BSOD while doing basic things such as skype/web browsing/ms word

Hey guys, I've been getting BSOD's ever since I set up dual monitors but I'm not sure if thats the cause even, the things that appear in the minidump file hint towards AMD drivers/Direct X. I've already uninstalled the drivers & CCC and used driver sweeper in safe mode, wiped all remenants of the drivers and did a fresh install of them again yet I still kept getting this BSOD. Also the only AV I have installed is MS Security Essentials. I'd really appreciate it if you guys could point me in the right direction to fix this. :).

Note: These BSODs only happen when I'm doing nothing intensive, such as skype/ms word/browsing the web on chrome. NEVER happened during any of my gaming sessions which I found odd.

Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit

Hardware:

MSI Radeon HD 6950 2GB PE/OC edition
mobo: Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3
CPU: i5 2500
Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 16 GB (CML8GX3M2A1600C9)

"It's not a true crash, in the sense that the bluescreen was initiated only because the combination of video driver and video hardware was being unresponsive, and not because of any synchronous processing exception".

Since Vista, the "Timeout Detection and Recovery" (TDR) components of the OS video subsystem have been capable of doing some truly impressive things to try to recover from issues which would have caused earlier OSs like XP to crash.

As a last resort, the TDR subsystem sends the video driver a "please restart yourself now!" command and waits a few seconds.

If there's no response, the OS concludes that the video driver/hardware combo has truly collapsed in a heap, and it fires off that stop 0x116 BSOD.

If playing with video driver versions hasn't helped, make sure the box is not overheating.

Try removing a side panel and aiming a big mains fan straight at the motherboard and GPU.

Run it like that for a few hours or days - long enough to ascertain whether cooler temperatures make a difference.

If so, it might be as simple as dust buildup and subsequently inadequate cooling.

I would download cpu-z and gpu-z (both free) and keep an eye on the video temps

STOP 0x116: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR troubleshooting

Hey JMH,

Thanks for the quick response! I'm 100% positive that its not due to overheating issues as I've been monitoring temps since the BSOD's started a month or 2 ago w/GPU Z/a W7 sidebar gadget. It never tops 50-60C when playing BF3 or doing anything else. The first thing I see when the BSOD happens is that the display driver crashed, this might just be due to faulty drivers, as I never had problems when I used the drivers in February, when I first built the computer (forgot which version that was). This might be due to drivers, idk if I should just try to clean out the drivers and do a fresh re-install again, not sure if it would help. Also I haven't ran memtest yet and I will in the next few days, but I doubt that is the issue here. Let me know if you guys have any other input on this. :)

Before uninstalling the driver, please create a system restore point. I have seen Driver Sweeper cause problems on some systems. It usually works fine and causes no issues, but it can occasionally clean up too much of the system and cause additional problems through Windows. I usually recommend creating a restore point prior to using it to be safe. :)