Another "Display driver has stopped responding..." AMD Radeon 6850 new

AndarielHalo · 14 Feb 2012

I got a new AMD Radeon HD 6850 video card just a few days ago and installed it fine. I installed the software from its disc, updated it, and it works great.

However, I've found that about once a day, late at night, after the comp has been on for many hours, the screen will freeze for several seconds, monitor blank, then return just fine, with the message on the taskbar "Display driver has stopped responding and has recovered"

Nothing else happens, nothing bad happens, this never occurs while I have games or videos or other memory-intensive programs open.

I have Windows 7 Premium edition 64-bit, an AMD Athlon II X4 620 Processor with 2.60 GHz. My power supply unit is a Corsair, 620W. The power unit and motherboard are less than 3 years old (I got them in October 2009) and I have two harddrives. Just defragmented them last week or so.

How do I narrow down what the issue is? Is it Windows 7 idle power saving thing? Is it innocuous if it is?

Saint Andrew · 14 Feb 2012

Most disks have out-dated software. Check AMD Drivers for the lastest: http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/AMDSupportHub.aspx

AndarielHalo · 14 Feb 2012

I tried updating it via Device manager and it says its up to date. That website only offers software download of Catalyst, which I downloaded and installed on the first day

AndarielHalo · 18 Feb 2012

So for two days in a row, I did not have this issue by keeping my game open at night rather than letting the system idle for too long. Then tonight, with the game open, I received a slightly different kind of Display driver issue.

Windows 7 thing, the shiny taskbar that is semi-transparent, flickered to solid, then back to semi-transparent, saying Display driver has stopped responding and has recovered. After a bit more browsing, I opened up a youtube video, then the screen went black, a split-second flash of pixelation, then a Blue Screen of Death.

I'm now going to edit the Registry and do the thing involved here: Timeout Detection and Recovery of GPUs through WDDM and increase the amount of time needed before timeout.

I don't know how long it will be before I can confirm, but I'm afraid of declaring the video card DOA.

This never happened before with my Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT

AndarielHalo · 21 Feb 2012

It happened again this morning despite my altering of the Time delay thing. Not a BSOD one, but a minor one. Restarted my comp just in case, and went ahead complaining to Amazon. They're sending a replacement one tomorrow and I'll be sending this one out. But as always, I'm still paranoid that it may be something else.

I include attached the BSOD test runs suggtested on this forum. No one's been responding but I hope someone will soon

AndarielHalo · 22 Feb 2012

I put in the new driver today, and the issue re-occurred on the new driver same as before.

This has never happened with the Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT, or with the defaullt chip, a Nvidia 9100, so I don't want to think it's a problem with my memory or motherboard.

That leaves pretty much the Power Supply Unit. I have a Corsair 620Watt unit. Is that not enough to maintain this card 10 hours a day or so?

TManTM · 11 Jun 2012

AndarielHalo said:

I put in the new driver today, and the issue re-occurred on the new driver same as before.

This has never happened with the Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT, or with the defaullt chip, a Nvidia 9100, so I don't want to think it's a problem with my memory or motherboard.

That leaves pretty much the Power Supply Unit. I have a Corsair 620Watt unit. Is that not enough to maintain this card 10 hours a day or so?

I have a 6790 and have gotten the same message on a different circumstance. I will have it stop responding, and recover, only to have it either BSOD or just plain freeze up. I am running a cracked version of Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (for the moment) and here is the page AMD suggests:

How to troubleshoot

However for me, none of these look like they could help. All my programs are up to date, my OS I cannot update however I rarely doubt it is the OS. My drivers and BIOS/ MB is up to date. Apparently AMD is like most companies (not that I am saying their bad

) and does not just release a simple "here is what you do". Anyway, your last post was a while ago so maybe you fixed it, if so, help a person out by telling him.

~
TManTM

AndarielHalo · 12 Jun 2012

Nooo I definitely have not fixed it. It's become like herpes though; flare-ups occur every so often. Sometimes it won't happen for weeks, then like a week or so ago, it'll happen so much so often that I'll start panicking thinking it's going out for good, only to get better by the next day.

Once I get the money to do so, I'm definitely replacing this video card. Nothing against AMD, though... I plan on replacing everything, if given the chance.

TManTM · 12 Jun 2012

I know what your talking about. However, apparently AMD says it is fine if you update drivers, software, os, and bios. I don't know.....

Marsby · 12 Jun 2012

When I have seen this problem, it was hardware related, and specifically a low voltage issue to the CPU. What you need to do is stress test your hardware to expose a lurking issue. It is important to understand that you are NOT running "benchmark" tests. Your goal is to run STRESS tests. That is a proper way to qualify hardware.

Prerequisite to running stress tests. Download and install Speedfan. Use that to monitor system temperatures. If any temp goes over 70c, stop testing and resolve your cooling issues. Note, there will be people who disagree and give a higher maximum temp allowance based on manufacture recommendation. That's fine, however I will not allow my components to go over 70c and I suggest you do likewise. (actually my threshold is lower even but 70c will suffice)

First memtest86, run that for at least one full pass. This is to qualify your memory.

Second, Prime95. Run that for at least an hour (prefer 90 minutes or more) or until your system crashes. Whichever comes first. If it crashes, resolve your hardware issue.

Third, Furmark. This is another stress test like Prime95. The whole point of running stress tests is to find where potential problems are. So you will want to run this until you are satisfied that your GPU doesn't have a fundamental issue. That doesn't mean to run it for five minutes and quit, you want to stress that GPU card beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is rock stable.

Forth, Folding@home. This program wasn't built to stress test but it works for that goal anyway and goes one better than the prior two tests. This program will simultaneously max out your CPU and GPU core/s. This test is good because it forces your PSU to keep up the energy supply to all processing cores at the same time. So it is in effect a full system stress test. The F@H test could also take the longest of them all if you allow it to, but if your system hasn't crashed after a few hours, you're probably in good shape but do listen to your computer for any odd noises while you run this test. An odd noise could indicate a struggling PSU.

Those are basic tests to qualify your hardware. If you pass all of those then you can start to look at higher level functions. Also, if you crash on the Prime95 or F@H tests, the likelihood is that you have a power issue (if you already ruled out heat issues). Sometimes simply bumping up the core voltage .1 in the CMOS setup will fix that.

SpeedFan - Access temperature sensors in your computer
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool
Prime95 - mersenne.org
FurMark: VGA Stress Test, Graphics Card and GPU Stability Test
Folding@home - HomePage