Hi. Basically, son's pc has been crashing for the last few months playing games on Steam and while using his Valve Index. Originally we ruled it a Mobo-gone-bad issue. Happened when running Windows 7 Ultimate and the following hardware:

Windows 7 Ultimate
DISPLAY: (1) primary ASUS 3D 144Hz 1ms + (1) 60Hz
PSU: Corsair 850w
CPU: i7 4790k
MOBO: MSI U3 Plus (since replaced)
GRAPHICS: EVGA 980 Ti FTW
HDD: Samsung 2TB Sata
MEM: 16GB (2x8) Hyperx Fury 1866mHz & 16GB (2x8) Patriot 1600mHz (32GB total)


We've since purchased another mobo, formatted and installed a 256GB Patriot SSD, installed and updated Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 10 Pro, and have only installed the basic software to run Windows 10 l, Steam, and a couple of Steam games, but the nvdllmkm error issue persists...screen freezes, goes black, then recovers back to desktop screen.

Current Build:

Windows 10 Pro
DISPLAY: (1) primary ASUS 3D 144Hz 1ms + (1) 60Hz
PSU: Corsair 850w
CPU: i7 4790k
MOBO: MSI z97 Gaming 7
GRAPHICS: EVGA 980 Ti FTW
SDD: 256GB Patriot
MEM: 16GB (2x8) Hyperx Fury 1866mHz

All Mobo drivers, bios, and Windows updated to latest. Graphics card driver updated to latest Windows 10 driver. Not using GeForce Experience or any other programs outside the basic Windows programs, Steam, and a couple steam games to test....same nvdllmkm error as before. Previous monitoring of cpu, memory, and power through MSI Extreme Tuning Utility hasn't shown anything strange, as far as I can tell...ran scan for drive errors...none found.

Any help is appreciated. He used to be running 16GB (2x8) Hyperx Fury 1866mHz plus another 16GB (2x8) Patriot 1600mHz memory, but after thinking it was an iffy motherboard we replaced it with the MSI z97 Gaming 7 Mobo, one Patriot module wasn't registering with its known name, ran a check and decided to leave it out if PC, then further decided to pull the other Patriot and try system with only 16GB Hyperx Fury 1866mHz modules in 2 & 4 for dual channel. Is there a chance the prebious motherboard went bad and messed up one memory module plus the graphics card?

Hi Sajin. Thanks for the suggestion. I don't really have access to another pc, but was considering calling a local computer shop to see what they'd charge to test it out. As for the memory, originally we had one matched set in 1&2 and then the other brand matched set in 3&4 and he ran that way for many months. In the last week I've removed all, left out the Patriot and reseated the Hyperx in 2&4. Will try to take all out and then test one at a time. I also need to run DDU and reinstall Nvidia driver to see if that helps at all. We'd tried reinstalling the driver several times prior to switching to ssd/reinstalling everything, but it's worth another shot. He's also getting the error that "application blocked from accessing graphics card".

Any updates from having the card tested at a local shop?

Thanks for the suggestions, madgruyere. Will try, but keep getting "application blocked from accessing graphics hardware" when trying Steam games and First Strike or Fire Strike 3DMARK benchmark program. Hard to do anything when it does that. Lol. I have ran MSI Extreme Tuning Utility on cpu and RAM and it ran the tests for 5 mins without any issue

Bob - That wild! Not really...just that I've read it in a couple other threads and couldn't believe people actually do that to their cards to resolve certain issues. I did notice that the card was sagging on the far corner of the graphics card furthest away from the Mobo. I took it this card apart enough to clean and repaste the gpu and used air to flow it out (it wasn't very dusty), but didn't go all the way to taking off the metal covers to the actual board for fear of needing to reapply thermal padding to the ram and not having any on hand. Really think I should bake it? And if so, do I need to remove the heat sink and fans assembly first? I'd read that the baking to resolver was more or less a temporary fix...is that pretty accurate? Son's been using this card to play games every day 2-10'ish hours a day for the last two years. He's high-functioning autistic so gaming is what he does (lol). Fans are still super quiet, but spin up when needed nicely. Read that cards are often only good for a few years usually and that cards of this era might possibly have a soldering issue...correct?

Thanks, Bob!