Drivers Crash When Gaming

[KuRue]

I have recently encountered a problem with my computer that occurs when in-game. In any game I play (excluding bowers flash games and videos) after about 5-10 minuets the screen freezes, goes black and then pops back up with a bubble in the corner saying the drivers stopped working. The GPU I'm using is a GIGABYTE 6870 with the latest beta drivers and it is at stock speeds, my CPU is a 2500k also at stock speed. I suspected it might be the GPU so I replaced it with an old 250 GTS. I installed the Nvidia drivers and tried the play a game but the same thing happened (the screen freezes, goes black and then pops back up with a bubble in the corner saying the drivers stopped working).

I now suspect that it is a problem with my PSU (ULTRA LSP 750W) or a problem with my motherboard. Is there anything I can do to narrow down where the problem lies without tearing my entire system apart first?

Other specs: Windows 7 64-bit, Ram= 4x4gb Patriot Viper Xtreme, Mobo= GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3P, Antiviri= AVG

 

[AMD Radeon]

something fishy....

ULTRA LSP 750W < --- i have seen 4-5 times in the past 2 months in toms forum that this PSU lacks of power
750W from this brand is a lie,,,

 

[AMD Radeon]

http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/part/seasonic-power-supply-ssr650rm
to ensure your PC is not dying slowly

 

[siddharthmukul007]

change your psu....also since you are switching gpu brands.
try a complete driver sweep and re install it again

 

[KuRue]

Just got a Corsair CX500 500w PSU and tried it out first with the 250 GTS. I tried running unigine's heaven for a few minuets and succeeded. The drivers didnt crash at all. I swapped GPUs and went back to the 6870 and tried running unigine's heaven again with the same settings but it only worked for 5 seconds and then crashed again. I think I should be good with 500w, I looked at GIGABYTE's website and the required PSU was at least 500w. I'll try uninstalling the AMD and Nvidia drivers and then reinstall the AMD drivers and see if that fixes the issue.

 

[KuRue]

I just uninstalled and reinstalled the AMD drivers but it didnt help. It still freezes about 5 seconds in and pops up with the AMD drivers have stopped working. After I uninstalled the drivers however I was curious what would happen if I ran Heaven. It turns out that without the AMD drivers the FPS on Heaven fluxuate between 40 and 150 nonstop. Could the GPU be switching up to high clocks (core=915mhz) but then lose stability and reset to idle clocks (core=500mhz) and then go up to high clocks again to repeat the process? I'll try underclocking with Afterburner to see if any change occurs.

 

[siddharthmukul007]

why do you need to use the msi afterburner when your card is not msi?
uninstall it and see if it helps.
also don't forget to clean out any traces of nvidia drivers and phys x using driver sweeper.
install ccc and underclock it if you want to check out.

 

[KuRue]

I uninstalled everything again and used driver sweeper this time around. I reinstalled the AMD drivers again and ran Heaven. The drivers no longer crash and the stuttering is much better than it was before!

Since there was still some unusual stuttering of the graphics and sound I tried underclocking. It did not effect the stuttering at all.

I didn't uninstall MSI Afterburner because it works on most brands of cards, not just msi cards. I also tried MSI's Kombustor for stress testing and there was no jitering, stuttering, or hanging. I tried both DX11 and OpenGL and stutter on Heaven but not on Kombustor.

I should also probably mention that I have Heaven installed on an SSD so loading shouldn't be the cause of the stuttering.

 

[siddharthmukul007]

try and update windows and see if that works.
or else RMA your card.

 

[KuRue]

Best answer selected by kurue.

 

[KuRue]

I have reinstalled windows since I'm last reply and I am glad to say that the psu and reinstallation fixed it completely. Thanks everyone for the input.