Is My GPU dead? Everything tells so, want a confirmation.

[Kari]

Hi Geeks!

Long story: I need to do some magics and find out cash out of thin air. In order to do so I decided to sell my spare HP laptop to an Irish neighbor of mine. The laptop was last used about a year ago, it has been in its original box in warehouse since that.

Laptop is an HP Envy 17 1150eg, about two and a half years old. As I already mentioned it has not been used in over a year, had Windows 8 Pro installed when I picked it up from warehouse day before yesterday.

As soon as I booted the laptop first time after this long break I noticed there were issues. Laptop display didn't turn on, connecting a display with HDMI gave no signal. First after connecting it to external display with VGA I got the usual Windows 8 Welcome /login screens.

Rebooting a few times, disconnecting external displays, battery, external mouse and everything else I finally got laptop display on. As my neighbor has an unused Windows 7 Ultimate license wanting me to pre-install it I inserted a flash drive containing 7 Ultimate installation files, booted from flash drive and started to install Windows 7.

When 7 was installed I downloaded and installed the latest chipset and Radeon GPU drivers. Reboot, Windows working and everything OK, then only after a minute or two the screen starts flickering and goes grayish blue, not BSOD but vertical stripes about 3 millimeters or 1/8 of an inch wide alternately gray and light blue as if the GPU was going crazy, screen flickering all the time.

I have now repeated (reinstalled) this 4 times, everything is fine until I install chipset and GPU drivers, then it lasts after next reboot between a minute and ten minutes before the GPU loses it. A couple times Windows has first recovered, a balloon tip next to Start button telling "The display adapter had crashed and is now recovered", then a few seconds later it happens again and cannot be recovered anymore.

Notice that the laptop has no issues if I either do not install the GPU drivers and keep using the general Windows VGA display driver, or if after the GPU crash I reboot to Safe Mode and disable the Radeon GPU. Of course Windows is then not very nice to use with very sluggish display.

Attached DM Collector file is from this morning. I reinstalled once again late last night, turned the laptop off, booted it up this morning and it gave a BSOD after 10 minutes. Notice that laptop has currently Windows 7 Ultimate SP1, Windows Update is offering over 150 important updates but I have decided not to install those until I know if this laptop should only be used as shotgun shooting target. At the moment no additional software is installed, nor any malware and / or AV apps.

Thanks in advance,

Kari

 

[Arc]

Hi Kari.

Is the "The display adapter had crashed and is now recovered" occurs as the same even with any oter version of the display driver installed other than 14.4 WHQL too? Can you please try 13.12 and/or 13.9?

I also hope that the heat is under control.

If it shows the same notification, what you think is right, the GPU is not being able to perform its job.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Kari being the simple type as you know I am - wondering how you stored the machine and I am thinking damp, insects, condense on cold components on start up etc etc

 

[Kari]

Hi Kari.

Is the "The display adapter had crashed and is now recovered" occurs as the same even with any oter version of the display driver installed other than 14.4 WHQL too? Can you please try 13.12 and/or 13.9?

I also hope that the heat is under control.

If it shows the same notification, what you think is right, the GPU is not being able to perform its job.

These HP Envy laptops run a bit hot but nothing unusual in that, I had it on a Cooler Master pad with 4 fans, temps stayed normal.

Have now tested some older driver versions, all the same issue. Oldest I tried is what WU offers if no driver is installed, dated 2011.

Kari being the simple type as you know I am - wondering how you stored the machine and I am thinking damp, insects, condense on cold components on start up etc etc

It's been in locker room in my old garage until May, I stored my booze (whisky & wine) in same dry locker, temperature quite steady 15 to 17 degrees Celsius (59 to 62 Fahrenheit), since May in a dry cellar locker belonging to the apartment I moved after my divorce, temperature a few degrees higher than was in the garage. My spare rigs are always stored in their original boxes wrapped in original plastic and Styrofoam with some silicon to take care of possible moisture. I only throw original boxes and wrappings away first when I dispose of the PC it / they belonged.

 

[Arc]

Have now tested some older driver versions, all the same issue. Oldest I tried is what WU offers if no driver is installed, dated 2011.

If the popup balloon shows up with multiple versions of the display driver, then it is the GPU, not the driver.

You were right, Kari. The GPU is dead.

A dead GPU is not the sole cause of a stop 0x124. So you have to observe the situation after replacing the GPU.

 

[Kari]

I do not think I will replace the GPU, talking about these HP laptops it could easily cost so much I make no profit when finally selling it.

 

[Arc]

I do not think I will replace the GPU, talking about these HP laptops it could easily cost so much I make no profit when finally selling it.

I havent seen any option of the integrated graphics there. May be I have missed, or it is disabled.

If there is an integrated intel HD graphics option, you can use it.

 

[Kari]

No, there's not. A shame.

 

[Arc]

Then how can you use it?

 

[Kari]

Then how can you use it?

Quote below from the end of my original post:

... Windows Update is offering over 150 important updates but I have decided not to install those until I know if this laptop should only be used as shotgun shooting target. At the moment no additional software is installed, nor any malware and / or AV apps.

 

[Arc]

Lol, then it is OK.

 

[andrew129260]

If the gpu is fried, how are you able to view updates? Or it works for a little then dies?

Notice that the laptop has no issues if I either do not install the GPU drivers and keep using the general Windows VGA display driver, or if after the GPU crash I reboot to Safe Mode and disable the Radeon GPU. Of course Windows is then not very nice to use with very sluggish display.

This tells me that there is nothing wrong with the gpu imho if it is working fine before the install of the drivers.

Does any Linux distro work fine consistently? If you can get any Linux distro working well, you might want to stress test in Linux using this:

http://www.binarytides.com/glmark-linux-gpu-performance/

Then see if it fails then.

 

[Arc]

If the gpu is fried, how are you able to view updates? Or it works for a little then dies?

Notice that the laptop has no issues if I either do not install the GPU drivers and keep using the general Windows VGA display driver, or if after the GPU crash I reboot to Safe Mode and disable the Radeon GPU. Of course Windows is then not very nice to use with very sluggish display.

This tells me that there is nothing wrong with the gpu imho if it is working fine before the install of the drivers.

Hi Andrew. What is an attached GPU without the driver installed?

 

[andrew129260]

If the gpu is fried, how are you able to view updates? Or it works for a little then dies?

Notice that the laptop has no issues if I either do not install the GPU drivers and keep using the general Windows VGA display driver, or if after the GPU crash I reboot to Safe Mode and disable the Radeon GPU. Of course Windows is then not very nice to use with very sluggish display.

This tells me that there is nothing wrong with the gpu imho if it is working fine before the install of the drivers.

Hi Andrew. What is an attached GPU without the driver installed?

Maybe I am missing something?

If the standard windows driver is working, the gpu cannot be fried. A fried gpu would not display anything. I think it would be interesting to see if Linux is installed, and see if there driver is available there for it under additional drivers. (Or the generic) If Linux works okay with more then the standard driver, something else is going on.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Kari I cannot remember seeing if it was suggested but how about trying a boot with Ubuntu??

BOOTABLEUBUNTU

Makea bootable Ubuntu disk http://www.ubuntu.com/download

Setthe BIOS to boot from the optical when the machine boots it will show you ascreen with TRY or INSTALL > select TRY. You can of course remove the hard drive and any otherdrives when doing this as if the optical alone is the only drive left in themachine then the BIOS will only find it to boot from.

Whenit is finished - it takes very little time you will get a screen like in thepic .

Openthe drive you want > User and dig down until you get to the data / settingsyou may be able to copy / paste the material you want to an external source orother installed drive doing this.

Iam not sure if it will but I have recovered tons of data etc using this methodboth on "dead" or just plain drives that you cannot get data fromusing Windows.
At least if the GPU is dead then you are not going to get this screen in the pic.

 

[Arc]

Hi Kari.

I request you to please follow Andrew. What he says is clear.

This tells me that there is nothing wrong with the gpu imho if it is working fine before the install of the drivers.

I am earnestly sorry that I misguided you throughout.

Wish a quick fix to your GPU.

All the best.

 

[Kari]

This post although a bit old on Tom's Hardware might explain something better than I can do: How to get games, etc to recognize switchable graphics? - Graphics Cards - Graphics & Displays

The laptop uses the simple on-board Intel graphics if the Radeon GPU is disabled.

 

[Kari]

This is clearly a hardware issue. Noticed just now that the laptop tells that the battery is dead and must be replaced:

View attachment 331506​

It worked on Saturday when I played with the laptop last time.

As I told in my original post, the laptop is identical with my main laptop so I did a simple test, took the battery and put it to my working Envy laptop. Absolutely no issues, battery is charging and works. Put it back to this problem Envy and again, POST shows the battery warning and laptop cannot even be booted without AC power.