Black Screen! Device Driver Issue?

xDjentleman

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Hi,


I received my new PC a week ago. It's a budget build, but I plan on upgrading in the future.

Anyway, since setting it all up, I haven't been able to play a single game on it! At first I got the error "display device has stopped responding and has recovered". This would occur as I was trying to get into a game, the screen would go black after freezing and then the error message would appear once I had been kicked back to my desktop.

So I tried numerous things like, un-installing and re-installing drivers, making sure all other drivers and software was up to date, updating BIOS, etc. In the end I tried re-installing windows to see if that helped.

Since re-installing windows, I no longer get the error message I was seeing before. Now, when I load up a game (only game tried so far is Team Fortress 2), the screen will freeze at near enough the same point, but then the screen will go black and I can hear that it is working from the noises still being made. I then have to "end process" through the task manager to return to desktop.

I have literally been pulling my hair out over this during this weekend! I emailed the support from where I got the PC from and they think that after all of this, it is still an error to do with the graphics card driver.

Just wondering if anyone knows anything that may help me out? I am no pro with computers so any help would be appreciated.


PC specs:

CPU: AMD PHENOM II X2 DUAL CORE 565 (3.40GHz/6MB CACHE/AM3)
Mobo: ASUS® M5A78L-M/USB3
RAM: 4GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
GPU: AMD RADEON™ HD6570 1GB
HDD: 250GB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s
Power Supply: 350W Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan




Thanks
 
Someone needs to correct me on this but to me the 350W looks a little on the low side for that spec. While an inadequate PSU may load a PC up, you may encounter a wide variety of problems - BSOD's, driver errors, crashing, freezing etc. In essence, the components are not getting enough power.

Is everything fine when you're on Windows and only occuring when you try to play a game? Or will the drivers crash on desktop while idle?
 
Someone needs to correct me on this but to me the 350W looks a little on the low side for that spec.

Assuming it's not overclocked, there's not a lot of extra hardware not listed and the power supply is a decent one with ~300W on the +12v rail then it should be fine, the 6570 is only a 50W card, not a 200W monster.

It does sound like it may be a graphics card on the fritz. You did install the drivers from the AMD website rather than letting windows update install them?

What temperature reading does the Catalyst Control Panel give? (overdrive section).
 
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Assuming it's not overclocked, there's not a lot of extra hardware not listed and the power supply is a decent one with ~300W on the +12v rail then it should be fine, the 6570 is only a 50W card, not a 200W monster.

It does sound like it may be a graphics card on the fritz. You did install the drivers from the AMD website rather than letting windows update install them?

What temperature reading does the Catalyst Control Panel give? (overdrive section).


yeah i got all the drivers etc from the AMD website! and nothing has been overclocked at the moment.

I will check what the temps are when I get home (at work at the moment).

Would the graphics card being on the fritz cause any other issues that I could look out for? might help in pointing me in the right direction. I have tried streaming some videos on it and both youtube and vimeo will stream in full HD flawlessly!
 
Normally graphics cards tend to either die completely, or you will see artifacts on the screen before it dies completely. Personally I haven't ever seen a card work fine for the desktop and other programs but not for gaming.

As EndlessWaves has said, temperatures might be an issue and worth checking - might also be worth rolling back to the previous versions of the driver, or even better, try the CD ones first.

Any idea what brand PSU it is?
 
Normally graphics cards tend to either die completely, or you will see artifacts on the screen before it dies completely. Personally I haven't ever seen a card work fine for the desktop and other programs but not for gaming.

As EndlessWaves has said, temperatures might be an issue and worth checking - might also be worth rolling back to the previous versions of the driver, or even better, try the CD ones first.

Any idea what brand PSU it is?

Unfortunately I have no idea what the brand of the PSU it is.

I have been holding off opening it up because I don't want to void my warranty in any way at this point in time... just in case

I will check the temps when I get home this evening!

When I re-installed Windows, I installed all the drivers from their original disks before trying to update via the internet. And I make a point not to use the windows software update thing, instead I go to the manufacturers website.

From the bit of research I have managed to do, it seems it could be an issue with the "Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR)" feature with Windows Vista/7. I have tried almost all of the troubleshooting solutions to this on the AMD website but still no luck.

I will post temps later today.

Thanks for your help so far :smashin:
 
Let us know how you get on when you get home, it would be interesting to hear what's going on.

I previously had this problem on my old Acer laptop, where my graphics card drivers would stop responding, then respond again, causing a flickering on my desktop and/or while gaming. Turns out a simple reroll of previous drivers sorted it as the "latest" ones weren't stable for me.
 
Let us know how you get on when you get home, it would be interesting to hear what's going on.

I previously had this problem on my old Acer laptop, where my graphics card drivers would stop responding, then respond again, causing a flickering on my desktop and/or while gaming. Turns out a simple reroll of previous drivers sorted it as the "latest" ones weren't stable for me.



hmm i may search for some previous versions of the drivers if nothing else seems to help.... worth a go!

thanks for the info etc
 
I have been holding off opening it up because I don't want to void my warranty in any way at this point in time... just in case

PCSpecialist allow you to open the case and even install new components without voiding your warranty as long as you break anything yourself: PCSPECIALIST - Frequently Asked Questions!

So get unscrewing! ;)

When I re-installed Windows, I installed all the drivers from their original disks before trying to update via the internet. And I make a point not to use the windows software update thing, instead I go to the manufacturers website.

I generally prefer to do it the opposite way round. Install the latest drivers from the website and then fill in any missing applications from disk. The less often you install/uninstall drivers the less chance there is for something to go wrong.

DriverSweeper is pretty good at getting rid of the last remnents of old drivers after you've uninstalled them.

As to other things to try:

1. Are you running Vista/7 and have the aero interface (translucency) turned on and working fine?

2. I'd definitely try other games and in case it's a TF2 or DirectX specific problem. Rage would be good if you have it as that's a modern OpelGL game, but if you don't then grabbing Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (it's free) and seeing if that works would help narrow it down. DirectX games (the majority) other than TF2 are also worth trying.

3. A medium load such as Google Earth is also worth a go to see how the graphics card reacts to that.
 
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PCSpecialist allow you to open the case and even install new components without voiding your warranty as long as you break anything yourself: PCSPECIALIST - Frequently Asked Questions!

So get unscrewing! ;)



I generally prefer to do it the opposite way round. Install the latest drivers from the website and then fill in any missing applications from disk. The less often you install/uninstall drivers the less chance there is for something to go wrong.

DriverSweeper is pretty good at getting rid of the last remnents of old drivers after you've uninstalled them.

As to other things to try:

1. Are you running Vista/7 and have the aero interface (translucency) turned on and working fine?

2. I'd definitely try other games and in case it's a TF2 or DirectX specific problem. Rage would be good if you have it as that's a modern OpelGL game, but if you don't then grabbing Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (it's free) and seeing if that works would help narrow it down. DirectX games (the majority) other than TF2 are also worth trying.

3. A medium load such as Google Earth is also worth a go to see how the graphics card reacts to that.



1. I am running Windows 7 Home 64 bit... it works perfectly with the aero interface! but I think I currently have that switched off at the moment - using the windows classic theme at the moment.

2. I don't have many other PC games at the moment, I have Crysis: Maximum edition (but I figured it's not exactly the least demanding game) and I also have the tribes: ascend beta on there. granted I haven't tried either crysis or tribes since re-installing windows so I may give that a go. I will also try Wolfenstein.

3. I will try using Google Earth too! Every other aspect of the PC works perfectly (from what I've used) but really the only thing I've tried is HD streaming.


Also, how did you know I got my pc from PCspecialist?? :confused:

and if that is the case then I will get on that!!
 
so after looking on the catalyst control centre, my graphics card seems to be sitting at around 27 - 28 degrees.

i tried google earth, and it worked flawlessly and much faster than i anticipated!

i've been tweaking some settings in catalyst control centre and i managed to get slightly further into a game (not by much but a noticeable amount) than before.

but it is still giving me the black screen as previously...


im going for a :smoke: & :beer: for now haha
 
Also, I don't know if this makes a lot of a difference, but I am currently using my 32" hanspree tv as a monitor (via HDMI cable).

I noticed in the Catalyst Control Centre that there are a few options/settings for LCD tvs... does anyone know if there is anything important in there that I could change?

When I was doing a bit of trial and error with some settings in there, I actually managed to get into TF2 last night! I played for a whole life (first time ever on this PC) and then "hl2.exe stopped responding" which I don't mind because at least it didn't say "display driver has stopped responding and has recovered".

The game looked amazing for all of 2 minutes that I got to play! The temp of the GPU raised from about 27 degrees to approx 30 degrees (from what I noticed) which seems quite cool considering what I've read some GPUs get up to.

help anyone? :rolleyes:
 
Also, how did you know I got my pc from PCspecialist?? :confused:

The combination of all caps and the amount of detail in the specs is pretty unique to them.

I noticed in the Catalyst Control Centre that there are a few options/settings for LCD tvs... does anyone know if there is anything important in there that I could change?

Wrong settings may cause a black screen, but they're not usually accompanied by a crash on the computer side.

The game looked amazing for all of 2 minutes that I got to play! The temp of the GPU raised from about 27 degrees to approx 30 degrees (from what I noticed) which seems quite cool considering what I've read some GPUs get up to.

It won't be that cool once you get it running, it's a waste of money to fit a cooler that good. I guess it either didn't have time to heat up or had cooled down by the time you checked it.


It's encouraging that google earth works, try going into the settings and changing it to DirectX (assuming it is set on OpenGL) and see if it still works. DirectX is the same technology TF2 uses so if that works I'd start to suspect a TF2 problem.
 
Wrong settings may cause a black screen, but they're not usually accompanied by a crash on the computer side.

ah ok... so since re-installing windows, it doesn't "crash" when I load up TF2, but as I join the server the screen will go black.. I can still hear the game working but I just can't see anything. I can get into the actual game (I know this because when I press the taunt key I can hear my character saying something) but I just can't see anything.



It won't be that cool once you get it running, it's a waste of money to fit a cooler that good. I guess it either didn't have time to heat up or had cooled down by the time you checked it

yeah I figured it may have cooled down in between the time it took me too check, but surely it can't be reaching dangerous temps and cooling off again that quickly??



It's encouraging that google earth works, try going into the settings and changing it to DirectX (assuming it is set on OpenGL) and see if it still works. DirectX is the same technology TF2 uses so if that works I'd start to suspect a TF2 problem.

Ok thanks, I will try changing settings to DirectX and see what happens.

And again, thanks for your help... much appreciated!
 
First, try using "furmark" this will stress your GPU out and bring out any problems. I might suspect a PSU problem, as power draw at desktop/low graphics is much lower than at full pelt 64x aniso filtering.(any game)
Also try booting up a Live linux cd and using that for surfing the web, possibly running "Fishtank" to stress the Cpu/Gpu.

Get a game Demo and try letting that run/play it for hours

*IF* its acceptable *AND* you feel comfortable doing it:
*THEN* open up the case and unplug and re-plug the RAM and GPU (not CPU) ENDIF.
 
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So after spending most of the xmas break on the phone to support etc with no real resolve, someone suggested under-clocking the GPU. I under-clocked in small increments and re-tested (using CCC) and ALAS! Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty 4 now work!

So I know this isn't a permanent fix but I was happy to be able to finally play a complete round of a game!

From doing a bit of research... I've read that it could be a TDR issue or a PSU issue.

Still don't know how to fix this but hey I have a starting point!
 

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