HELP - Display Driver stopped Responding...?

[sydoniah]

This has been driving me crazy for the last two days, rig spec's:

Intel E2160 OC'ed to 3.2GHZ + Zalman 9500
MSI Neo3 P45 FR (Version 1)
MSI Radeon HD 4850 T2D512 (Version 1) + Zalman VF900
Onboard Audio/LAN
2xSATA 80GB Maxtor (RAID 0)
SATA 160GB Maxtor
550W Antec TruPower EPS12 PSU (Single Rail PSU, I believe 36A off 12V)

I believe that is all the important stuff. Some history on my problem:

PC ran fine with Windows XP +SP2, CPU medium OC'ed to about 2.6ghz, GPU not OC'ed due to heating issues (launch 4850 before beefy HSF.) Picked up the Zalman coolers to address heating issues on GPU and to further OC CPU. System was stable with 3.2GHZ OC on CPU, but artifacting would appear at full throttle OC (set by Overdrive) on GPU, figured not to OC since GPU results were impressive.

One day during a session of World of Warcraft (in my opinion, not very graphically intense) the system rebooted. Got back into Windows and the system would not stay on, display driver would continuously stop responding and VPU recovery alerts would prompt. Tried everything I could at this point:
-clean install of drivers
-reduction of hardware on PSU (would happen even with just 2HDD+GPU+CPU on PSU)
-MemTest RAM passed flawlessly.
-dropped down to 1 stick, happened less frequently but would still happen.

The issue would happen sometimes the moment I got into the OS or my PC would work fine until I loaded up a game (or anything that seemed to require GPU power, like watching a DVD.) Eventually I formatted the PC, dropped down to one HDD and the problem seemed to have gone away.

Now, it's doing it again this time I'm running Windows 7 Beta. I had no issues with Beta 7 on this rig up until Friday night. I had a serious session of WoW that night, then boom PC rebooted and the things I mentioned above that happened previously started happening again. I'm about to reformat and reinstall, things I've done so far:

I noticed the last time I used that rig was on Monday (3/19) and I updated the display drivers to the ATI Windows 7 Beta drivers, also updated Windows 7. I didn't use the PC again until Friday and my WoW session went off fine untl close to the end of my session. Saturday I checked all my plugs to see if they were secure, but I didn't get much time to investigate due to a party I had to attend.

Today (3/29) I've gone ahead and tried:
-resitting the GPU
-clean install of drivers
-uninstalled all updates done on Monday (3/19)
-removed hardware to see if its a power issue
-returned all clock settings to stock (CPU)
-bought a brand new Visiontek Radeon HD4870 just to test it out (problem persisted.)
-fresh reformat

I'm starting to think its a Motherboard issue, but truly I'm running out of ideas. Everything POST, I can get into Windows 7, I can use Windows 7 randomly (some sessions it will "display driver stopped responding" instantly others it will be fine until I run a game.)

Any ideas how to trouble shoot this would be great.

 

[thilanliyan]

Have you tried another PSU? Have one from another computer?

 

[sydoniah]

I do have another PSU, 430W, which is less than my current 550W.

I tried ruling out the PSU by disconnecting everything except the essentials (CPU+MOBO+HDD+GPU) and it would still screw up.

I just reinstalled Windows 7 and off the bat same issues. After a few restarts, and having to go through the "create a user" setup its working solid again.

Been playing Warhammer for about 2hours with no hiccups. Everything is hooked back up too (3XHDDs, GPU, Optical, yada yada yada.)

One thing I did try was switching the slots for the RAM, but it still messed up.

I'm still clueless as to whats going on.

 

[jonsu]

Hmmm I just posted similar issue here, never oc. I got as same problem as yours when playing DVD. But after I reformat everything and update all drivers, it went ok(so far). But when I played any 3d games, I could see screen artifact.

FWIW mine maybe related to motherboard PCIE support.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: sydoniah
I do have another PSU, 430W, which is less than my current 550W.

I tried ruling out the PSU by disconnecting everything except the essentials (CPU+MOBO+HDD+GPU) and it would still screw up.

I just reinstalled Windows 7 and off the bat same issues. After a few restarts, and having to go through the "create a user" setup its working solid again.

Been playing Warhammer for about 2hours with no hiccups. Everything is hooked back up too (3XHDDs, GPU, Optical, yada yada yada.)

One thing I did try was switching the slots for the RAM, but it still messed up.

I'm still clueless as to whats going on.

What kind of PSU is the 430w? Try the 430w PSU with just the bare minimum using the 4850 so you can rule out the PSU. Even if you went to bare minimum with your 550w, if it's failing it could still give issues. Oh and a system with a 4850 and dual core doesn't need anywhere near the 430w (if it's a quality PSU) to run so you'll be fine.

 

[sydoniah]

EDIT: Oops, second PSU is a Thermaltake 430W with almost half the AMPs on the 12V (18A) while my 550W has 36A.

Well I turned on the PC this morning fearing it would give me issues and so far solid.

I logged on about 1.5 hours in Warhammer without any issues. I installed World of Warcraft and ran around with no issues. Before the driver would lock up and freeze within a few minutes and after a few "Display driver stopped responding" I'd get a BSOD or the PC would freeze requring a hard reset.

I'm still not 100% out of the woods. Before this started happening I could rund the WMI tool without issue, now it keeps giving me an error oddly enough about a component/driver/hardware not responding/erroring which causes it to fail (even though it runs to completion.)

Weird...moment it starts acting up again I'll swap the PSU. I've had two PSU's fail on me, but it was never like this:
One just out failed, smoke and all (thankfully no damage to PC.)
Second one wouldn't POST, or it would POST but then quickly shut off. It would never get to the OS let alone run a game for a few hours.

I want to rule out the PSU, but I know it is old. PSU/HDDs are almost at that 6/7 year mark.

 

[Genx87]

Uninstall the control center. It solved my driver not responding issues for the most part with my 4850.

 

[sydoniah]

I don't use the CCC since Cat ~7 when all the issues arose. I'd prefer to use Omega Drivers, but he hasn't worked on the project as much.

System is running as stable as before the issues started up. Except, I still can't get the WMI to complete...weird.

I want to say "Ghost in the Shell" syndrome.

 

[CoinOperatedBoy]

Glad you're running stable now... I just had this start happening on my 8800GTS 320 and it progressively got worse to the point where I had severe artifacts even during regular OS operation and the driver kept crashing. I went through most of the troubleshooting steps you did. For me, my card was actually failing and I ended up RMAing. Luckily, eVGA sent me a 9800GT as a replacement.