Game crashes and PC blue-screens after Nvidia driver uninstall and reinstall

[illusional]

Hi,

I recently used DDU in an attempt to address Cyberpunk 2077 randomly crashing regardless of graphics settings after the 2.0 update came out. Unfortunately, it seems to have backfired and now the problem persists among all big games (EFT, Darktide, etc.) all of which have been stable up until now.

My issue seems very similar to an issue that the user Artorias had, link here: viewtopic.php?t=1391

I have similar crashes:
1) sometimes the game runs for a brief period where the screen freezes but sound is normal which helped verify that I also stay in control of the player character.
2) PC crashes, immediate bluescreen and reboot before I can even interact with the bluescreen

Unlike Artorias, nothing seems different about my hardware's physical performance; fans run normally unlike how theirs stopped, and I haven't noticed any difference.

I've only had the entire PC for roughly a year and a half now, with the only parts older than that being two HDDs that nothing critical/relevant is stored on besides some of the games. Right now I'm extremely worried that something may have caused hardware damage, but I followed this guide to a T, https://www.wagnardsoft.com/content/DDU-Guide-Tutorial while in safe mode, so I think that's unlikely.

PC Specs
OS: Windows 11 Home 64-bit
CPU: 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700KF
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
RAM: 2x16 GB XPG Lancer
MOBO: Prime Z690-P

DMP files are zipped and attached.

Going to try using debug mode on Nvidia control panel later today, but I've been up all night trying to un-muck it up because I have a bad feeling that it isn't just games that will crash (I use my PC to work on projects outside of class for a college game design course). I also don't exactly have the funds to get a replacement for a 3080.

[Wagnard]

Hi,

I recently used DDU in an attempt to address Cyberpunk 2077 randomly crashing regardless of graphics settings after the 2.0 update came out. Unfortunately, it seems to have backfired and now the problem persists among all big games (EFT, Darktide, etc.) all of which have been stable up until now.

My issue seems very similar to an issue that the user Artorias had, link here: viewtopic.php?t=1391

I have similar crashes:
1) sometimes the game runs for a brief period where the screen freezes but sound is normal which helped verify that I also stay in control of the player character.
2) PC crashes, immediate bluescreen and reboot before I can even interact with the bluescreen

Unlike Artorias, nothing seems different about my hardware's physical performance; fans run normally unlike how theirs stopped, and I haven't noticed any difference.

I've only had the entire PC for roughly a year and a half now, with the only parts older than that being two HDDs that nothing critical/relevant is stored on besides some of the games. Right now I'm extremely worried that something may have caused hardware damage, but I followed this guide to a T, https://www.wagnardsoft.com/content/DDU-Guide-Tutorial while in safe mode, so I think that's unlikely.

PC Specs
OS: Windows 11 Home 64-bit
CPU: 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700KF
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
RAM: 2x16 GB XPG Lancer
MOBO: Prime Z690-P

DMP files are zipped and attached.

Going to try using debug mode on Nvidia control panel later today, but I've been up all night trying to un-muck it up because I have a bad feeling that it isn't just games that will crash (I use my PC to work on projects outside of class for a college game design course). I also don't exactly have the funds to get a replacement for a 3080.

Hi,
First of all, I can certify you that it is not possible for DDU to break hardware, it does not interact with it directly.
You already had a problem / symptom before using DDU (you said : used DDU in an attempt to address Cyberpunk 2077 randomly crashing). So the title of the thread is somewhat misleading...

I looked at you DMPs, 1 of them seems to show nvlddmkm.sys (nvidia driver) as the culprit.

What I would do in this situation,
1 - Run the system at stock clock and voltage.
2 - Bios updates
3 - Clear CMOS
4 - set optimized default in bios
4- Try memory at XMP disable / XMP1 and XMP2
5- test the system with memetestx86 and OCCT, and games
6 - removing a memory stick.
etc..

[illusional]

Hi,
First of all, I can certify you that it is not possible for DDU to break hardware, it does not interact with it directly.
You already had a problem / symptom before using DDU (you said : used DDU in an attempt to address Cyberpunk 2077 randomly crashing). So the title of the thread is somewhat misleading...

Thank you for helping so soon, I’ll try the steps you’ve provided when I’m back at my PC later today.

I apologize that the title is misleading, and after rest I see that the whole post comes of as more accusatory than it has any right to be. I should emphasize that I don’t think that DDU would have caused any hardware damage; I was worried that I had caused it by screwing something up while using it. I do think that it is unlikely, but the prospect of any damage it got in my head.

I meant for the title to be as literal as possible; Cyberpunk 2077 originally crashed after a few minutes of gameplay and all other games were stable. After I used DDU and reinstalled the Nvidia drivers, the crashes were significantly different: crashes became more frequent and happened across more games, they were more frequently severe (bluescreens), or the game oddly persisted longer (prior, Cyberpunk crashes were abrupt, now they usually occur like the first crash type I list).

I had (erroneously) ruled out my Nvidia driver installation being the cause as I had already been running with the driver prior to uninstalling via DDU, so that left just me using DDU from what I alone could discern. I’m sorry that I rushed to that conclusion.

[Wagnard]

Hi,
First of all, I can certify you that it is not possible for DDU to break hardware, it does not interact with it directly.
You already had a problem / symptom before using DDU (you said : used DDU in an attempt to address Cyberpunk 2077 randomly crashing). So the title of the thread is somewhat misleading...

Thank you for helping so soon, I’ll try the steps you’ve provided when I’m back at my PC later today.

I apologize that the title is misleading, and after rest I see that the whole post comes of as more accusatory than it has any right to be. I should emphasize that I don’t think that DDU would have caused any hardware damage; I was worried that I had caused it by screwing something up while using it. I do think that it is unlikely, but the prospect of any damage it got in my head.

I meant for the title to be as literal as possible; Cyberpunk 2077 originally crashed after a few minutes of gameplay and all other games were stable. After I used DDU and reinstalled the Nvidia drivers, the crashes were significantly different: crashes became more frequent and happened across more games, they were more frequently severe (bluescreens), or the game oddly persisted longer (prior, Cyberpunk crashes were abrupt, now they usually occur like the first crash type I list).

I had (erroneously) ruled out my Nvidia driver installation being the cause as I had already been running with the driver prior to uninstalling via DDU, so that left just me using DDU from what I alone could discern. I’m sorry that I rushed to that conclusion.

No problem, I can understand why you had concluded this.

I must admit that no software is complettly fail safe. In DDU case the problems would be more related with breaking a Windows installation, but this is something that never really happened and DDU is now quite mature so if it happens, it's quite rare.
Wishing you luck for the suggestions posted above.

[lx_]

are you reading nvidia? latest drivers are all broken

[illusional]

are you reading nvidia? latest drivers are all broken

Really? 537.42, that driver is broken? If you could link to the news on it reducing stability or efficiency it would be helpful because the only issues I'm finding are specifically a performance issue regarding halo infinite and something regarding DaVinci resolve. I personally haven't run into any issues with the recent drivers until now (and the issue seems to have resolved itself somehow which I'll detail in a minute)

[illusional]

Update: issue resolved?

I was following Wagnard's advice (barring the Bios update, didn't have a USB on hand and didn't want to risk anything using Asus flash utility given that I didn't know what the exact issue is).

cleared CMOS which brought me back to stock clock, optimized default, and disabled XMP in the process. Then went to test, issues persisted. Removed memory stick, test, issues persisted. I decided to try going back to an older Nvidia driver since the driver installation seemed like the last thing left to test after resetting everything else; DDU cleaned, older driver installed, and the crashing went away.

Then I tried going back to the latest driver to confirm that as the culprit and report as an issue with the 537.42 driver... and the crashing was still gone. Good news, but now I'm more confused than anything. My best guess is overclocking somehow was interfering with the installation of the most recent driver, and that DDU had cleared up this time around. Even reading that now myself, it sounds completely nonsensical and logically shouldn't happen, but I don't really know how else to connect the dots.
 
I'll update again if the issue resurfaces. I may look into overclocking in the meantime to see if that was the root cause, but at this point I'm ready to just not mess with it further. Seeing as my PC went from crashing in games in 1-2 minutes and OCCT running into one or more errors in the same time frame, to not a single crash in a few hours of running a game and no errors over a 15 minute test on OCCT, "If it works, don't touch it" sounds like a solid idea.

Regardless, thanks again for the help Wagnard. And thanks for the good luck, it evidently worked its magic.