Vista boot BSOD nvlddmkm.sys Nvidia crash

[Guest]

System: Windows Vista Ultimate fully updated, Intel E6600, Nvidia 7600GT,
4Gb Ram, one LCD VGA and one lcd via DVI etc, nothing is over clocked

Problem: I built this system 6 months ago and it has been running perfectly
since. On August 27th my system tried to automatically update the existing
Nvidia driver from Windows Update (groan, I know, I’ve changed it and will
never let this happen again). My previous driver had been working perfectly.
I was at work and came home, my system was unstable, I was getting TDR’s,
artefacts on screen and before I could really work out what was going on my
system crashed with BSOD on nvlddmkm.sys error 116.

Now it is in a loop. No matter what I do or what display drivers I try Vista
always crashes on reboot with the same BSOD nvlddmkm.sys error 116.

With an Nvidia driver loaded I get a BSOD nvlddmkm.sys at boot with error
116. Regardless of driver – 97.46, 100.64, 162.22, 162.44 etc

If I let my system update itself, ie with a Microsoft minimal driver, it
boots but all I get displayed is a blank black screen with a mouse cursor.
Microsoft Nvidia WDDM driver 25/01/2007 So it shows a mouse cursor that
actaully moves about but the desktop is not present, blank, black etc.

If I uninstall whatever driver is currently installed from safe mode,
removing all driver files, removing those in system32 and renaming
nvlddmkm.sys in system32/drivers, and then reboot, my system boots up with no
driver file loaded for the adaptor at all. This actually allows me to boot
into Vista and gives me a desktop but clearly this means I have no display
driver running and have no more than basic display functionality.

I really need help. My own view is Windows update partially installed a
driver or partially updated the driver that was on my system prior to August
27th. Somehow it never completed that operation and my system has residual
registry entries that point to incorrect driver files.

I have tried sweeping registry and I did find residual NVidia files but they
were minimal and when I installed driver again I had the same nvlddmkm.sts
BSOD error.

I have two monitors one a Sony 17†LCD VGA and an LG 22†DVI. They were both
working fine prior but now they don’t, obviously. I have seen messages about
dual displays and the drivers/registry becoming confused. So I tried various
configurations of monitor - VGA only, DVI only, connected to different ports
etc. Each time same error BSOD nvlddmkm.sys 116.

It's now three weeks since this happened and my system is still farquhared.
I need some serious help, I am way behind on some lucrative projects and I
might pay for help to get this resolved. Help!!!

 

[John Barnes]

I have the beta drivers from the nVidia site installed on Vista 64 and have
had no problems since they were installed. If you install them, the new
procedure first uninstalls the old drivers. I guess the first question is
with all the manual changes you have made, what is the result of this phase
of installing this beta driver.

 

[Guest]

WHich beta version are you referring to? I think I may have tried that already.

I tried a few more things:

Disabled UAC to see if driver was having problems with rights - no success,
same BSOD on boot

Downloaded and ran 'Driver Cleaner' from Guru3d which appeared to clean up a
few stray Nvidia registry entries (I REALLY thought that was it fixed)
however, upon reinstalling Nvidia driver it crashed again on boot with same
error.

Downloaded and ran 'Nvidia - nasty file remover' again removed some known
nvidia files but again no success.

Each time I am booting into safe mode, uninstalling nvidia driver (deleting
files), rebooting to safe mode, scrubbing driver files and registry entries,
rebooting to Vista normal and cancelling auto attempt to install driver for
7600GT (never install driver for this device). Then rebooting again to
windows normal and attempting to install latest official Nvidia drivers. Same
BSOD nvlddmkm.sys at boot...

I must have tried almost every driver/fault finding/troubleshooting
combination...

This is driving (ha) me nuts!

 

[John Barnes]

163.44 is the driver I am using. I also have the 7600GT on Vista 64. I
have a Gigabyte AMD system.

 

[Guest]

I can confirm this is not a specific problem with Nvidia cards. I went out
and bought a new ATI graphics card because I could not afford to wait any
longer.

I immediately installed this card and my system immediately sprang into
life. And in the two hours it was working I managed to backup or otherwise
retrieve all my data.

The next I saw was a 'display driver stopped working' error in Vista, also
know as a TDR error, where timing between Vista and graphics card is lost
somehow. Basically this error appeared maybe 4 times then my system crashed
again with the same error BSOD 116 but with the ATI driver file instaed of
the nvidia driver.

THIS IS A VISTA UPDATE problem where my system has been corrupted by a
wayward Vista Update. SOmehow this is killing graphics systems...

I hope they fix it soon.... Vista is becoming unusable