VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE (nvlddmkm.sys) unable to boot

Dear Windows Ten Forum guys,

I am having trouble booting my system after BSOD saying VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE. I have quite an old system i built myself. It ran Windows Vista / Windows 7 without any problems. I did even some gaming back in the days.

Recently I decided to move to Windows 10. I did a clean installation to a new SSD disk. System has been running without any noticable problem for about a month or so, just like Windows 7 did - without the gaming tho... The system runs 24/7 I rarely even restart - only Windows Update does, most of the time it sits at login screen, only some file sharing is on.

One day i just wanted to quickly log in I got BSOD VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE and I could not boot the system since then. Mr. Google pointed me to this forums. I followed some advices. I was able to uninstall NVidia drivers using Display Driver Uninstaller as advised in numerous posts. I am able to boot the system using generic Microsoft driver.

Problem is I can't install the drivers. When i try to install them in normal mode the screen goes black (monitor even off) and the system reboots after a while into normal mode again with no sign of Nvidia drivers. When I try to install the drivers in safe mode the installation is ok, but I can't boot the system after that. I did try to install the newest drivers 341.95 as well as 341.92 and 341.74 (oldest i could find on Nvidia website)

The boot process looks ok for a while, but then the screen goes black (monitor off) and after a while it throws a BSOD (VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE / DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION). Sometimes it just sits there with black screen and I lose my patience and restart.


I did even try to boot Live Ubuntu and it looked ok - I did not do any further testing tho

My question now is:

Should I get a new GPU or am I missing something?

Thank you in advance
JirkaBitr

axe0 said:

Hi JirkaBitr,

Welcome to the 10forums and my apologie for the delay, since last patchday we get a lot of new threads that we just cannot handle within a certain amount of time.

I would ask you to try to update your BIOS
Support For X58 Platinum | MSI Global | Motherboard - The world leader in motherboard design
If a BIOS update doesn't do the job, please try to reseat the GPU in the same and/or different slot.
When reseating in the same and different slot doesn't help either then I recommend to borrow a GPU to ensure the motherboard isn't failing.

Hi axe0,

thank you for your time and effort.
I tried all your suggestions, BIOS update nor card reseating helped, it was still the same.
After a while of hesitation since a got nowhere to borrow a card I got a new one and it did the job. I was able to boot the system, install the drivers and even run a game for some time.

It is safe to say the cause was a broken GF card. RIP GTX285 :-D

Thank you again.
JirkaBitr