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Display driver resets/system lockups

Tags:
  • Graphics
  • Display
  • AMD
October 5, 2014 6:06:06 AM

First, my specs:

ASUS M5A99FX
AMD FX4100 quad-core
2x4GB corsair DDR3
XFX Double-D Radeon HD 6850
650W Antec PSU

I've been having the same problem since I built this computer almost 2 years ago. I encounter it when I'm playing some games with 3d graphics or after streaming video for an extended period of time (3-4 hours). My display driver will reset spontaneously, and usually cause a hard system lockup and audio loop that I have to force-reset out of. Sometimes the driver resets will come first and give me time to shut it down, sometimes it will lock up right off the bat.

I can play Skyrim, Dishonored, and Mass Effect 2, and portal 2 with no problems on normal settings. Dark souls causes the bug, but it's so infrequent that it doesn't bother me. Torchlight 2 and Guild Wars 2 give me from 10 minutes to 1 hour. Games that don't extensively use 3d, like Bastion, Transistor, and Mark of the Ninja don't trigger the bug at all.

Games which lock up immediately on loading the game world:
Bioshock Infinite, The Witcher 1 and 2, Archeage, Fallout 3

Since it's only triggered by actually entering the gameworld, I can usually mess with the graphics settings. Regardless of what I change, it doesn't seem to have a noticeable effect on the crash. Likewise, I can play "good" games on higher settings without crashing.

Things I've tried:
Drivers (full uninstall, followed by the latest versions)
New power supply (It has enough 12V rails)
Reverting the factory overclock (This made GW2 playable for a while, but had no effect on other games)
GPU-Z log (no unusual spikes in any of the values)
Doesn't appear to be overheating
Memtest (x8 no errors)

I think that maybe my graphics card is bad, but I don't have easy access to any other PCs that I could test it in. I feel like if I'm going to replace it I might as well buy a whole new system, since that card is one of the higher-end PCI 2.0 cards. Is there anything else I could try?

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