Constant display driver has stopped responding and recovered. Help i am going crazy.

shivanemissary · Jul 23, 2014

G'day all, I am having problems with my display drivers crashing and recovering. The problem started a week ago just after i installed the game prototype 2.I have replaced my graphics card (thinking it was on the way out) only to find the problem persists. Initially i had problems installing the new graphics card and had to reset cmos before it would run.

I had recently updated my motherboard and cpu(2-3 weeks) as i could not get a clean install of windows and was told one was at fault.
I have: ASUS maximus vii hero motherboard
Intel Quad Core i7 4790 3.6GHz Max 4GHz HD4600 8 Threads LGA1150 CPU
sapphire Dual-x R9 280x graphics card
4 sticks of ram 4g corsair vengance
1000w galaxy enermax psu

I have changed out my 850w psu for the 1000w psu thinking that was the problem, but no joy.
The old graphics card used to get the display drivers stop responding followed by a lockup (could see the screen but not move mouse, alt f4, ctr alt del, etc) new card does not lock up but constant display driver recovered if watching movies, surfing net or playing games (causes games to crash).
All windows and ATI drivers are up to date as is bios.

Could this have something to do with RAM? About the only thing i have not pulled out but it has passed memcheck and voltage and temps seem ok..

bgunner · Jul 23, 2014

have you OCed the card at all? if so remove the OC and try it. Try a different driver, sometimes drivers just have issues with certain cards. Is the PC OCed? If so remove the OC and see if the issue remains.

only a few things makes this happen like a Bad card, Bad OC on GPU, corrupt driver, Bad OC on PC, corrupt files in windows and to low of a power out put from the PSU. Some of these you have already tried some you have not please go through this list 1 more time and be sure all of these are good.

shivanemissary · Jul 23, 2014

Thanks for the quick reply, the graphics card is factory OC i have lowered the GPU clock from 1020 to 920 and 820 with no noticable difference, i have tried to increase power limit settings but it always resets to 0%
The PC is not OC as i figured it did not really need to be yet and have not looked at any of the OC settings

bgunner · Jul 24, 2014

the power limit just raises the point, temperature, where the GPU starts to throttle the frequency to prevent overheating. This would not cause the display driver to crash. Have you tried older drivers?

shivanemissary · Jul 24, 2014

bgunner :

Last night tried a refresh of win 8.1, started getting the display drive stop responding before i had installed CCC or any drivers, problem keeps up with drivers from cd (13.?) and current drivers 14.4.

So as it happened on a fresh win 8.1 install, with and without drivers installed, could this mean hardware insted of software?
At the back of my mind i am worried my new card is a dud, and back to the only things i have not tried is looking at RAM or HDD.
I am falling so far behind with my UNI work due to this crap, it is very frustrating.

bgunner · Jul 24, 2014

Yes it is very possible that the Card is bad and because of being a fresh install, sort of, of windows 8.1 I'm leaning towards a bad card. Is there a way for you to try the card in a friends PC or a different PC to be sure the card is bad or not?

It is easy to test the ram, download Memtest86+ and either put it on a flash drive or a disk, I like disk but that's my opinion, and run it for 11 passes. this is a free program.

to look at the Smart readouts for your HDD you can download HDDscan3.3 and run it. It will show all teh smart readouts and test the HDD if you want. this too is free.

I suggest trying the card in a different machine as it is unusual that the HDD or ram will cause this error.

shivanemissary · Jul 25, 2014

I have an older rig in parts, i know it works as i stole the 1000w psu out of it.. The motherboard is a rampage gene iii, and runs vista or maybe win7. I will check its compatible and throw the graphics card in it over the weekend.

Alan Caldwell · Jul 25, 2014

First of all you need to TOTALLY remove all the old drivers. Use this link.
http://www.wagnardmobile.com/DDU/
Note:
Select the respective company(i.e Nvidia or ATI) drivers to be uninstalled.
Use clean and restart option.
And then install the new drivers after rebooting.

shivanemissary · Jul 25, 2014

Cheers Alan, i normally go into the hidden folders and registry manually after doing a driver un-install. I will have a look.

Alan Caldwell · Jul 25, 2014

Tell me if it works coz it worked here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2232320/amd-drivers-unstallation.html

bgunner · Jul 25, 2014

There is another program that will do much more and I use it every time I update my GPU or update my drivers for my GPU. The name is Driver fusion. http://treexy.com/products/driver-fusion/download

THis program will do display drivers from all major brands, sound drivers, keyboard, mouse, network, printer, monitor, usb, chipset and more. I personally do not like the IU they have started to use but it is not that hard to figure out. It is worth a look in to.

to download the free version in the first box click on trexxy at the bottom.

shivanemissary · Jul 25, 2014

I have my fingers crossed you are onto something, just installed for a quick look and it seems to think my 7890 drivers need updating, that was my previous card. So it has found drivers for it after i have un-installed, deleted all hidden folders and registry keys and a re-fresh of win. I am praying it is something stupid like this rather than a bad card.
Will try another re-install of drivers

shivanemissary · Jul 26, 2014

Well the clean driver did not help, i think that tool just reads my card as a 7900 rather than 280x which tricked me.
I did update my bios as i saw on the asus website that it fixed some pcie issues and so far the bios update seem to have fixed the problem. I will see if it starts to happen again or not.

shivanemissary · Jul 26, 2014

Well the system is slightly more stable, a lot less display driver has stopped responding messages whilst surfing the net and watching videos, though they seem to be getting more frequent.
I seem to be having extra graphics issues now. Before the bios update i could run all the msi-Kombbustor benchmarks fine, now running the lakes of titan i start to get some weird graphical glitching, also dayz stand alone is now unplayable because of graphical glitching no matter what setting i have tried, but arma3 runs fine max settings.
I will start putting to gether the spare box and see how the card runs in that.

bgunner · Jul 26, 2014

Just FYI the 280X is a 7970 Chip just labeled differently. It is just a rebaged part like the AMD HD 6000 series, the Nvidia 9000, GTX 500 and 700 series was. So if a program reads it as a 7900 series it is not totally wrong and most likely wont effect anything.

shivanemissary · Jul 26, 2014

Yea thanks, i realised that afterwards and just jumped to conclusions. I updated bios again last night which fixed the graphical glitches and had the system stable all last night. But first thing this morning the drivers have stopped responding again.
Have started putting the second box together to test the card.

shivanemissary · Jul 27, 2014

Card worked fine in other box all day, going to try loading with single RAM sticks and do another memtest.
Does anyone know if a win 8.1 refresh would get rid of any corrupt drives or would i have to do a full re-install?

bgunner · Jul 27, 2014

A refresh may help. This option keeps your Data safe but if it is a program conflict then the issue will remain. If the CPU, Ram, GPU and PSU test good then try a refresh. IF the issue continues after a refresh, back up all your data that is on that HDD and do a fresh install of the OS.

shivanemissary · Jul 27, 2014

Cheers, am testing RAM now stick at a time with memtest86. If they all pass I will try a fresh install as I have already tried a refresh, just was not 100% sure if there was much of a difference.

shivanemissary · Jul 27, 2014

Well all memory has passed, have just done a full re-install of 8.1 after resetting cmos again and updating bios again and was looking ok for a while but just got the first message saying the drivers stopped responding, though i still have to update windows.

I have no idea where to go from here......

bgunner · Jul 27, 2014

Try the 14.7 beta driver. I have issues with the 14.4 driver with my 7970 so it may be the drivers you have been using. The next thing would be the motherboard bad if the new driver does not help.

shivanemissary · Jul 28, 2014

Thanks, i have tried the beta drivers with no luck, i am going over event viewer again to see if i can see anything out of the ordinary.
If the motherboard is the problem, it just seems strange it ran for like 3 weeks fine and that the problems only started to occur after i installed a game (though a re-install did not help). The board would be under warranty but i dont know how to prove the board is at fault.

Something else interesting is that the driver drop seems to happen more frequently in google crome when using adobe than when i use IE, but my UNI work is only compatible with crome.

bgunner · Jul 28, 2014

The CPU tested good, the GPU tested good in another machine, the PSU has been replaced, the Ram has passed all tests and there are no issues with the HDD. This puts it in the realm of software or motherboard issue. You have reinstalled the OS and the issue remained. This points to the motherboard.

Use this evidence with the manufacture and they will replace it for you.

desolateaffliction · May 1, 2015

I am the site Network/System's Admin at my place of work and I have been dealing with this issue for about 3 days now on a single workstation. After upgrading drivers, BIOS version, COTS software etc I started with the hardware. It was a bad memory stick.

Constant display driver has stopped responding and recovered. Help i am going crazy.

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