Gaming freezes and "AMD device driver has stopped responding" HD 7670

[Maxolotl]

Does it seem that Radeon HD drivers are especially squirrelly? I've tried everything I, as a non tech-adept, could think of based on research on this forum and the consensus seems to be that it could be any one of a million little things crashing the driver, but I thought I'd ask for some input in my particular situation...

So when I play basically anything involving graphical power, I get a freeze with blue rectangular artifacts in a grid pattern all over the screen. In Minecraft, it almost never happens, and in TES Oblivion it happens ever hour or so, both with a crash and resulting error message "AMD device driver has stopped responding and has recovered". In TES Skyrim I get the crash ever 2 minutes but it never recovers to the point where I see the error message, and I have to force shutdown. I've never had a crash when not playing a game.

This is a fairly new Satellite laptop I'm working with:

(via Piriform Speccy)

Operating System
MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core i7 @ 2.30GHz
Ivy Bridge 22nm Technology
RAM
8.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (11-11-11-28)
Motherboard
TOSHIBA Portable PC (U3E1)
Graphics
Generic PnP Monitor (1366x768@60Hz)
AMD Radeon HD 7600M Series
Hard Drives
932GB TOSHIBA TOSHIBA MQ01ABD100 (SATA)
Optical Drives
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SN-208AB
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

Here's what I've tried:
- using Windows to uninstall all AMC drivers that I could find and reinstalling via the latest version of Catalyst Control Center
- making sure nothing is overheating (it's not, usually sits between 45-55)
- running Windows memory diagnostic (no errors found)
- cleaning the registry with Piriform CCleaner
- physically pulling out and putting back in those RAM chip thingies (told you I wasn't a tech adept, but they seem to be working fine despite my incompetence)

Any advice would be so appreciated! I'm greatly attached to the magical land of Tamriel and I want to know what the hell happened to the Empire without resorting to internet spoilers... and also enjoying the game I paid damn good money for.

-Max

 

[bigbasedrum]

I've had the same thing happen but contrary to yours, it only happens randomly when the pc goes to standby . Have you tried installing older drivers? maybe that will work?

 

[spentshells]

Have you tried completely removing the drivers a la driver sweeper ?

 

[geekapproved]

It's a common problem with both Nvidia and AMD cards.

The most common fix is to re-install windows.

 

[Maxolotl]

bigbased: yes, I've tried rolling back the driver

spentshells: I haven't used a program to remove the drivers, but I think I managed to remove them all manually before reinstalling them? I think

geekapproved: Oh no, that sounds like a big project ack. If nothing else helps I guess I'll go to that.

Also, here are the artifacts if that helps at all: image

 

[geekapproved]

Pardon me, I didn't realize it's a laptop.

Sounds to me like it's overheating.

It's still under warranty right?

 

[Maxolotl]

It is indeed still under warranty, but I check the temp as soon as I can after a crash and it never seems to be above 60ish C? I guess it could be spiking higher in the few minutes while I'm actually freezing, or maybe 60 is already too high?

 

[geekapproved]

Listen, download Hardware Monitor (google it). Open it and have it open while your playing. It'll record the min and max temps your cpu and gpu reach during the entire session.

 

[Maxolotl]

Wow, dude, you have no idea how much of a idiot I feel like right now. According to the monitor (I found something called SpeedFan on CNET), I'm spiking above 80 after just a few minutes of playing. That's probably the issue. I'll check the fan and the warranty on it Or else just wait until the winter so I can get the REAL experience of playing Skyrim.

 

[geekapproved]

It probably needs a good cleaning

 

[Maxolotl]

Best answer selected by Maxolotl.