Radeon Display Driver stopped responding...

[Prose]

Hey all,

Trying to figure out the reason behind a minor problem I have been experiencing lately... Basically every now and then my computer will freeze up and then the screens will go black, come back, and a little notification will tell me that my display driver stopped responding and then all will go back to normal.

I've re installed the drivers several times, re-seated the card etc...

Could this be a PSU problem? I believe it started occurring when I upgraded my video card to a 6870, although I can't be entirely sure.

I'd be grateful for any help at all.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Dangman]

Specs of your PC would help.

Also have you tried a different GPU?

 

[sai_dee]

This is a common issue that's usually overclocking/heat related, so check your temps.
Doubtful that it's a PSU problem but please list specs and what card you upgraded from?

 

[Prose]

Thanks a bunch guys...

Unfortunately I don't have another card here I can swap to at this time... I gave the old card away. Monitoring my temps everything seems fine - averages around 55c idle and the problem never has occurred when playing a game etc.

system information...

Intel Core I7 920 Quad Core Processor LGA1366 2.66GHZ Bloomfield 8MB LGA1366 4.8GT/S
ASUS P6T X58 ATX LGA1366 DDR3 3PCI-E16 PCI-E1 2PCI CrossFire SLI SATA2 GBLAN Motherboard
OCZ Gold OCZ3G1600LV6GK 6GB DDR3 3X2GB DDR3-1600 PC3-12800 CL 8-8-8-24 Triple Channel Memory Kit
XFX Radeon 6870 (upgraded from a 4890)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1500GB 1.5TB SATA2 7200RPM 32MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive OEM
PC Power & Cooling 510 SLI-PFC 510w (max 650 out) - a pretty old PSU... had this one through a few computer builds...

6136 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
Slot 'DIMM0' has 2048 MB (serial number SerNum00)
Slot 'DIMM1' is Empty
Slot 'DIMM2' has 2048 MB (serial number SerNum02)
Slot 'DIMM3' is Empty
Slot 'DIMM4' has 2048 MB (serial number SerNum04)
Slot 'DIMM5' is Empty

AMD Radeon HD 6870 Series [Display adapter] (upgraded from a 4890)
BenQ 241W [Monitor] (24.2"vis, s/n 7877, September 2007)
Samsung SME2320 [Monitor] (23.1"vis, s/n CL23HVCZ700404, July 2010)

 

[MacLeod]

Try running Driver Sweeper in safe mode and wipe all the old driver remnants out then reinstall new drivers from scratch. A lot of times, CCC causes this issue and wiping all the old drivers out does the trick.

 

[Dangman]

OCZ Gold OCZ3G1600LV6GK 6GB DDR3 3X2GB DDR3-1600 PC3-12800 CL 8-8-8-24 Triple Channel Memory Kit

Unlikely to be the source of your issues but something to check in case you've ruled out the GPU and PSU being the issue: That RAM is rated at 1.65V. It's been shown that RAM rated at 1.65V might cause stability issues with those older Intel CPUs.

XFX Radeon 6870 (upgraded from a 4890)

This definitely decreases the chance of the PSU being the issue but doesn't completely rule it out: The HD 6870 uses significantly less power than the HD 4890.

PC Power & Cooling 510 SLI-PFC 510w (max 650 out) - a pretty old PSU... had this one through a few computer builds...

That is a fairly old PSU. So not completely ruled out

Try what MacLeod said and see if it works. As for the PSU: Grab a digital multi-meter and measure the rails.