Problem with AMD Radeon graphics card on my HP Envy Laptop

Ibby14 · 21 Jul 2016

I have an HP Envy 17t 3000 CTO Notebook PC Product# LW900AV Every so often I would get the message "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" for quite a while but was never able to fix the problem. Then I started to get the blue screen of death which said something about a memory dump and a memory driver. Usually I would hold down the power button and restart it.

Then while in regular windows mode the screen got all staticy, upon restarting I got to the windows logo, then I'd see a black screen with static in it and it never fully started. I can go into safe mode with no problems, graphics or otherwise.

Going into Device Manager I deleted the AMD Radeon HD 7690 M XT Graphics driver, then restarted, and it would start and run fine with the other driver (Intel driver) until Windows loaded another driver for the Radeon driver (I couldn't stop it) after loading the screen would go blank again. Nothing found online so far has fixed the problem.

I then went into Recovery and went back to factory settings. Which worked for a few hours, everything worked fine. Then I started to get the static again, to the point I'm right back to where I started.

Can anyone tell me exactly what the problem is? Hardware or Driver? Why did it work temporarily? Is it possible to totally disable the Radeon driver for good, where it doesn't reload when restarted? My computer has two graphics drivers (not sure why) Is there a way to use the other driver instead (the Intel driver)?

Since it's not under warranty anymore, if I brought it to a technician is there something they can do?

Thanks for your help!

Mellon Head · 22 Jul 2016

I can't tell you how to turn off the Radeon card for good, as that information isn't in the HP Envy manuals that I was able to find, but I can tell you a few things.

1. It sounds like a hardware problem. The Radeon card may be failing. The other possibility is that the Radeon driver is becoming corrupted somehow (how I don't know, and it's a bit of a mystery as to how it could become corrupted)

2. The computer has two graphics cards in it. One for low power general use (the Intel) and one for more demanding graphics duties (the Radeon). In your laptop, whichever card is used is supposed to be switchable.

3. It works properly in Safe Mode because the laptop only loads the Intel drivers in Safe Mode, not the ATI/Radeon driver. Therefore the Radeon card is not being used in Safe Mode, so it will always appear to work properly.

Since it's out of warranty, you might want to have it evaluated by a trained technician. The graphics card may have to be replaced (if it even can be - some cant be). Get a quote first on how much the evaluation will cost, and how much a graphics card will cost if that turns out to be the trouble. If its a significant chunk of a new laptop's cost, you might want to reconsider fixing that one, and just buy another.

Ibby14 · 23 Jul 2016

Thanks for the reply. At this point I dropped it off at a technicians, I just don't have the equipment to evaluate it properly. Although I know they can more properly diagnose it, I hate the look I get when I tell them it has 2 graphics cards and they tell me "no" computers don't have 2 graphics cards, when I know damn well it does. I'm just hoping that it's a currupt Windows file or driver and not the card. It's not a computer I can replace easily, I was hoping it would last longer than 4 years, but thanks for your help, I'll let you know what's what.

Mellon Head · 23 Jul 2016

Well, I hope it turns out to be something simple. Keep us posted. :)