AMD Driver Crashing Problem

[will_m10]

I have a r6850 MSI Cyclone OC Power Edition card and I constantly have crashing problems. My screen goes black, flickers, and then freezes. This usually happens when trying to start games. First, I got these sporadically during games like Skyrim. I get them much more during games in beta like Tribes. However, I am now getting this problems during many different programs. I also get problems with updating the video bios using MSI Live Update 5. It crashes whenever I try to update anything to do with the video card. This is my first self built computer and it has ran flawlessly until this problem. My computer is as follows:
CPU: i5 2500k
Mobo: MSI z68A-G43 G3
Ram: 8gb gSkill ripjaw 1600
PSU:raidmax hybrid 650w
Please help as I can't really run any games on an $800 gaming computer.

 

[JamesSneed]

If either your CPU or GPU are overclocked beyond how they came factory then revert the overclock. This is always the best way to baseline stability issues by eliminating the overclock as the cause.

 

[will_m10]

I think my gpu came stock overclocked but I'm not sure. I know it is built to run with afterburner but I don't use it. Also, from the reviews it is really stable up to even 1000ghz and I only run it at the stock 860ghz. Could it be the drivers? Also, would you count intel turbo boost as overclocking.

 

[JamesSneed]

If you not overlclocking then It appears that you may have a faulty graphics card. You might try down-clocking the GPU back to 775MHz(Reference 6850 clock speed) to see if that helps. You may end up having to contact MSI if your still under warranty.