Need help with new PC

[Undertaker Sheep]

Hello, I', having troubles with a new pc I've bought a few months back. Ever since I bought and installed it, it's been giving the same error.

''Display driver had stopped responding and has recovered''

This happens after the screen freezes for a second, then the screen turns into a random color and then I get that error message. Also, when the pc is on for a while this either tends to not happen at all, or happen like once every minute.

And then all of I sudden my computer shuts itself down. If I try to boot again the screen just remains black, though everything inside my computer is running. After a few seconds, my computer auto-shuts down again only to auto-start up a few seconds later with the same effects.

This to me sounds like overheating, but when I feel my GPU it's just a bit warm. The only other thing I can think of is my CPU, but that thing has a huge fan on top of it and usually my CPU doesn't have to run above 20%. But the funny thing is, despite everything running, my motherboard's lights don't turn on.

My specs:
- Asus Xtreme x58 Motherboeard
- ATI RADEON HD 5750 GPU
- 4gb RAM
- Intel quadcore i7 @2.9

I don't remember the name of my PSU, but I know it is well above what my computer demands. I have the extra power pin inserted into my GPU.

But my motherboard itself isn't very great. A few of it's pins connecting to the CPU have been broken, so I'm wondering if this might be causing this.
Also, the lock on my PCIe slot is broken so my GPU isn't 'locked'. But the same problems seem to persist if I hook up my GPU to my second GPU slot, which has a working lock.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm thinking of buying a new mobo (probably the same one) to see if the same errors persist when I have a fully functioning motherboard

 

[suat]

Yes, most probably. The male connectors must fit tight in female connectors on the motherboard. Loose connectors may cause instant electrical contact problem and loss of power.

The first problem "Display driver stopped responding..." may be a separate issue, called TDR (Timeout Detection and Recovery). But the second auto-shutdown could be due to the connectors, RAM and /or psu.

You should turn off the "Automatically reboot" option in Windows (?). What Windows do you have ? If you turn off the option, you will have BSOD, in which case you can see the error codes which will give the reputable forum members to analyze the situation more clearly and to pinpoint the cause of the problem more accurately.

What Catalyst drivers do you have ?

 

[Undertaker Sheep]

I have bought a new motherboard (the same one) and am currently just running a video game while I'm doing other stuff, to see if it crashes again. This motherboard ofcourse has all the pins intact.

I've read a lot about that TDR on forums on the internet, seems like a lot of people have the same problem with ATI RADEON cards. The thing is, I've had this GPU tested at least 4 times now and they said it worked perfectly.

So anywho, I'm now waiting for my computer to hopefully display nothing at all. If it crashes again, I'll turn off the Auto reboot option and write down the error codes.

I have the latest Catalyst drivers installed on my system

 

[Undertaker Sheep]

Update! My new motherboard works like a charm and it doesn't power off anymore.

But I still get that freeze with the one colored screen. This wouldn't be much of a trouble since it fixes itself in a few seconds, but some games and things such as youtube need to be restarted to get the image back.

Any idea how to get around that TDR?

 

[suat]

I have the same issue ( TDR ). Prior to Cat 10.5, I used the profile method to increase the idle speeds of core and memory clocks to avoid it completely. After Cat 10.5, the profile thing could not be used to increase idle speeds. But it gave me less TDR issue.

Cat 10.8 totally eliminated it. I did not get even a single TDR issue for the whole month. But we cannot resist progress. I installed Cat 10.9 and TDR returned but in a much lesser degree. Now Cat 10.10 is about to be released in a few days, I believe. I will see what it will bring to me.

EDIT: Cat 10.10 is out. It has got two flavors now: One is the normal Catalyst and the other is the parallel-processing drivers using openCL.

 

[Undertaker Sheep]

cat 10.7 through 10.10 have given me the TDR issue. Same thing for the windows driver.

Though cat 10.10 does seem to change the TDR issue. There's less 'screen in one bright color' and more general screen freezes, after which it either recovers or just stops completely

 

[Undertaker Sheep]

So another update,

I've disabled TDR in regedit, which has dramatically reduced the amount of problems I have. Didn't get a TDR all day (cause it was off, duh...) and played Guild Wars all day without a single hang! But then just a few minutes ago my entire video hang again, with the sound continuing and the mouse still moveable. Clicking on stuff didn't change anything, and after a minute or so I couldn't move the mose anymore either. But the sound kept playing, so my motherboard and CPU were still doing something.

Then I decided to completely remove my old graphics driver. I went into control panel and deleted ATI Instal Package (or something like that), rebooted into safe mode, used a driver sweeper to delete all ATI files, rebooted into safe mode again, ran the 10.10 cat installer.

And then something happend, the installer could not detect my graphics card. Despite it being in my device manager as a ATI Radeon HD5770. So I just used device manger and pointed it to the extract folder of the instaler and installed without any problems.

Now back into normal mode, device manager says that the driver version is 8.782.0.0 with the driver date being 28-9-2010. Is this correct for cat 10.10?

And one more thing, when in safe mode and using the drive sweeper I noticed I had some NVidia drivers too. Are they supposed to be there? I'm running Windows 7 32 bit and I read somewhere that some nvidia drivers are needed for Aero.

The nvidea drivers listed were:
- NVIDIA Chipset
- NVIDIA Display
- NVIDIA PhysX

Cause if my computer doesn't need them, it might be better off without them.

Any help would be very much appreciated

 

[suat]

The driver version is correct.

It is not advised to disable TDR in Registry. If something goes wrong with the display driver, it cannot recover and you get total freeze. Therefore, you should revert the changes you have made in Registry.

NVIDIA drivers may be there due to your chipset on the motherboard provided you have never installed an Nvidia display adapter before. Sometimes Windows installs things beforehand just in case you may need them.

If you think you have TDR because of Nvidia drivers, that is not true, I believe. I told you I have TDR, too. But the Cat 10.10 seems to be behaving very well till now.
EDIT: CAT 10.10 cannot even TDR. It gives me pixellated screen and freeze.

 

[Undertaker Sheep]

I indeed got a total freeze. This to me proves that there is something wrong with my card, and not with TDR. That's why I wanted to disable it.

Cat 10.10 doesn't really change much for me, though the TDR's have been coming less often but I got more total freezes in it's place. So I'm going back to the shop and get a replacement. Thanks for all the help though ^^