Solution 8: Uninstall KB952287
Thanks Cartire for this one. Apparently after installing this hotfix, many users have experienced the dreadful nvlddmkm error. Uninstalling it should alleviate this problem (control panel -> Programs and Features -> Uninstall KB952287). Post your experience in a comment below!
January 25th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
just seen this new one and ill give it a try, ill let you know how it is
January 25th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Reminder too guys, to hide the update once windows wants to install it again, otherwise it will automaticaly install again.
January 26th, 2009 at 11:09 am
dosnt seem to affect the error at all, still getting it the same amount
January 26th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
To comment more on my analysis. I have either been very lucky lately, or this has drasticcly reduced the error for me. I’ve tested this one for about a week. With only 1 game getting this error and luckily this game can recover.
Games:
COD4
World in Conflict
Bioshock
Left 4 Dead (error, but recoverable)
Far Cry 2
Each game I ran though for about a couple hours a peace mulitple times, though intense gameplay where ever possible. Far Cry 2 and Bioshock always crashed for me all the time and both have gone far beyond there normal crash times. COD4 and World In Conflict have been extremly stable.
Left 4 Dead is the only one that still recieves the error, but it is fewer and that game can recover at about 20 secs of freeze time.
I’ll keep everyone posted on further testing. And Joe, Im sorry. Ive been aching this problem with 2 different PC setups for the last year. This one just seems to work for me. At least better then it did.
January 27th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Update: For some reason today i would get the error expectedly in WoW but its just stopped doing it for about 4 hours now, usually i would get a lot more than this. i have tried lots of fixes and atm i have removed KB952287, running vista classic theme and changed the Tdr to reset at 1 seconds. If anyone is stuck try that combo.
January 27th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
The KB952287 and setting TDR to 1 sec makes since, but the windows vista classic theme shouldnt matter since it automaticly converts to basic while in a fullscreen program.
Ive heardof others doing this, but i highly doubt this can have any real effect since aero doesnt run in the background.
January 28th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I notice that running my pc on Windows Classic makes it 100% stable… this is just one finding ive made so far! keep up the good work tho!
January 28th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Yup, disabling aero theme might resolve the problem for some users.
January 31st, 2009 at 2:47 pm
actually i run WoW in windowed mode for convinience but my computer has been spamming me with the error day with that “combo” i was using.
well, looks like ill be sending this machine back to Mesh
January 31st, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Hi,
These KBs didn’t help me, but removing KB957321 seems to have resolved my bluescreens (it’s a WIM update)
February 6th, 2009 at 5:16 am
How do you remove it? Because in the control panel it says it can’t be removed.
February 6th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Make sure you are logged in as administrator to uninstall it.
February 6th, 2009 at 10:46 am
I am, but still can’t delete it =/
February 15th, 2009 at 5:42 am
done this still have same problem ….. agrhhh cnt take this anymore i wanna play games ffs
February 15th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
installed kb back again no differance……………
February 19th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
hey
this one worked for me.
THANK YOU
February 20th, 2009 at 7:58 am
well…
i played today and the screen got black but returns to the game and i played for a while and when i left the game the nvlddmkm was there but i still played …
im testing.
February 21st, 2009 at 9:18 pm
he’s back
February 21st, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Sorry to hear that. Hopefully the upcoming sp3 will solve all of this!
February 24th, 2009 at 4:41 am
that did not work for me, i can play Crisis for about 4 mins, then it kicks me out , and that error comes up still
March 1st, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Have uninstalled but pc froze and black screen as per normal. This was playing Call of Duty WaW, will try some of the other fixes mentioned.
March 7th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
My wife’s computer has been encountering the nvlddmkm problem. I’ve tried a few other suggestions to no avail. But removing the KB952287 hotfix seems to have cured it so far.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:52 am
I tried to remove KB952287 but that did not help with my laptop getting the nvlddmkm problem. I tried to remove KB957321 and that helped a lot. For an hour I have not had any nvlddmkm problems. Will report back in a few days.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:52 am
This solution has worked for me going on 4 weeks now. I waited to make sure before posting, because reinstalling nvidia drivers sometimes bought me two or three days of freedom from this problem in the past, only to return in full force, but I haven’t had any problems since uninstalling and blocking this update. I was getting this error while playing World of Warcraft, Age of Conan and Spore. I was also having trouble with my Unreal Tournament 3 Editor crashing at start up for no apparent reason, and all of these problems have disappeared.
I can’t thank you enough for this site! I could see from all the other forums I searched for info on this problem that no one had found a one size fits all solution. Lots of people think it is a Vista problem or an Nvidia problem, or a WoW problem or a Conan problem, but it’s much more widespread than that. The variety of misinformation out there was overwhelming.
I wasn’t about to try every single “uninstall Windows, spin 3 times and clap your hands” solution that people are advocating out there, so I really appreciate that you put together a list of likely culprits *with explanations* so we could skip those drastic, pointless measures. I wish everyone luck!
November 13th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Sadly one of the many Windows updates that appeared in the past few weeks seem to have triggered the return of this problem with a vengeance (curse you automatic updates! I turned you off too late). Hotfix KB952287 (which I had previously hidden) isn’t there anymore.
December 7th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Is this problem showing up on 8-series cards more often than the 9-series? What about the new 200-series cards? And are ATI cards affected by there version of this problem mire or less often than Nvidia card?
December 7th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
You know, I am having so many problems with my computer that I am convinced that MY problem is much larger than just Nvlddmkm.sys.
I believe that my 3+ year old gaming rig is on its way out…well, what do you know, my cases big top-side fan just burned out! I wonder if it wasn’t working efficiently enough earlier? I just started getting these errors again about 1.5-2 months ago. Hmmm…I think it’s time for a new rig! Yayyy! So I need your guys opinion, please…Should I go ATI this time? And how about AMD instead of Intel?