Display driver has stopped responding Radeon HD6870

[areamike]

Hello All,

Here are my specs:
MOBO: MSI 970A-G45
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955BE
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB PC12800
VIDEO: XFX Radeon HD 6870
HDD w/OS and games and other progams: OCZ 120GB SOLID 3 SERIES SATA III HD
HDD: with programs less used: WD 500GB Green HDD
DVDRW: Sony DVDRW 24x
Ultra LSP 650W PSU
OS: Windows7 x64 w/SP1

I am getting an error more often than I like. The ONLY time it happens is when joining a server in Battlefield 3 or once I am in a server when it switches maps. It does not happen always. Only occasionally.

"Display Driver has stopped responding and has recovered" -> Pretty common error after searching the web for over a week now.

What I have tried:
1. Drivers from 11.0 to 12.3 (uninstalling and reinstalling properly in safe mode using driver sweeper etc.)
2. Disabled antivirus (avast)
3. Under clocked video card
4. Overclocked video card
5. Overclocked CPU
6. RMA'd video card for replacement
7. Tried different PSU (BFG 550w)
8. Reinstalled OS fresh with drivers etc.
9. New motherboard
10. Memtested both sticks of RAM overnight (passed)
11. Tried with only one stick of RAM at a time(same error occasionally)
12. Stood on my head and tried to drink a glass of water
13. Kicked my dog(just kidding)

Temperatures are as follows:
GPU Idle: 39C
GPU Under load : 70C

CPU Idle: 38C
CPU Under load : 51C


I do not overclock and never have. I only over and under clocked recently to see if that would help the problem. It did not.

I have read countless threads and countless articles with others having this same issue. Some have had success with a different PSU, Some have had success with new RAM. Some have had success with replacing the Video Card. I have tried all I can think of and at this point I am out of ideas. I don't usually ask for advice or help since I have been building PC's for almost 20 years now, but I am at my wit's end.

Any magic tricks out there?

 

[areamike]

Now do what you did previously to get TDR error to show up "Display driver stopped responding..."

By the way, this is not overclocking. You are not above your card's speed limit. This is not under-clocking, either, because you are not underclocking your max set speeds. This is just increasing idle clocks.

Getting similar issues myself with a 6950.
Some people are suggesting that if you have a Realtek onboard sound, then make sure all the drivers on that are fully up to date, and if that doesn't work try disabling.
I'm downloading the latest drivers now in an attempt to fix mine.

Since applying suat's suggestion of increasing the idle clock speeds and then also updating my onboard Realtek sound drivers, I have not had the error since(knock on wood).

I will now play around with decreasing the idle clock speeds.

 

[suat]

I am glad to know that you seem to have sorted out your problem.

For your info, I have increased my idle clock speeds from core / memory 157 / 300 MHz to 234 / 400 MHz for my Radeon HD 5770 to avoid getting TDR error.

By the way, I am no gamer. I was having the issue while browsing the internet or dragging a file / folder on the desktop or opening a word document.

I learned the trick on the internet and make the suggestion, courtesy of the anonymous guy.

At this time I suggest that you set back your card's default idle clocks to see if the Realtek driver is the sole cause of the issue. My computer has VIA sound chip on the motherboard.

Regards

 

[areamike]

I've backed the idle speeds back down to normal and will keep an eye on it to see if by chance the Realtek driver was related or not.

 

[andY biersack]

I have often suggested here increasing core/memory idle clock speeds in case one is experiencing TDR issue. It seems nobody is interested in doing it.

Here is the procedure doing it if anyone is interested:

Open Catalyst Control Center (new version since October 2011. Older versions have a different procedure.).

Make sure Enable Graphics Overdrive is unchecked in Overdrive section.

Click Presets.

Click Add preset.

Give a name to the preset (such as Speedy and note it) and save.

Now go to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Profiles\ (AppData folder is hidden. Select Show all files and folders in Folder Options.).

In Profiles folder, you will see a file called Speedy.xml. This file you have just created.

Open Speedy.xml with notepad.

In this file there is a line

name="CoreClockTarget....."
<Property name="Want_0" value="xxx00" /> (xxx00 is your idle-state core clock. Make it 40000)

and another line

name="MemoryClockTarget....."
<Property name="Want_0" value="yyy00" /> (yyy00 is your idle-state memory clock. Make it 90000)

Change only the Want_0 values. These are the idle-state clocks.

Save the file with the changes you have made.

Now go back to Catalyst Control Center.

Select the Preset called Speedy and then put a checkmark in the box next to Enable Graphics OverDrive.

Click Apply at the bottom of the Catalyst Control Center window.

Now you can see the new increased idle-state core/memory clock speeds.

Now try to give your card a good TDR if you can.

If your issue is resolved, then you may back off little by little on idle core/memory clock speeds until you find your system's lowest values, just to save energy and help GreenPeace act. If it is not resolved, good luck.

cann u do me a huge favor and tell me this in a more datailed begginers way because im lost and i need the help

 

[areamike]

I am glad to know that you seem to have sorted out your problem.

For your info, I have increased my idle clock speeds from core / memory 157 / 300 MHz to 234 / 400 MHz for my Radeon HD 5770 to avoid getting TDR error.

By the way, I am no gamer. I was having the issue while browsing the internet or dragging a file / folder on the desktop or opening a word document.

I learned the trick on the internet and make the suggestion, courtesy of the anonymous guy.

At this time I suggest that you set back your card's default idle clocks to see if the Realtek driver is the sole cause of the issue. My computer has VIA sound chip on the motherboard.

Regards

After backing the idle speeds for the video card back down to normal, the Display adapter error came back. So I increased the idle speeds up to 300/800 and no more error again. I will now just try backing the idle speeds down a little at a time until I hit the sweet spot.

 

[suat]

Dear andY biersack,

I do not know what else I can say to make the procedure clearer so you can apply it.

Perhaps you should tell us where you are lost so maybe someone or I can be of more help.

Hope this helps.

Dear areamike,

I am glad you are up and running again. Thanks for the feedback. I am sure your experience will help others sort out their issues.

 

[andY biersack]

Dear andY biersack,

I do not know what else I can say to make the procedure clearer so you can apply it.

Perhaps you should tell us where you are lost so maybe someone or I can be of more help.

Hope this helps.

Dear areamike,

I am glad you are up and running again. Thanks for the feedback. I am sure your experience will help others sort out their issues.

OH sorry im lost in the part after you save the speeedy preset and the you say to do

Now go to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Profiles\ (AppData folder is hidden. Select Show all files and folders in Folder Options.).

i do not get where to go plus i no this would help becauese yesterday i left my game l4d2 running in the back round and the core clock was 300 but the memory was 1050 and the display driver has recoverd message all day

 

[areamike]

OH sorry im lost in the part after you save the speeedy preset and the you say to do

Now go to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Profiles\ (AppData folder is hidden. Select Show all files and folders in Folder Options.).

i do not get where to go plus i no this would help becauese yesterday i left my game l4d2 running in the back round and the core clock was 300 but the memory was 1050 and the display driver has recoverd message all day

If you are running Windows 7

Go to Computer\C-Drive\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Profiles

You will need to click 'Organize' in the top left of the window and then click Folder and Search Options. Then click the VIEW tab and click to Show Hidden Files and uncheck Hide Protected Operating System Files before you will be able to navigate to the above path.

Then you can navigate to the above path and edit the file suat refers to.

 

[madmeatballs]

Dear andY biersack,

I do not know what else I can say to make the procedure clearer so you can apply it.

Perhaps you should tell us where you are lost so maybe someone or I can be of more help.

Hope this helps.

hey Suat! I happen to have this problem too! HD 6870. I followed what you said but it doesn't change my idle GPU clock and Memory clock as seen AMD Vision Engine Control Center. What am I doing wrong? 🙁 please help I am really annoyed with this problem!

 

[areamike]

hey Suat! I happen to have this problem too! HD 6870. I followed what you said but it doesn't change my idle GPU clock and Memory clock as seen AMD Vision Engine Control Center. What am I doing wrong? 🙁 please help I am really annoyed with this problem!

You must have missed something.

Do you have the preset created?
Did you modify the Speedy.xml file correctly?
Once you did the above, did you start CCC and then click the preset to select it, then enable Overdrive?

"Select the Preset called Speedy and then put a checkmark in the box next to Enable Graphics OverDrive.

Click Apply at the bottom of the Catalyst Control Center window.

Now you can see the new increased idle-state core/memory clock speeds. "

 

[madmeatballs]

You must have missed something.

Do you have the preset created?
Did you modify the Speedy.xml file correctly?
Once you did the above, did you start CCC and then click the preset to select it, then enable Overdrive?

"Select the Preset called Speedy and then put a checkmark in the box next to Enable Graphics OverDrive.

Click Apply at the bottom of the Catalyst Control Center window.

Now you can see the new increased idle-state core/memory clock speeds. "

Yes I did, its 400/900MHz.

What did you do next? did you uninstall the ATI drivers? and install again?

....oh.. Just had the error again. So increasing the idle clock speeds doesn't work for me...
do you still get the error?

 

[Nizmox]

I have often suggested here increasing core/memory idle clock speeds in case one is experiencing TDR issue. It seems nobody is interested in doing it.

Here is the procedure doing it if anyone is interested:

Open Catalyst Control Center (new version since October 2011. Older versions have a different procedure.).

Make sure Enable Graphics Overdrive is unchecked in Overdrive section.

Click Presets.

Click Add preset.

Give a name to the preset (such as Speedy and note it) and save.

Now go to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Profiles\ (AppData folder is hidden. Select Show all files and folders in Folder Options.).

In Profiles folder, you will see a file called Speedy.xml. This file you have just created.

Open Speedy.xml with notepad.

In this file there is a line

name="CoreClockTarget....."
<Property name="Want_0" value="xxx00" /> (xxx00 is your idle-state core clock. Make it 40000)

and another line

name="MemoryClockTarget....."
<Property name="Want_0" value="yyy00" /> (yyy00 is your idle-state memory clock. Make it 90000)

Change only the Want_0 values. These are the idle-state clocks.

Save the file with the changes you have made.

Now go back to Catalyst Control Center.

Select the Preset called Speedy and then put a checkmark in the box next to Enable Graphics OverDrive.

Click Apply at the bottom of the Catalyst Control Center window.

Now you can see the new increased idle-state core/memory clock speeds.

Now try to give your card a good TDR if you can.

If your issue is resolved, then you may back off little by little on idle core/memory clock speeds until you find your system's lowest values, just to save energy and help GreenPeace act. If it is not resolved, good luck.

Just want to thank suat for his advice as I tried this fix and low and behold my crashes on shutdown with my 7970 seem to have gone away. I used the 400mhz / 900mhz setting and haven't messed around with the lowest stable setting as yet. I'd previously tried drivers 12.3 - 12.7 beta to no avail.

But now the question i'm wondering is, what is at fault? is this a fault of the card or is it just flakey drivers? I'm contemplating RMA'ing the card and explaining my findings but if I get the same result it seems a bit fruitless.

My specs are....
Computer Specs
CPU = Intel Core i7 3930K
Motherboard = Gigabyte G1.Assassin2 Motherboard
Ram = Corsair Vengeance CML16GX3M4A1600C9B 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3
HDD = Intel 520 Series 240GB SSD
GPU = Sapphire Radeon HD7970 3GB OC

and i'm using the 12.7 beta drivers at the moment.

 

[suat]

The problem could be drivers or could be hardware. I am not sure, but as a wild guess I can say this:

The new cards are made to operate on multi-clocks in an effort to save energy. Therefore, depending on the load on the card, the card changes clock speed in order to cope with the load. If the load is low, the card reduces clock speeds. If the load is high, the card increases clock speeds. Even in the same game, the clocks may tend to change because there are difficult scenes and easy scenes in the game, therefore different loads exist.

If transition from idle clock to some other clocks of the card is not smooth because of the drivers or because of the card itself, you get TDR issue.

Replacing the card with the exact same model may help or may not help. The card you buy at one time may be different from the same model card you buy at a later time because the cards may have different revisions. Even if the cards may have the same revision number, the tolerances of the components that make up the card may differ. This may improve or deteriorate your TDR issue. You cannot know.

Let me make an anology of the TDR issue in cards to the electrical failures I experienced in my electronic devices in the past.

I was having city electricity problems in the past beyond my control. Due to this, I had several device failures in my electronic home appliances such as amplifiers. City electricity was going off and coming back on almost instantaneously.

If the city wall electricty goes off and comes back on within less than a fraction of a second, you may experience hardware failures in the electronic devices switching off and back on. Likewise, if the load on the graphics card decreases and increases within less than a fraction of a second and the card wants to follow suit by switching clocks, you may have TDR issue. Increasing idle clocks helps transition from idle state to any power state. It is something like jumping over a barrier. If you want to jump over a two-meter high wall, it is much easier for you to jump if you stand on something 1.5 meters high than on something 0.5 meters high.

Please take the above explanation as a simple guess of the phenomenon that is occurring in my mind. It may not be true.

I hoped the card makers had already expressed what was happening.

 

[MeChGanG]

For everyone who had those issues on windows and tried Linux after that.. On Linux Ubuntu you can adjust and save the idle clocks by using an third party amd overdrive tool named;
AMDOverdriveCtrl

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey