Black screen crashes exclusively while gaming. Cache Hierarchy/nvlddmkm.sys likely suspects, can’t figure out

Understanding and Troubleshooting Black Screen Crashes During Gaming: A Comprehensive Guide

Experiencing system crashes during intensive gaming sessions can be incredibly frustrating, especially when typical troubleshooting steps don’t resolve the issue. If you’re facing black screen crashes—ranging from complete blue screen errors to monitor blackouts with or without image retention—there are several potential causes and solutions worth exploring. This article provides an in-depth overview of common problems, investigative steps, and best practices for resolving these issues, based on modern hardware configurations and diagnostics.

Identifying the Symptoms

Users reporting black screen crashes while gaming often describe multiple types of failures, including:

Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) errors.
Monitor going black and remaining unresponsive until a forced restart.
Temporary blackouts with the previous image reappearing after the crash, necessitating a system reboot.

Commonly, these issues occur after hardware replacements, such as motherboard, power supply, or CPU upgrades, suggesting possible driver conflicts, hardware incompatibilities, or software misconfigurations as potential culprits.

Key Diagnostic Checks and Troubleshooting Steps

Hardware and Physical Inspection
Ensure all components are properly seated.
Verify that cables are firmly connected and undamaged.
Confirm that CPU cooler installation includes adequate thermal paste and proper contact.
Maintain appropriate system temperatures; overheating is unlikely if temperatures are within normal ranges.
Software and Driver Management
Fully uninstall GPU drivers using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) in safe mode, then reinstall the latest stable drivers.
Consider reverting to previous driver versions if crashes coincide with recent updates.
Update BIOS and chipset drivers to ensure compatibility with new hardware.
Run AMD or relevant GPU utility tools to clean residual driver remnants and verify driver integrity.
System Configuration
Disable features such as XMP profiles to standardize RAM performance.
Adjust Power Management Settings:
- Create custom power plans prioritizing performance.
- Change PCIe/Graphics settings to prevent aggressive power saving modes.
Modify Windows registry entries related to Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR):
- Increasing TdrDelay can sometimes prevent GPU timeout errors.
Disable CPU C-states and reduce CPU voltage or clock speeds temporarily to test stability.
Hardware Stress Testing
Utilize stress testing tools like Cinebench and OCCT to evaluate system stability under load.
If the system remains stable under stress