Display driver stopped working and has recovered, BF4, Win 8, AMD

hindemith

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Feb 17, 2014
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So I just got my new R9 280X Toxic from Sapphire thinking "Hey, time to play BF4 with real life graphics"

Oh, boy, how wrong I was. First, it was the artifacting, fixed after several attempts with a clean install of the Beta Drivers (you have to use Driver Fusion in Safe Mode for it to work completely).
Then, along came the Directx errors, fixed with a user.cfg file in Battlefield's main dir, which I suspect only replaced one error by another.
Now I randomly get the "Display dirver stopped responded and has recovered" error while in game (I mean really randomly, this could be with 30min into a map, or as soon as it finishes loading).

I've tried
-Running in Window Mode
-Rolling back to older drivers (many)
-Increasing power limit in CCC
-Underclocking
-Increasing VDDC to 1300mV
-Checking for overheating
-Creating the TdrDelay entry in the registry
-Reinstalling Windows
-Testing in another PC (same error on BF 4)
-Testing in stress test programs (no crashes)

My specs
CPU: AMD FX 8320 3.5GHz (125W)
MB: Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 (970/SB950 Chipset)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 2x4GB
HDDs: Samsung 250GB SATA II
Maxtor 150GB SATA II
Seagate 500GB SATA III (Windows drive)
GPU: Sapphire AMD R9 280X TOXIC
PSU: Corsair TX650

Memtest says my memory is OK
chkdsk says no driver errors, but Speccy says the Samsung has a S.M.A.R.T. warning status

There is one detail, though, I switched to this MB from a M4A89GTD PRO/USB3, which had integrated graphics, when the M5A97 EVO does not and I didn't uninstall the previous MB drivers (couldn't find how to do it because everyone said it's too hard and formating is easier)

I really don't know what to do anymore...
 

hindemith

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Feb 17, 2014
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I didn't OC my card (It is factory OC'd) and I tried to use the reference values from the 280X, with no success. I don't know if it's a bad card, because many TOXIC owners had the artifacting issue. Is there anything else besides these 4?
 
these are the main causes I can think of right now... there maybe more. Does this issue happen with any other games and have you also tried to drop the clocks to a 280 or the 7970 stock settings as the 280X is Pushing higher clocks than the older cards?
 
OK, anytime you replace the motherboard with a different model you need to do a fresh install of the OS. from the sounds of it, Please correct me if I'm wrong, you did not do this. this could be ,and most likely is, the cause of all your issues. It is not unheard of that the OS will work after changing the motherboard to a different model but most times the OS will not boot.

I strongly suggest (if my above assumption was correct) that you do a fresh install of the OS. the left over drivers and settings can cause major headache's.
 

hindemith

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You're right, I didn't reinstall de OS. Thing is, the artifacting issue from before happened before the new MB, which was purchased to solve the old one's memory problem. If I refresh Windows, should it solve the problem? I don't have anywhere to back my stuff up to right now.
 
Let me make sure i understand correctly. the artifacting happened on both systems? If so then the OS and old drivers are not the issue. that leaves the GPU being bad.

I still recommend a refresh of the OS when you can backup your information. The old drivers and setting could cause issues down the line, But you could have no issues with them either. It is safer to reinstall the OS when you have the chance.
 

hindemith

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Artifacting happened before, but it actually didn't get replaced by the current error. There was a time when both happened at the same time. I'm guessing the old MB drivers are the problem really...
 
have you tried any other driver besides the BETA driver? The error means that the Driver has crashed for what ever reason.

we have ruled out an unstable OC.
we have ruled out an OS issue.

either the driver is bad, Not enough power to GPU (which your PSU should be way more than enough) or a bad card.
 

hindemith

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Feb 17, 2014
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Yes, I used older drivers too and am currently with the most updated version of my driver, downloaded directly from Sapphire's site.
 

hindemith

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Yes, but I don't know if that is because BF 4 is the only really demanding game I play. I tested it on Skyrim too, since some people that had this problem had it on Skyrim also, put absolutely EVERYTHING maxed out and got no problems. Any chance this is a BF 4 or driver problem?

I tested it on a friend's PC (with way more powerful specs) and got exactly the same error, the same crash in a very similar situation (in BF 4), so I'm checking off everything else besides game, driver or a rather unlikely memory compatibility issue (my friend has Corsair Vengeance memories also, but 16GB and 1866Hz)
 

hindemith

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Also, Unigine's Valley and Furmark run with no problems for much longer than BF 4 with no crashes or instabilities at all


Edit: I switched to 32-bit version of BF 4 and disabled ambient occlusion and it seems to work for all maps but one now... I'm starting to think this is a driver-program compatibility issue, which makes AMD look very lazy in my opinion...
 

hindemith

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I was using it before... I'm thinking more and more that this isn't card problem, but rather drive-board problem. I will try installing the BETA driver again and see what happens
 

hindemith

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Seems like a system problem. My friend whose pc I used to test has a very similar comp, but his is better
 

hindemith

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I returned the card for a full refund and got an gtx770. Tired of dealing with AMD's problems.

For anyone consulting this thread in the future, I still believe there is a serious problem between the 280x series and AMD's current display driver, since many 280x owners, including from other brands other than Sapphire had the same problem as me.