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HD7950 Driver issue

Ashley Long

Ashley Long

Ashley Long

Associate
Joined
9 Feb 2009
Posts
110
I ordered a VTX3D HD 7950 from here a couple of days ago and have been having loads of problems with the drivers.

at first when i installed it worked fine for the first day or two, however i didn't really use it for gaming or anything stressful. then last night after about a hour and a half of gaming the screen froze (everything else was still working fine, sound etc). i was forced to re-set the PC, and since then the GFX drivers stop responding every 30 seconds when gaming (screen goes blank, then windows "recovers" the drivers).

i have tried all the common things, updates off the AMD website, re-seating the card, double checking the power supply inputs, installing (plus running drivers sweeper) and re-installing the drivers.

Anyone got any ideas or had similar problems? my google searching hasn't turned up much information about it, in fact most people say the AMD drivers are really stable.

System is a Corsair 650TX (around 3 years old now), 1x VTX3D HD 7950, Asus P5Q Pro Mobo, Intel Core2Duo E8400 (Wolfdale chip running at stock speed atm) 1x solid state hd, 3x normal hdd. Im running Windows 8 CP, (i have tried both the Windows 8 drivers and the Windows 7 drivers from AMD).

Thanks,
 
which version of the drivers are you running? I have been using the 12.6 ones for a while with no problems.

I have only once seen "display driver has stopped responding and recovered" and it was due to me Alt+tabbing out of SWTOR during a loading screen whilst running a youtube video on my 2nd monitor causing the 2D/3D clocks to go mental along with the voltage change associated with that.

I belive a lot of these issues are related to rapid changes in the core voltage of the chip (had similar thing with an old radeon 4870) and usually involve hardware acceleration in web browsers.

I would start by going into CCC and increasing the power slider in the overclocking tab to +20% and see if that helps.
 
DazQ87 said:
which version of the drivers are you running? I have been using the 12.6 ones for a while with no problems.

I have only once seen "display driver has stopped responding and recovered" and it was due to me Alt+tabbing out of SWTOR during a loading screen whilst running a youtube video on my 2nd monitor causing the 2D/3D clocks to go mental along with the voltage change associated with that.
Click to expand...

this sounds like it might be the cause. the problem happened whist playing SWTOR with stuff open on my second monitor. however it happened an hour and a half in to a raid, mid battle (the screen just froze, i could still speak and hear people on TS so PC was running fine just the screen outputs were not). since then when ever I run SWTOR i get the "display driver has stopped responding and recovered" message, and I'm fairly sure i have been running it solo.

Ill give the voltage change a try, i was kind of leaning that way when i was playing around with it, but figured a 650W which is supported/certified by AMD should't have a problem (and its corsair, its not like its a small no-name PSU).

Any other suggestions in case this doesn't pan out?
 
psychodil said:
Up the core voltage a little with afterburner or trixx, it may just be unstable at stock settings.
Click to expand...
It shouldn't be unstable at stock settings, the manufacturer wouldn't expect you to touch voltage at stock.
Might be driver related i was playing BF3 today hour and half then freeze (i have 7970 WF) tought it might be my OC 1150mhz so thought id just stay at stock 1000mhz plenty fast enough for the moment but soon as i starte BF3 multiplayer freeze so tried an older driver and seem fine so far and thats a driver from January 8.921.2.0. I,m not using CCC unistalled that and i am just using afterburner.
Regards
 
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the problem is with windows 8 there aren't many older drivers for me to switch on too. (p.s. any links to sites with older drivers would be awesome save me a google search or two).

ill get back to you all with a more details when i get home from work tonight and give this a go.
 
Its probably a windows 8 issue then, drivers for windows 8 are very immature, heck the OS isnt even ready for release yet. Im sure you will have no problems on windows 7.
 
Update : Fresh install of Windows 7, with the added 20% to the volts, still no luck.

the card is bugged with every game. it now starts the game and then drops out to the desktop and the game stops responding. i have tested this with both SWTOR and DIRT Showdown (the game which came with the card), both behave in the same way. i have also disabled the second monitor and still no luck.

I'm going to try with some older drivers, however I'm starting to suspect its more of a hardware issue and I'm going to have to RMA the card :(...
 
You are not adding 20% to the voltage, you are allowing the card to draw 20% more power if it needs it. You need to try increasing the voltage, which should be around 1.175. Increase it to around 1.225v with trixx or afterburner and if it is OK then you know it is a hardware fault, that the card is unstable at stock voltage.
 
Thanks psychodil, that seems to have done the job.

Is it a major issue though (i.e. RMA able issue)? I'm planning on sticking another card in and having an eye infinity setup in the future, is this an issue that i will have with the second card as well or just an isolated problem?
 
Well technically the card is faulty as it won't run stable at stock clocks, so you should return it IMO. Some people might live with it if it runs OK with a little extra voltage though. What are your maximum temps while running heaven now, and is the noise acceptable while gaming?

Its an isolated issue, you would be very unlucky to be another card with the same problem. I would return the card, especially if you are going crossfire or looking to over clock in the future.
 
I RMAd my Sapphire 7950 OC for similar issues, though mine never recovered always going to a black screen, sound still audible, for 5s or so then whole system hanging.
While not widespread, seems to be a common enough problem with these and the 7970's to be abit of a concern.
 
My 2 cents. I have the VTX3D HD 7950 also. When I was on 12.6 I also got "display driver has stopped responding and recovered" all over the place. This was at stock speeds. From my review of the card."Unigine runs at 1000mgz but not Battlefield 3 (952). It will run at 953 though"
In between this I had to change MB. So Got a Z77. Now I can play BF3 @ 980 on 12.4
 
sent off for RMA. hopefully they will get me a replacement asap. in the mean time i have ordered a second card so when both turn up ill be able to run a sick crossfire eyeinfinity setup.

Next step is to upgrade my Mobo/Processor/Ram combo, but that will have to wait till later on this year, maybe when Win8 comes out.
 
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