6850 ATI graphics driver crashing

[AyJay61]

Specs:

Proc: AMD X2 3.1 dual core

Mobo: MSI 770-G45 Gaming series

Ram: 4gb dual channel DDR3

PSU: Ultra X4 600w Modular

Video: XFX HD 6850

OS: Win7 ult x64



First off this is on a fresh install of windows 7 ulimate x64. I just bought this card yesterday after unfortunately having to return my nvidia GTX 460 that was artifacting out of the box. I figured I'd give ATI a shot since I gave up on them years ago for crappy drivers. It seems this hasn't changed.

Issue: My display driver stops responding and "recovers" on a regular basis. This is not within gaming because I haven't even gotten that far. The aero desktop alone doesn't even work. I have done everything from uninstalling/reinstalling drivers to flashing the card to the recent bios. The mobo is also on the current bios. I have checked all hardware connections, reseated all components and made sure all cables are snug. I have also installed the Win7 graphics hotfix in hopes that this would resolve the issue. No joy. I'm pretty much at a loss here and am on the verge of returning this card and qutting on ATI for good. Any suggestions would be appreciated. All of my hardware is brand new. Less than a week old.

A further note: My temps are in the 40s and 50s and I have not had a chance to test them on full load because I can't even get to the point of gaming. Do I need to go back to the 11.2 driver? Or maybe try the 11.4 preview? HEEELLLLLLLP!!!!

 

[jryan388]

Maybe try the 10.12 drivers. The 11 drivers seem to have serious issues ATM...

 

[shrkbay]

11.3 and 10.12 are probably most reliable AMD drivers to date, if you were running 11.3 then try 10.12/11.2/11.4, or it might be something wrong with the card, it should get much lower temps when idle...

 

[AyJay61]

Ok I'll give that a shot here on my lunch break and post results. I'm hoping it's not the card. On the default win 7 graphics driver it works fine, although that's not the answer to the prob. As soon as the drivers are installed it's game over. I'll try some other versions.

 

[shrkbay]

if the default w7 driver works fine then why do you want a new driver?

 

[AyJay61]

Alright I went home and tried a couple of things. First I was wrong about what mobo I had. Please excuse because I just bought it and I was posting from work. But it's a MSI 870a-G45 board. Secondly to answer shrkbay: I went home and removed all ati drivers and even got a crash on the default win7 driver, so that rules out it being ati software specific. Thirdly: I put in my old 9800gt and managed to get it to boot up and got the same display drivers crash with no specific drivers loaded either than the default win7. So now I'm wondering if this is a mobo issue. It looks to have the current bios as compared to what's on the MSI site. This is the second board i've bought in a week. The first one was an intel board and that's a whole different nightmare altogether. I exchanged it for this MSI board and paid a lil extra $$ for something "nice." Now I'm possibly having problems with this board. Everything worked fine on my nvidia 680i sli board but after 4 years it died. This has been pure hell. Not sure where to go from here.

 

[AyJay61]

Alright so it seems I have found the issue. Luckily a coworker of mine had an AMD board in his car that was brand new and he wasn't using. As a last stitch effort I asked to slap it in my machine and see what happened. Behold it was the dang mobo. Don't know if it was some kind of compatability issue or what but with this ASUS mobo in my machine I no longer get any graphics crashing at all. I will be launching up WoW tonight for the final test but I'm pretty confident that I won't have any issues. So, I'm happy about it. I'm just mad I have to go exchange my motherboard yet again. I guess I will be going with ASUS instead of MSI. Further more the 870a-G54 got horrible reviews on new-egg. Guess I should've researched first.

 

[AyJay61]

UPDATE:

I was incorrect about what my issue was but it is solved none the less. The issue was one bad ram stick. When I put my new ASUS mobo in I ended up having the same problems. What I didn't pay attention to was the fact that the test mobo I used required old DDR2 RAM I had. So alas, when I put that mobo in with the good ram, it worked with no issues. Put the new board in with new DDR3 ram and it went to crap again. Put 2 and 2 together and got 4 finally. I took out one stick and everything ran great. Swapped sticks to test the other one and it went to crap. Went and bought a 4gig stick of RAM and voila. My PC runs solid as a rock and this is finally over. My 6850 is performing greatly on stock clocks.