Familiarity with the "blue screens of death" can not be called a pleasant event, it implies the presence of software or hardware faults and often promises long digging in search of the source of trouble to eliminate it. Failures are accompanied by messages that help to shed some light on the essence of the problem and often point to a specific file, and there may be many reasons for the problem. One such BSOD error, familiar to owners of Nvidia brand video cards, is “0x00000116 in nvlddmkm.sys”. It may have other appearances and occur during system startup, device shutdown, during operation, for example, during a game or when performing certain actions on a computer, after installing operating system updates or programs, as well as hardware upgrades in various versions of Windows. The appearance of a failure indicates that the driver for the video card does not function correctly and, despite the obviousness of the problem search area, the matter may not only be in irrelevant software versions. Since the assortment of probable sources of the problem is quite wide, there will be several solutions to this problem, and each of them will be effective in a particular case.

Troubleshoot nvlddmkm.sys error.

Causes of Nvidia Problems

A blue screen with an error in nvlddmkm.sys often appears in Windows 7, 8 or 10 and is mostly due to problems with the Nvidia driver, but not always. In addition to an unsuitable driver version, the problem may be caused by the following factors:

• Damage to drivers during installation or malware, incorrect configurations, etc.
• The conflict of hardware, software.
• Incorrect registry entries caused by various reasons (virus, program or user could accidentally or intentionally delete / damage registry data).
• Hard disk damage, bad sectors.
• Incorrect BIOS settings.
• Insufficient paging file size.
• Not enough power supply.
• Incorrect operation of RAM, malfunction of one of the memory bars.
• Overheating video card and other problems.

The error of the nvlddmkm.sys file stopping in Windows is solved by applying various methods of repairing them one by one up to the elimination of the failure, since the real cause of the problem may be anything.

Error solving methods

We will look at working methods that, in most cases, are effective in eliminating the failure in nvlddmkm.sys. The treatment will be aimed at eradicating the alleged primary sources of the problem. So, by the method of elimination it will turn out to identify the cause of the malfunction and correct the BSOD error.

Rename and copy the file nvlddmkm.sys

The problem with driver mismatch is most likely and sometimes the issue is solved by renaming the nvlddmkm.sys element. So, to rectify the situation, do the following:

• Download and install the latest Nvidia drivers on your computer.
• Go to the directory C: \ Windows \ System32 \ drivers.
• Here we look for the nvlddmkm.sys file and change its name to sys.old.
• Then we go to the Nvidia directory (on the system disk) and from here take the nvlddmkm.sy_ file, copy it to the desktop.
• Open the command line (you can go to the console using the Start menu search, where you can write the query cmd).
• At the command prompt, enter the command chdir Desktop, click Enter.
• Next, write another command expand.exe nvlddmkm.sy_ nvlddmkm.sys, press the enter key.
• After completing these steps, transfer the nvlddmkm.sys file from the desktop to the folder located at C: \ Windows \ System32 \ drivers and reboot.

By "C: \" means the system partition, if you have the system on another disk, the volume name should be changed.

Graphics driver rollback

In the event that the error began to bother after updating the driver (sometimes problems with nvlddmkm.sys are ensured by the fact that the update is incorrect and does not fit), it can be rolled back to the previous version. This is done like this:

• We turn to the Device Manager (the tool can be launched in various ways, for example from the Control Panel or with the help of the search bar on request msc or Device Manager).
• Expand the “Video adapters” tab in the service window.
• Right-click on the device name to open the context menu and select “Properties”.
• In the "Driver" tab, click the "Rollback" button, which will restore the previous driver. Reboot.

If after rebooting the blue screen with the error in nvlddmkm.sys appears again, you will need to remove the driver and reinstall it.

Net driver installation

To resolve the nvlddmkm.sys error in Windows 10, you will need a clean installation of the Nvidia driver, which means completely removing all traces using a special utility and reinstalling. To do this, perform the following actions:

• Loading in safe mode.
• Using software (for example, DriverSweeper, Display Driver Uninstaller or similar), we delete all video card files from the system.
• We also launch a utility for automatic registry cleaning (CCleaner or others).
• After removing the driver and all data associated with it, a reboot is required. Run Windows in standard mode.
• Now it is necessary to install the latest drivers. To do this, go to the video adapter in the Device Manager and select the option “Update driver” from the context menu. The system itself will find the latest drivers for the video card.
• Alternatively, you can download the software yourself from the official Nvidia website and launch the installer to complete the procedure. If new drivers were used before the failure, it is better to download the previous version, otherwise - the latest one. When installing, the option “Run a clean installation” should be noted.
• At the end of the process will require a reboot.

Memory check

Sometimes a blue screen with the error code VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE nvlddmkm.sys and other modifications are not associated with video card drivers, but RAM. This often happens if several rails of RAM are connected to the motherboard, so in order to find out which of them fails, you need to remove everything and use each one alternately, observing whether the failure occurs again. If a problem module is identified, it should be replaced. You can test the RAM with the built-in system tool that can be launched, for example, by searching the Start menu by entering the “Windows Memory Checker” query. In addition, third-party utilities, such as Memtest86 +, are used to check memory for errors.

Deactivation of system overclocking

The causes of the blue screen, including the error in nvlddmkm.sys, are varied and one of the factors that provoke the problem is overheating. Critical temperatures of devices can be caused by artificial overclocking, performed in order to increase speed, work speed, as a rule, with the help of special software. You can check the heating components of the assembly manually or using a program, for example, AIDA64 or similar. After overclocking a video card, various troubles are possible, the system may not only fail, but not load at all. Often the reason causing the error 0x00000116 on a blue screen is in this “improvement”. You can roll back the changes in the BIOS by going to the section “Advanced | JamperFree Configuration | Ai Tuning. If the failure causes overclocking (overheating due to overclocking), when you return the video card to its previous state, the problem of the blue screen will be eliminated.

Replacing the PSU with a more powerful one

All components of the assembly must comply with each other according to the characteristics, so the upgrade must be made taking into account the parameters of the components, since the incompatibility of equipment is a frequent cause of blue screens and other malfunctions. So, when buying a powerful video card, it is imperative to carry out and replace the power supply unit with a more powerful option. Left unattended, the old PSU may simply not pull the new device, which will cause an error in 0x00000116 in nvlddmkm.sys. To fix the failure, it is necessary to take into account the requirements of the video card manufacturer and, in accordance with them, replace the power supply unit. In some cases, users managed to get rid of the blue screen in this way.

We use the functionality of the utility CHKDSK

The system tool Check Disk helps in fixing many errors related to hard disk sector damage. If there are problems with the hard drive, during its scanning for errors, the utility will correct the problem. Run the tool from the command line by the administrator. This can be done through the Run console (we hold down the Win + R keys, then we write the cmd command in the field and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter at the same time) or via the Start menu search bar (we write the corresponding query, right-click on the name of the found service and we select start as administrator). How to fix the error in nvlddmkm.sys using the utility:

• Open the command prompt as an administrator.
• Enter the chkdsk C: / f command and press Enter (instead of “C: \”, a different partition can be selected if the OS is on it, the value should be changed. F in the command means scanning the volume for errors and correcting them if detected) .
• The service will perform automatic scanning and recovery, after which you need to reboot.

The procedure may take some time, depending on the size of your disk. In this case, the results of the procedure will be ready report, from which you can find information about the work performed. Usually, the above methods are enough to solve this problem, but if none of them was effective in a particular case, you can always reinstall Windows, although taking into account the variety of reasons, this method does not always help. The key to troubleshoot a failure is to track the moment it occurs. If an error can be associated with previous events, the solution lies on the surface.