come lots of people only experience it after updating drivers?

Me and my friend bought the exact same hardware configuration, and both had no "nvlddmkm has stopped working" issues on driver release 158.45. Upon updating to 162.22 we get the errors reasonably frequently.

It is not a hardware issue, unless somehow the drivers are actually damaging the hardware.

Good to see your working proper now theseasickpirate. Your sig still says, 'Nvidia 7600gt - No working drivers'. You won't have much chance of convincing anyone the drivers are working ok with that in your sig.

Well guys I have received my computer back from the shop I took it.

They confirmed with me the graphics card has been damaged or is faulty. It wasn't faulty to begin with - only since Vista came along...

So there you have it: Delete vista before it damages your GPU!

I agree; although I wonder if it may extend to RAM, chipsets and who knows what else... ???

In my experience with this problem, I feel the whole Vista issue needs to be looked at, as some of our local press/media here in Australia are bringing to light.

Since we have gone to XP, everything is running excellent; which rules out faulty hardware at this stage, as the 2 XFX 8800GTXs are working fully in SLI, making life very different to when we were on Vista with the dreaded nvlddmkm error.

As a matter of fact, all of our other Vista systems are going to XP as well, as my brother and I have had more than enough of Vista for now.

LoL OS cant damage your hardware.

Faulty drivers associated with the os that cause components to overheat can though. Don't be rude.

Havent heard of official drivers that overheat. BETA is posted for users to test under there own risk as they are known to have some bugs or still under testing phase. Also drivers are not made by microsoft but by the hardware company who sell the products.

Oh and iam not rude i was only laughing becuase i heard same stories when i was working in pc service shop when first win95, win98, winME and winXP was released. People allways blame MS. Iam not fan but i dont judge them for something that is not there fault. If a product claims vista ready then it should be vista ready out of the box.

Roger Mr. Sticky will change!

It's Fixed Mr. Sticky!

How friggin funny would it be if Vista caused all Nvidia cards to break? I mean, I wouldn't be laughing since I'm running 2 800gts' , but I'm sure someone would be yucking it up out there

Just wanna let you guys know, I installed an old hard drive, and just started dual booting with XP. WAs gonna buy an 8800GTS, but now I'm prolly gonna bu the 2900 from ATI. Nvidia has had months, and has failed me.

I disagree. Signed drivers that carry WHQL sign off have (should of been) been tested/fully approved by microsoft. When these drivers are causing major system wide errors and instability, surely one would think they wouldn't pass as signed drivers. So in the end, official drivers, many which people are dealing with now and have been over the last 6 months or so, shouldn't have been approved. And as well, many reports are coming in that M$ have not advised enough detail to HwM of last minute changes to Vista, to allow their hardware products to make use of the changes. So M$ is partly to blame in my opinion.

And remember, Vista deals more so into the depths of hardware than ever before, so it isn't like XP, Win98 etc releases.

Yup you have your opinion and i have mine its a free world.

Products who claims full vista support should be working. As a customer it feels crap i know that. I only said that MS have allways been blammed for issues with new os releases. Its allways a challenge for hardware developers for a new plattform as they have to re-write the drivers in most cases again. Just look on creative labs. And for WHQL it only points out that they worked for the ms team. Sadly there are hundres or even more different setups they havent tested for.

I do know that nVidias drivers is sensitive how you configure your rams. For example i had Spectrum off in bios and it worked good in xp but in vista it needed to be on. Sadly because a system works in xp doesnt mean it works in vista. Hope you get it working soon to, i know its freaking crap when it doesnt. I also had the tdr isssue before.