Are you guys frustrated because your windows just crashed with some unknown video TDR failure error? Do you see a big blue screen with a sad word emoji that doesn’t let you log in to Windows? Then you are looking at the right post. In this post, I’m going to tell you how you can get rid of this video TDR failure blue screen either by updating your graphic card settings. And if that doesn’t work then using a blue screen stop code that will do the magic.
What does video TDR Failure mean and why it occurs?
To begin with, let’s understand what the error means and why it occurred? TDR stands for Timeout, Detection, and Recovery. It is used by windows to check your video cards and video card drivers. So, like if there is an NVIDIA graphic card in your laptop or if there is an AMD graphic card that is not working properly, then Windows gets stuck and throws this error. This usually happens when you are doing some activity that puts a heavy load on the graphic card, maybe like creating three-dimensional model sketches, video editing, or playing high-quality graphic games and things like that. Most of the time it is a software issue and the error can be fixed just by updating the graphic card drivers or changing their settings.
Usually when this error occurs your windows system restarts automatically or you can restart it as well, then it starts working fine again. But the error never really goes away until you make any changes to the graphic card properties or update the power settings.
Now that you know this error occurs because of improper functioning of graphic cards, so based on the graphic cards you will probably see one of the below mentioned variants on your windows blue screen:
- If you are using an NVIDIA graphic card the Window blue screen will show the error with nvlddmkm.sys file name, where .sys stand for system file
- If you are using an AMD or ATI graphic card the error will come up as atikmpag.sys
- And for Intel graphic card users, this error shows up as igdkmd64.sys
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How to fix this video TDR failure error?
Updating the Driver
The first and the simplest solution is to update your graphic card driver. You can use the steps below to update your driver:
- First, go to the Start menu of your windows and select the “Device Manager” option.
2. Expand the “Display Adapters” menu and right click on the adapter mentioned and select “Update Driver”.
2. A dialog box will appear asking how you want to update the driver. Select the option, “Search automatically for drivers”. The other option is relevant only when you have a driver disc with you that usually comes with a new graphic card.
Do make sure that your internet connection is working fine before going for the update. If your driver was not updated, it will now be, and your video TDR failure blue screen should never appear again. But if the driver was already updated and the error still popped up then you might want to try something else from below.
If you want, you can also reinstall the drivers. Below is the link to official graphic drivers for Windows 10 for various manufacturers:
Also see – Type here to search, windows search box.
Change your Power Option settings
1. Go to “Control Panel” using start menu option in Windows.
2. Select “Power Options”
3. Choose “Change Plan Settings” from the power plan you are currently using. For e.g., in the below image, a “Balanced” power plan is being used.
4. Now select “Change advanced power settings”.
5. Expand the “Wireless Adapter Settings” option.
6. Expand the “Power Saving Mode” as well and in “Setting:”, select “Maximum Power Saving” option.
7. Click “Apply” and then tap “OK”.
8. Now go to start menu, search for “cmd” and run “Command Prompt” as an administrator.
9. If any dialog box appears asking for permissions, select “Yes”. Command prompt window will appear. Type the following code in it:
powercfg -h off
Above command works as a blue screen stop code for video TDR failure.
10. Restart your PC/laptop. The error should now be fixed and shouldn’t appear again.
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How to avoid blue screen TDR failure issues in future?
- Keep updating your graphic card driver from time to time to avoid these issues. You can follow the instructions mentioned above every six to nine months and update your Window graphic card driver. Your blue screen TDR error should never appear then.
- Optimize the usage of graphic card drivers. If your graphic card is overloaded, no which brand you are using it will probably stop responding and will leave you with the blue screen. Better to close other programs that are consuming a lot of resources while you are playing games, creating model designs, or completing any work that utilizes your graphic card usage.
