Good luck fixing my problem

[Knetog]

Whenever I play a game, my screen would RANDOMLY freeze for 8-10 seconds then come back to normal or crash the game, showing then "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered".

Games in which it happened:
- World of Wacraft
- Splinter Cell Conviction
- Dirt 2
- Heroes of Newerth
- Warcraft 3 - Dota
- Just Cause 2
- Starcraft 2 ( REALLY OFTEN )
- Crysis

It even happened ONCE while watching youtube video... but never did happen while watching a personal video on desktop.

Here's my computer specs:
- AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition
- OCZ XTC Platinum DDR3-1333 6GB 3x2GB CL7-7-7-20
- MSI 785GM-E65 785G mATX AM3 DDR3 PCI-E16
- Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB
- Antec Earthwatts 650W Power Supply
- Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 850MHZ 1GB 4.8GHZ GDDR5

I've read about it and it seems it could be many different problems... Thought, my cards temperature are just fine and I'm not overclocking. I've tried many times removing and re-installing video card drivers using driver sweeper. There's one big problem I noticed and it doesn't seems to get away, whenever I restart my pc, once on the desktop, windows install a radeon HD4200 driver without asking me, even thought I disabled the option to not install anything on his own... I tried removing it, but when restarting, windows would install it back. So at the moment I have both showing in display driver and have the HD4200 disabled.

Also, I don't think my bIOS is up to date and I have no idea how to update it ( which I heard there's a risk of breaking your pc not doing it properly.. )

I have been running with only 2x2 ddr3 ram since I recently heard AMD doesn't support triple channel..

I honestly don't know what the hell to do, I feel like throwing away this one in the garbage and buy a new one... Yet it was my first time going for amd and ati, ill go back to intel and nvidia next time...

 

[Thorsen]

The HD4200 is the on-board integrated graphics. YOu can disable this in the BIOS from recognizing the on-board before the Dedicated.

This is your mobo: MSI Global – Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Mainboard, Graphics and more

This is the integrated: Notebookcheck: ATI Radeon HD 4200

Here is a great tutorial on BIOS settings from Toms Hardware: BIOS Tuning : BIOS from A to Z
Read part 16 on linked page for setting the graphics card correctly.

 

[Thorsen]

A great tool for checking your specs is CPU-Z: CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

On the Mainboard page, it will tell you what your BIOS version is. Check to see if the MSI page I linked for your mobo has a newer BIOS version and what it fixes. Don't update a BIOS unless it is necessary to fix an issue.

You should first check your BIOS settings to see if it will stop using the integrated graphics by default.


Another Note about Ram. Even though TripleChannel isn't enabled on your board, your Ram should still run at Double Channel and still use the Third stick. Sometimes this doesn't work, but sometimes, the third stick will not interfere with the performance boost of the double channel used on the other two sticks. For this to work, you need to have each stick in the right slot. But it is def. worth testing.

 

[Knetog]

I don't know much about computer, I've installed GPU-Z and my motherboard BIOS version is 2.3, could you see on my motherboard website you linked if any of the updates would actually fix my "display driver error" ?
As for the integrated motherboard, I just remembered the guy from a fixing pc company telling me he did but it would still show up.

Those guys told me they played games but never crashed ( played about 2-3 hours... ) thought they didn't play starcraft 2 which happens way too often...

 

[Thorsen]

Most recent Bios is 2.8, but 2.4-2.8 didn't show anything specific to your problem. I don't know if updating BIOS would fix it. MSI does have a utility to run it. updating is easy, its just dangerous as if you don't do it right or if something doesn't work, then you can really mess things up.

Do you know how to get into the BIOS to check the settings in the tutorial? if so, make sure they match up correctly.

You wont be able to take screenshots, but if you have a digital camera, you can take pics and post them and we will look through for anything out of place.

You can also DL the most recent Drivers for HD4200 integrated chip so that it is up to date, but I don't know if you should do from MSI or from ATI...... I will look....

 

[Thorsen]

Wow... MSI has lots of cool stuff on thier site:


This is for how to flash the BIOS: MSI Global – Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Mainboard, Graphics and more

 

[Thorsen]

Do you have ATI Catalyst Control Center? and if so what version?

 

[Knetog]

Sorry for not responding ealier, busy doing some stuff. After looking at the msi video tutorial, it is quite simple, but do I 100% need to update it? My catalyst control center version is 10.7 , the latest.

note: I tried installing the driver without CCC to see weither or not it was the cause and nothing changed.

 

[Thorsen]

I don't usually advise updating the BIOS, but in this case, I think you will benefit. Your current BIOS is pretty old. I can't say that it will 100% fix your problem, but there is a chance it will.

 

[Knetog]

Well this is wierd, I went into my BIOS, and I have 3 boot device, I got my first device to my USB key, rebooted and nothing happened ( normal boot ). I then disabled the 2 other and changed Yes to No for boot other device, then it said nothing could boot, reboot and change booting device. I changed it back to Yes, with only USB device in the first one, and it normaly booted.. I don't get in

*i won't be able to answer back for a while, I got to go and I'll be back later.

 

[Lordbob75]

I agree, sounds like a BIOS flash is in order.

~Lordbob

 

[stormy13]

Can't say as I have never used it, but if MSI's Live Update 3 (not sure about the online version) is anything like Asus' AsusUpdate I would just go with it and do the flash from within Windows.

About the only thing you need to do is disable your anti-virus while running the update. Other than that for the most part the only way for it to go wrong is a power failure, which would bork a bios flash whether from within Windows or from a floppy/USB key.

 

[Knetog]

I just tried the MSI online update tool, easy and simple I updated my bios, but... once pc rebooted, I was at the MSI page ( black screen/white letters ) and I had to press F2 for checking and continue. However after doing so, it was saying checking nvram... and nothing else happened for quite a while.. I decided to restart my pc but now for some odd reason I can't see my password login, there's a black screen and I can't see my mouse there. ( motherboard/windows does boot normaly. )

edit: right now im in safe mode with network

oh and I also noticed when going in the BIOS the date being 2005.. that means it didn't update at all right? Shouldn't it be 2010?

edit: Nvm, It was personal problem, since I have my pc and tv connected as one monitor, it switched to my tv instead for some unknown reason.

My motherboard is fully updated to 2.8 has GPU-Z shows, I'll respond later to see if anything changed for the ACTUAL problem ( Display driver stopped and has fully recovered )

 

[stormy13]

I also noticed when going in the BIOS the date being 2005.

That's because when you update the bios, it resets everything to manufacturer's default. If you haven't yet, set the date and time, and any other custom settings you may have set.

 

[Thorsen]

Good to hear your BIOS update was painless. I hope this fixes it, but if it doesn't, at least it is up to date. We can continue troubleshooting any other routes.

Your not getting any BSOD's are you? just freezes and driver error?

 

[Knetog]

BSOD? what is that? All I know is whenever I play a game, screen randomly freeze for several seconds then come back to normal or crashed some game, thought, it happened way often on high graphic details game such as starcraft 2

 

[Thorsen]

Sorry.... BSOD is Blue Screen of Death. it is a screen that pops up that requires computer restart and has lots of useless looking info on it. If you get one, there is a log file that is generated that will usually point to the cause of the system failure.

 

[neo101]

Have you updated microsoft directX to latest version?
Download details: DirectX End-User Runtime

Your crash and revert is prob memory related - do bios update and manually set up the voltage/speeds for your memory sticks

I also suggest you read thru these peeps blurb about drivers and consider reinstalling 10.4 drivers till Ati sort themselves out!
http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/1810-latest-ati-catalyst-driver-windows-7-a-51.html

 

[Knetog]

Oh, no I don't have those, I've experience them on another pc long time ago, thought my problem logicaly seems to mean the graphic card heat is getting too high and momentaly stops to cool it down, but CCC shows a normal temp. At the moment browsing on the internet, it's around 55°C

edit: I have the latest directX ( 11 )

bios update of memory? I don't get it there :O?

Also, I remember having the issue with 10.3 ati driver

 

[neo101]

I don't recall you having Direct X 11 games - so it might help if you download at the link which updates DirectX 9,10,11 for your DirectX 9 games!

I never mentioned Ati 10.3's!

In your bios - instead of 'Auto-detecting' memory voltage/timings try entering the correct ones manually.