nvlddmkm Nvlddmkm cannot be found, BSOD

[Zeeeeen]

I keep getting Event ID 153 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found, and it makes my pc restart randomly also i've been made aware that its a BSOD:

The bugcheck was: 0x00000116 (0xffff8b858fbee010, 0xfffff8076a531a40, 0xffffffffc000009a, 0x0000000000000004). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\120525-5375-01.dmp. Report Id: 39552b16-1782-4490-b5b9-ee0e4cfac4fe.

For the dmp files here it is(or see attached files): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12Sobto8CdWe8OqA5K6WHTWk07BcFvLIg?usp=drive_link

Specs:

• MAG B550 Tomahawk 

• 5600x

• Stock Cooler 

• PNY 3060 12gb

• 16gb ram T-Force 2x8GB

• Samsung 980

• 650W Corsair PSU (Forgot the model number)

Here are the things that I've tried:

• Reseating the GPU

• DDU then installing latest nvidia driver

• DDU then installing more stable version of Nvidia driver

• Tried other PCIE Slot

• Tried older, more stable versions of Nvidia Drivers

• Tried doing a clean install of Win11

• Tried going back to windows 10 and doing the previous step

• My Nvme is safe i've checked with samsung magician and also chkdsk multiple times

• GPU is fine while doing furmark https://www.gpumagick.com/scores/1912312

After reinstalling the nvidia drivers i always look for nvlddmkm on C:\Windows\System32\drivers but its always not there.

I'm at a loss can anyone help. Been troubleshooting this for like 3 days straight now.

 

120425-4640-01.dmp 120425-5015-01.dmp 120525-4546-01.dmp 120525-5375-01.dmp 120425-4937-01.dmp 120425-4375-01.dmp

Edited December 5, 2025 by Zeeeeen
Added another dump file, edited pc specs

[Mark Kaine]

What RAM exactly and how many sticks? 

[Zeeeeen]

9 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

What RAM exactly and how many sticks? 

Sorry for the late reply, my rams are T Force tuf gaming 2x8GB and are on dimm slots 2 and 4. I also have xmp disabled 

[Mark Kaine]

11 hours ago, Zeeeeen said:

Tried older, more stable versions of Nvidia Drivers

Can you give us some examples which? cause Nvidia put out tons of dodgy driver updates over the year... it's hard to keep track honestly, but that could still be useful information.

I'm on 572.83 DCH for example.

 

I remember the previous "stable" ones were like 566.36 or even earlier...

 

 

15 minutes ago, Zeeeeen said:

T Force tuf gaming 2x8GB and are on dimm slots 2 and 4. I also have xmp disabled 

Ok and the rated speed?

 

11 hours ago, Zeeeeen said:

Samsung 980

it is remarkable how many people with kinda weird issues that are likely memory related have this ssd. 

[Zeeeeen]

5 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Can you give us some examples which? cause Nvidia put out tons of dodgy driver updates over the year... it's hard to keep track honestly, but that could still be useful information.

I'm on 572.83 DCH for example.

 

I remember the previous "stable" ones were like 566.36 or even earlier...

It was 566.36 also tried 572.60 and its still the same error

5 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

 

Ok and the rated speed?

2400mhz

5 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

 

it is remarkable how many people with kinda weird issues that are likely memory related have this ssd. 

My friend also told me that i needed to update the firmware for this lol

[Mark Kaine]

I mean try updating the firmware but other than that I don't really know tbh... It kinda sounds like the driver keeps getting deleted from your description, but that also doesn't really make sense to me...? The drivers should also be in "NVIDIA DRIVERS" or something and not "system32" afaik.

 

 

[Zeeeeen]

8 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

I mean try updating the firmware but other than that I don't really know tbh... It kinda sounds like the driver keeps getting deleted from your description, but that also doesn't really make sense to me...? The drivers should also be in "NVIDIA DRIVERS" or something and not "system32" afaik.

 

 

My friend told me he's gonna drop by and try troubleshooting it. I'll reply an update when we figure something out. Thanks!

[Kisai]

12 hours ago, Zeeeeen said:

I keep getting Event ID 153 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found, and it makes my pc restart randomly also i've been made aware that its a BSOD:

The bugcheck was: 0x00000116 (0xffff8b858fbee010, 0xfffff8076a531a40, 0xffffffffc000009a, 0x0000000000000004). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\120525-5375-01.dmp. Report Id: 39552b16-1782-4490-b5b9-ee0e4cfac4fe.

For the dmp files here it is(or see attached files): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12Sobto8CdWe8OqA5K6WHTWk07BcFvLIg?usp=drive_link

Specs:

• MAG B550 Tomahawk 

• 5600x

• Stock Cooler 

• PNY 3060 12gb

• 16gb ram T-Force 2x8GB

• Samsung 980

• 650W Corsair PSU (Forgot the model number)

Here are the things that I've tried:

• Reseating the GPU

• DDU then installing latest nvidia driver

• DDU then installing more stable version of Nvidia driver

• Tried other PCIE Slot

• Tried older, more stable versions of Nvidia Drivers

• Tried doing a clean install of Win11

• Tried going back to windows 10 and doing the previous step

• My Nvme is safe i've checked with samsung magician and also chkdsk multiple times

• GPU is fine while doing furmark https://www.gpumagick.com/scores/1912312

After reinstalling the nvidia drivers i always look for nvlddmkm on C:\Windows\System32\drivers but its always not there.

I'm at a loss can anyone help. Been troubleshooting this for like 3 days straight now.

 

120425-4640-01.dmp 3.1 MB · 0 downloads 120425-5015-01.dmp 5.22 MB · 0 downloads 120525-4546-01.dmp 2.85 MB · 0 downloads 120525-5375-01.dmp 2.53 MB · 0 downloads 120425-4937-01.dmp 2.15 MB · 0 downloads 120425-4375-01.dmp 2.77 MB · 0 downloads

Test the GPU in another computer just to make sure it's working, because "can't find" a driver file can mean either the hardware is failing, or the hardware is "ejecting" after initialization as well. 

 

It could also just be the RAM or CPU failing or needing to be re-seated and it just happens to keep loading the GPU drivers into the failing address range.

 

Worst case, update the MB firmware https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-B550-TOMAHAWK/support#firmware , reset to factory defaults, reinstall the OS, and the install the chipset driver https://www.amd.com/en/support/downloads/drivers.html/processors/ryzen/ryzen-5000-series/amd-ryzen-5-5600x.html and THEN the GPU driver https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/drivers/results/258745/ .

 

[Bjoolz]

In the six dump files, you have two DPC_Watchdog_Violation crashes pointing to the Nvidia GPU. They show that it's failing on an ISR (Interrupt Service Routine). This is something we have seen a lot with faulty Nvidia cards for some reason. There is nothing weird or special about an ISR so we have no idea why this seems to be a trigger.

 

In the other four it shows a Video_TDR_Failure. This crash means that the GPU stopped responding, Windows reset the driver, but the GPU was still not responding so Windows ordered a BSOD. This is the GPU timing out, not the driver. 

On 12/5/2025 at 1:01 AM, Zeeeeen said:

I keep getting Event ID 153 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found, and it makes my pc restart randomly also i've been made aware that its a BSOD.

Event ID 153 is a timeout event. So it's likely the GPU disappearing, not the driver (nvlddmkm.sys is the Nvidia GPU driver). 

 

EDIT: To explain further, if a device times out it stops responding. Several Windows system call this disappearing because not responding to requests is effectively the same as it disappearing/being removed. 

 

The errors we see here used to be quite certain signs that you had a faulty GPU. Then in January of last year Nvidia broke their drivers. They are better now, but still not great. 3000 series wasn't as much affected as 4000 and 5000 series, but some users still had/have a lot of issues. The best way to test if it's the driver or the GPU is to use DDU to remove the current driver and then install a driver from December 2023 because we 100% know that this driver wasn't affected by the "recent" issues.

 

DDU guide.

Link to that old driver (version 566.36).

[NoSense]

Hi everyone, I'm friend of @Zeeeeen and I helped check and troubleshoot his PC. Here’s what I did:

Note: The following may not work for everyone, but this is what worked for my friend's PC.

 

• First, I cleaned each component (RAM, NVMe, GPU, CPU) along with their corresponding slots. I also replaced the thermal paste on both the GPU and CPU, reseated everything, and double-checked that all components were properly seated.
   
• Second, after that, I immediately did a clean install of the OS.
   
• Third, I followed what @Kisai suggested: I updated the BIOS (I assume this is what you're referring to when you mentioned “firmware”), installed the motherboard chipset drivers, and installed the latest NVIDIA drivers.
   
• Fourth, I installed the Monster Hunter Wilds Benchmark and ran it at least 8 times. I also ran YouTube or other video streams in the background while testing. I continued this for about 3 hours, and everything was stable—no restarts and no BSODs.

The downside of this is that I wasn’t able to pinpoint which component was causing the problem, but I think @Bjoolz made a fair point regarding my friend's issue.

Now I gave back the PC to @Zeeeeen and we are still observing if the issue still persist.

 

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, NoSense said:

Hi everyone, I'm friend of @Zeeeeen and I helped check and troubleshoot his PC. Here’s what I did:

Note: The following may not work for everyone, but this is what worked for my friend's PC.

 

• First, I cleaned each component (RAM, NVMe, GPU, CPU) along with their corresponding slots. I also replaced the thermal paste on both the GPU and CPU, reseated everything, and double-checked that all components were properly seated.
   

Usually dust/dirt is not the problem I've seen computers that had an inch of dust in them and they still worked. It makes them run hotter, but it literately needs to a thermally poor environment. Replacing the thermal pads/paste may have been the bandage on the problem, but you likely won't find out for a few months.

 

1 hour ago, NoSense said:

• Second, after that, I immediately did a clean install of the OS.
   
• Third, I followed what @Kisai suggested: I updated the BIOS (I assume this is what you're referring to when you mentioned “firmware”), installed the motherboard chipset drivers, and installed the latest NVIDIA drivers.
   

This is always the correct order to install OS's

1. Update BIOS

2. Partition, Format the OS drive and then install the OS

3. Install the correct SSD/RAID drivers (F6 driver) at the time of install, even if optional

4. Install chipset driver first before you install any hardware drivers (This has been the standard thing to do since Windows 95, Intel INF drivers, AMD chipset drivers, etc)

5. Install GPU driver

6. Install Wired Network driver

7. Install USB driver

9. Install audio drivers.

8. Install WiFi/Bluetooth drivers.

 

 

Basically you move "network driver" up or down depending on how much prep work you did. If you did no prep work, that means you have to rely on the network driver in the OS, and if the network card or MB is too new, you had to download it before hand. The GPU will always boot initially in "VGA mode" at the minimum, but because "the computer works" people may fail to install the GPU driver, or install it too early in the process, resulting in failures due to missing chipset drivers required to initialize the GPU or set the power management in a state to successfully install the driver. USB drivers likewise, the PC should at the very minimum have the USB2.0 available and the USB drivers really only enable 3.x features.

 

The reason you keep wireless last, is that unless the device is a laptop, is that is the hardest to isolate a problem with. Often WiFi and Bluetooth drivers are intel drivers, or Realtek drivers, and both of their installers for WiFi can brick things. 

 

Audio can be installed at any point after the chipset driver as long as everything else critical you need is installed, as again, motherboard vendors often use the cheapest solutions (sometimes they are USB not PCIe) and if they are in fact USB, then you may need to install the chipset and USB drivers(if there are separate USB drivers) before the audio device will appear.

 

1 hour ago, NoSense said:

• Fourth, I installed the Monster Hunter Wilds Benchmark and ran it at least 8 times. I also ran YouTube or other video streams in the background while testing. I continued this for about 3 hours, and everything was stable—no restarts and no BSODs.

The downside of this is that I wasn’t able to pinpoint which component was causing the problem, but I think @Bjoolz made a fair point regarding my friend's issue.

Now I gave back the PC to @Zeeeeen and we are still observing if the issue still persist.

 

 

My guess is that if there is really a problem it was resolved by the cleaning and applying new paste/pads to the GPU and/or the CPU. But you must always install an OS from a known stable state. When you're not sure why a system is unstable, you may end up with partially installed drivers which is probably how this whole thing started. 

 

When a desktop has both an iGPU and a dGPU, you have the additional complication of the order the GPU's are initialized as well. Which does not apply here, but someone googling it might ask. So the BIOS should be set to PEG (PCIe Express Graphics slot) when there is both present.