AMD 7770 2 GB card and Dell 8500 PC with 460w

[Dougm12]

Hi, I hope someone can help me. I have a new Dell XPS 8500 PC. It comes with only a 460w power supply. I got it stock with the i7 chip, 16 GB of ram, 2 hard drives and the AMD 7770 2 GB graphics card. I have kept it stock and added nothing. From day one I have gotten "display driver stopped working" errors. The screen will either go black for about 15 seconds and come back or stay black and force an inopportune reboot. This happens between 2 and 50 times a day. It produces event type 4101, source=display entries in the Windows System event log. and the text is:" Display driver amdkmdap stopped responding and has successfully recovered".

I, and others who have the Dell 8500 with the AMD 7770 2 GB card, suspected the low watt Dell 460w power supply. Dell assured me and the others it was "fine". I asked AMD engineering about this and the exact response I got 2 days ago was:

Response from AMD:

"I believe this is a power issue related to your Dell 8500 XPS computer. The card you have install is a HD 7770 2GB graphics card which requires at least 550 to 600 watts of power. The HD 7770 1GB version requires 500 watts but should be able to run on a system with 460 watts.

The more memory a card has, more power it will need. Normally graphics cards installed in Dell computers do require a bit less power than the retail version as the card are specified to work in there systems with smaller power supplies. You have the 2GB version which does require more power than the 1GB version.

I would recommend that you upgrade your power supply to at least 600 watts for great compatibility and future upgrades.

It seems from the data I have seen on Tom's that the AMD 7770 1GB uses 90 or so watts. What might the 2 GB version need, I haven't been able to see a figure anywhere? And how does that relate to the total of 460w in the Dell power supply? How likely is it that the Dell 460w supply is truly inadequate for this card, especially with what else came in the PC?

Thanks for any help anyone can give me - Doug Miller

 

[diec4st]

A 7770 draws about 80W and could almost work without a power connector. With that said, it could run on a quality 350W PSU without a problem. I think your problem is driver related.

 

[robthatguyx]

it sounds driver related to me

 

[Dougm12]

Dell tech support downloaded and put on the newest Dell version of the AMD driver and that did not fix the problem. I see AMD's web site has a newer AMD version of the driver.

I have usually only used Dell's drivers if they have one for the component. Do you think putting on AMD's driver could be a problem on a Dell PC? Why would Dell have its own version of a vendor's driver?

I think I will go ahead and try it - it couldn't hurt.

Thanks for your answer

 

[gdtrfb]

I have a new XPS 8500 with the same configuration and I'm having the exact same problem. I was also worried about the power supply not being powerful enough, since that was one of the possible causes listed on AMD's site, but it looks like a few people here think that can't be the case. Dell pro support tried the same thing with me (updating the driver), and it hasn't worked. Did anyone find a solution to this?

 

[beemidi]

Same problem with my Dell XPS 8500 AMD 7870 2GB Windows 8 pro. Updated driver from AMD and still am getting:
DISPLAY DRIVER HAS STOPPED RESPONDING AND HAS RECOVERED
message. Little squares flash across screen during the problem.