Intel HD4600, Is this a driver or hardware issue?

[taisingera]

I put together a i3-4330, 8GB Crucial Ballistix 1600, Asus H87M-E, Samsung 120GB SSD and using any of the Intel HD4600 video drivers for Win7 x64, I am getting "Display driver igfx stopped working, and has successfully recovered". I can get this watching a local video, online video or even just browsing or sitting on the desktop. It can happen multiple times within a couple of minutes or 15-30 minutes apart. I ran Furmark, and the driver never crashed.

Also, when this crash occurs, I have GPUZ open, the graphics freq shoots to 1150 (max), gpu power and load spike up, and there is a 5 C increase in temps(normal 35-40C), whereas graphics memory plunges, and this lasts for 3-5 seconds.

I have run Memtest86+ 6 passes, no errors. System is only using 26-65W, and I have a 300W PSU that is 3 years old. No OC, and everything in BIOS is Auto and BIOS updated.

So, I installed Ubuntu on my data drive (not the SSD), everything seemed okay, so I figured I would install the Intel drivers that they brought out with the updater. Played some local videos using VLC, and had Firefox open, and the system froze up,but apparently I was still able to open things because when the system came back, things I had clicked on when the screen froze were open.

I bought a AMD HD5450 card on the forums and will test that out in Windows. But seriously, is this a driver/software problem or a hardware (PSU, Mobo, bad video on the cpu) problem?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Have you tried giving the CPU a little bit more voltage in your BIOS? It is possible that you're getting errors when the voltage drops a bit (vdroop).

 

[ShintaiDK]

Asus seems to have alot of TDR issues. While your issue may or may not be BIOS related. They do have alot of known issues.

Someone I know had problems with a GTX770 on a H87 Asus board and Haswell. Suddenly a new BIOS update fixed everything and he never saw an issue again.

He never had a TDR issue under load either. It was always video or idle.

I assume you use BIOS 0604?

 

[taisingera]

Yes, using bios 0604. Hopefully the next one might clear up the problem. Also just installed Intel drivers 3257 and still having the issues. Sounds like my problem with TDR at idle or video playing.

 

[Ventanni]

Don't quote me on this, but from my understanding, it's actually an OS issue. I've gotten it with both my AMD and Nvidia cards. It happens when the OS thinks it detects a crash in the driver, when in reality there wasn't a crash. The driver was just idle from whatever. So, it restarts the driver on you and gives you that error message.

I don't get them anymore, but this is a new build, right? It might resolve itself as it picks up more updates.

 

[blackened23]

Yes, using bios 0604. Hopefully the next one might clear up the problem. Also just installed Intel drivers 3257 and still having the issues. Sounds like my problem with TDR at idle or video playing.

Use the HD4600 drivers on your mobo cd.

 

[taisingera]

Use the HD4600 drivers on your mobo cd.

Might have to try this.

 

[blackened23]

Might have to try this.

Also if you have a legacy windows installation from a prior system that could be an issue as well. I generally always do clean windows installation with new systems, i've had lots of issues related to that (legacy installation causing BSODs) in the past.

I'm assuming you installed all of the required motherboard CD and chipset drivers, right?

 

[taisingera]

I did a clean install and do have all the motherboard drivers. Would the Asus AMDA driver cause this or the lack of it? I had to not use my wireless usb adapter because I was getting freezing at the login screen, except when I only used pure Safe Mode.

 

[taisingera]

Was using Ubuntu 13.04, watching local videos, online videos, playing Flash and not one crash of the drivers in 2 hours. Uninstalled drivers on Win7, used standard VGA and no crash. Installed the graphics drivers from the Mobo CD, and just got the same message as before in Win7 about graphic driver stopping and recovering. It looks like there are no good drivers for me under Windows. I am going to look into pushing the TDR delay up a lot, maybe that can help.

 

[taisingera]

I found this Microsoft hotfix on the Asus Mobo CD, KB979903, if you look it up it addresses an error when large amount of contiguous memory is addressed. Might this work?

Update: I double clicked on the install file for the hotfix, and it said the update was not for my system. I find it strange that it is buried in the VGA folder under x64 driver on the Mobo CD. Still getting crashes.

 

[ShintaiDK]

You can also disable or increase the timeout TDR detection. See if it fixes the issue as well.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff569918(v=vs.85).aspx

For a start, you could try change the 2 seconds to 8.

 

[taisingera]

I was on 8 seconds. I tried to increase it to 48 seconds and it had no effect. I also found the registry key to add that tells it to disable TDR and that didn't work.

 

[seitur]

Was using Ubuntu 13.04, watching local videos, online videos, playing Flash and not one crash of the drivers in 2 hours. Uninstalled drivers on Win7, used standard VGA and no crash. Installed the graphics drivers from the Mobo CD, and just got the same message as before in Win7 about graphic driver stopping and recovering. It looks like there are no good drivers for me under Windows. I am going to look into pushing the TDR delay up a lot, maybe that can help.

Intel stepped up with Linux drivers- they got much better recently. It is also easy to have updated drivers via repositories whatever your motherboard, CPU and other hardware is.

Delivery of Intel drivers on Windows desktop is a mess. Intel do need unified GPU driver installer and better driver webpage same way Nvidia and AMD do for their GPU drivers.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I was on 8 seconds. I tried to increase it to 48 seconds and it had no effect. I also found the registry key to add that tells it to disable TDR and that didn't work.

Didnt help for the other guy as well. Only new BIOS was the solution there unfortunately.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Just to add, now I got some more info on the other Asus guy with the exact same problem.

Windows 8
Asus Z87 Plus
GTX770

BIOS 1207 works for him without any TDR errors. 1405 reintroduced the TDRs at idle/video. Both 1007 and 1204 also gave TDR.

 

[taisingera]

Just to add, now I got some more info on the other Asus guy with the exact same problem.

Windows 8
Asus Z87 Plus
GTX770

BIOS 1207 works for him without any TDR errors. 1405 reintroduced the TDRs at idle/video. Both 1007 and 1204 also gave TDR.

For my mobo, they released 2 bios in one week, good to see that. Maybe I should try the other bios listed on their site since the other guy with the problem found a good version right in the middle for his setup. That would be an easy fix for it.

I can't stand when they work out a bug in a new version and then reintroduce it later on.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Just make sure any older BIOS also supports the CPU.

 

[escrow4]

I'm seeing a lot Haswell issues here, with the same advice to make sure you get the latest BIOS update. Is it really that immature? My G1610 has zero issues with Win 8, and an i3 3220 I had earlier was the same. I doubt its the OS, the whole Haswell platform seems to be rather unstable.

 

[taisingera]

I doubt its the OS, the whole Haswell platform seems to be rather unstable.

If that is the case, I still have 15 days to decide on if I want to keep this or RMA the mobo to Newegg, and then just try to sell the cpu for a slight loss.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I'm seeing a lot Haswell issues here, with the same advice to make sure you get the latest BIOS update. Is it really that immature? My G1610 has zero issues with Win 8, and an i3 3220 I had earlier was the same. I doubt its the OS, the whole Haswell platform seems to be rather unstable.

Its more an Asus issue than Haswell as it seems. Personally I would never buy an Asus mobo.

 

[taisingera]

Its more an Asus issue than Haswell as it seems. Personally I would never buy an Asus mobo.

If it is mostly Asus, I wonder what they are doing to their mobos to cause all these issues? Is it just the issue I am describing with the video driver crashes or other problems? Maybe I should pick up an Asrock mobo instead.

 

[taisingera]

I tried disabling the Asus Com Service and that didn't work. Next boot, 2 driver crashes while browsing. I notice certain websites cause it to crash more than others, but sometimes it is not reproducible every time. Also, just standard things like clicking on Close in Firefox causes a crash.

 

[kjknight]

I had this issue on a gtx560ti. Honestly, I found no fix for it. Multiple drivers and I even rma'd the card. The *only* time I didn't have any issues was when I ran bitcoin on it (back in 2011...it was profitable on it). I deduced that it was related to the change in clockspeeds when watching flash or videos. Bitcoin forced the clock speed to the 3d levels and it wouldn't crash on flash or videos. Games were 100% stable. I got fed up with it and bought a radeon 7850.

 

[grant2]

I put together a i3-4330, 8GB Crucial Ballistix 1600, Asus H87M-E, Samsung 120GB SSD and using any of the Intel HD4600 video drivers for Win7 x64,

TLDR: It's a good chance the problem is with your memory.

My similar story:
I just put together a new computer with 2x8gb Crucial Ballistics 1600. In the mobo I forced a profile to match the memory specs (8-8-8-24 @ 1600mhz).

My processor is 4130T (HD4400 graphics)... every time I installed Intel VGA drivers (either from CD, downloaded from mobo mfgr, or downloaded from intel site) my computer would start crashing randomly. Usually during 3D stuff, but occasionally on other things too. Removing the intel drivers helped but it will still occasionally crash randomly.

Lots of other random weirdness started happening: windows complaining that signed drivers were unsigned, claiming updates were corrupted, etc. Basically all signs pointed to some kind of hardware issue because it was all too random to be software, especially on a brand new install that I kept restoring from image.

I ran memtest86 for 8 hours... 5 passes & 0 errors found. This made me think the memory must be fine. I started looking at other options: HD, Power supply, various BIOS settings. I too was on the verge of RMAing the mobo and getting a different brand.

Finally I set the mobo to "auto" the memory, it lowered the timings to 9-9-9-24 at 1333mhz. Totally stable since then. I believe the crashes happened *more often* in the intel drivers because they are using shared (corrupted) memory, and/or your system is more stressed when the VGA is doing more work.

Edit: once I removed the bad stick of ram, the good stick could operate at 8-8-8-24@1600mhz stably.

Moral of the story? Check your Crucial Ballistix memory... lower the timings and/or switch the sticks etc. because even with memtest86 saying it's ok, it might not be.