Graphics Card Issues

[Thatcrashingguy]

Hello,
A few months ago I purchased a new ASUS Radeon R7 240 to replace my older ATI Radeon HD 3650. I installed the card without any problems. 6 Days later I started to receive crashes and various other unpleasant random restarts. These BSOD's seemed to be linked to the display drivers, so I uninstalled all of the drivers, took out the card, and re-installed everything. Another 6 days passed and it came back. This repeated several times. I was frustrated, so I removed the card and purchased an EVGA GeForce GT 730. I Installed all the latest drivers, used Driver Sweeper to remove all other drivers, made sure the card was in fine, and started to go about my daily work. The first day was great, and I thought the problem was resolved. The next day I booted up machine and it was working flawlessly, until I started to play a few games. The computer now crashes just like it did with my previous card. This time I decided to test the RAM and see if it was bad. I used Windows Memory Diagnostic and it came up with no errors. I was going to use memtest86 but I am having difficulty with it rejecting my media. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[Darkbreeze]

What is the model and brand of your power supply? How old is your power supply?

 

[Thatcrashingguy]

My Power supply is the Corsair CX430. It is about a year old

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ok, so despite the fact that you've played around with the drivers here and there, I'd do this first, just so we know we don't have a rogue registry entry creating havoc. Use the following tutorial, and run it for AMD FIRST, then run it AGAIN for Nvidia. Then reinstall the latest Nvidia drivers. That will give us a clean slate to start with. Driver sweeper and the OEM uninstall utilities leave much to be desired.


http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2767677/clean-graphics-driver-install-windows.html


If that does not improve things, we can go from there but it's hard to determine anything for certain without doing that first. Keep in mind the DDU adds a setting that stops windows update from updating the GPU driver, which could even be your problem since you've indicated it works well at first but then goofs up after a day or two. If windows is automatically changing your GPU driver, this will stop it.

 

[Thatcrashingguy]

Will update you as soon as it is complete

 

[Thatcrashingguy]

The process has completed I will come back to the thread if the issue persists.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ok, sounds good. Be sure to run for both AMD and Nvidia before installing the latest drivers from the Nvidia website based on your card model and operating system.

 

[Thatcrashingguy]

I forgot to mention. Before I made this thread, I re-installed Windows 10 with a clean install. I thought this would have resolved the issue if it was a software problem, but the issue still persisted

 

[Mousemonkey]

I forgot to mention. Before I made this thread, I re-installed Windows 10 with a clean install. I thought this would have resolved the issue if it was a software problem, but the issue still persists.

I reckon that's the problem right there.

 

[Thatcrashingguy]

I forgot to mention. Before I made this thread, I re-installed Windows 10 with a clean install. I thought this would have resolved the issue if it was a software problem, but the issue still persists.

I reckon that's the problem right there.

This issue was happening months before I even re-installed.

 

[Mousemonkey]

I forgot to mention. Before I made this thread, I re-installed Windows 10 with a clean install. I thought this would have resolved the issue if it was a software problem, but the issue still persists.

I reckon that's the problem right there.

This issue was happening months before I even re-installed.

In that case it's just AMD and their rubbish drivers! :lol:

Yes, I do own a couple of AMD cards and so have an insight to their "issues".

 

[Darkbreeze]

Are you still having issues after running the DDU and reinstalling the newest AMD drivers for your card and OS version? And are you certain you've installed the correct drivers for both the card and OS version. There are different drivers used, for example, on the Catalyst 15.7.1 package for a system running Windows 10 64bit and running Windows 7 64 bit, even though both say 15.7.1. In the notes it will show a completely different driver version. Make sure you've used the driver selection tool on the AMD website and input your card model and operating system version.

 

[Thatcrashingguy]

Are you still having issues after running the DDU and reinstalling the newest AMD drivers for your card and OS version? And are you certain you've installed the correct drivers for both the card and OS version. There are different drivers used, for example, on the Catalyst 15.7.1 package for a system running Windows 10 64bit and running Windows 7 64 bit, even though both say 15.7.1. In the notes it will show a completely different driver version. Make sure you've used the driver selection tool on the AMD website and input your card model and operating system version.

Thanks for the reply. I may have worded what I said wrong. I removed the AMD card after many crashes, and swept it clean. I also re-installed windows to get rid of all unwanted software. I then purchased an Nvidia card to see if this was a graphics card issue. after I installed the Nvidia card, it was smooth for about a day. Then my computer started crashing again. Yes, I am sure I installed the correct drivers for both the OS and the card. I did use the DDU tool, swept the Nvidia drivers, and reinstalled them. Today I have not had a crash yet after what you told me to do. If a crash does happen I will reply.
NOTE: When I was answering above I used the wrong word, I meant to use Persisted. Sorry for the grammar.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ok, let us know then if the problem seems resolved after you've had enough time to be fairly sure.

 

[Thatcrashingguy]

Will do

 

[Thatcrashingguy]

Since I used the DDU there have been no crashes. I have had my computer on for about 2 days non-stop. It seems to be working. Many thanks darkbreeze. I will keep monitoring it for another few days yet, just to be sure. Once again thanks!

 

[Thatcrashingguy]

Ok, so after 3 days I have received a BSoD. I ran WhoCrashed and this is what came up:Crash Dump Analysis
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crash dump directory: C:\Windows\Minidump

Crash dumps are enabled on your computer.

On Mon 8/31/2015 3:30:12 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\083115-16984-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: win32kfull.sys (0xFFFFF961904569DD)
Bugcheck code: 0x50 (0xFFFFF95D40828F80, 0x0, 0xFFFFF961904569DD, 0x2)
Error: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
file path: C:\Windows\system32\win32kfull.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Full/Desktop Win32k Kernel Driver
Bug check description: This indicates that invalid system memory has been referenced.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.



On Mon 8/31/2015 3:30:12 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: win32kfull.sys (win32kfull!BuildHwndList+0x14D)
Bugcheck code: 0x50 (0xFFFFF95D40828F80, 0x0, 0xFFFFF961904569DD, 0x2)
Error: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
file path: C:\Windows\system32\win32kfull.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Full/Desktop Win32k Kernel Driver
Bug check description: This indicates that invalid system memory has been referenced.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Looks like something is corrupted or there is a conflict of some kind. If you have old applications, or plugins, that you don't use anymore, I'd uninstall them to clean things up a bit. Probably wouldn't hurt to back things up and perform a clean install of the OS.

 

[Thatcrashingguy]

I have done a clean install a few days ago. Im leaning toward maybe my RAM is bad, because the modules are about 9 years old. There doesn't seem to be any conflicts.

 

[Thatcrashingguy]

For the past few hours I have noticed when I play games it just randomly restarts, and once in a while I will get a BSoD

 

[Thatcrashingguy]

Looks like something is corrupted or there is a conflict of some kind. If you have old applications, or plugins, that you don't use anymore, I'd uninstall them to clean things up a bit. Probably wouldn't hurt to back things up and perform a clean install of the OS.

I was wondering if you knew any tools that could help me locate any corruptions.

 

[Darkbreeze]

In order to help you, it's often necessary to SEE what's going on, in the event one of us can pick something out that seems out of place, or other indicators that just can't be communicated via a text only post. In these cases, posting an image of the HWinfo sensors or something else can be extremely helpful. Here's how:

*Click here for instructions on how to post images in Tom's hardware forums



Run HWinfo and look at system voltages and other sensor readings.

Monitoring temperatures, core speeds, voltages, clock ratios and other reported sensor data can often help to pick out an issue right off the bat. HWinfo is a good way to get that data and in my experience tends to be more accurate than some of the other utilities available. CPU-Z, GPU-Z and Core Temp all have their uses but HWinfo tends to have it all laid out in a more convenient fashion so you can usually see what one sensor is reporting while looking at another instead of having to flip through various tabs that have specific groupings.

After installation, run the utility and when asked, choose "sensors only". The other window options have some use but in most cases everything you need will be located in the sensors window. If you're taking screenshots to post for troubleshooting, it will most likely require taking three screenshots and scrolling down the sensors window between screenshots in order to capture them all.

*Download HWinfo

 

[Thatcrashingguy]

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ok. Good. Now, download and run Furmark, and take the same series of screenshots of the HWinfo sensors while Furmark is running. We don't care about seeing anything in the Furmark window, only that it's running so the system will be under a heavy load and we can see what the voltage, CPU and GPU are doing.

 

[Thatcrashingguy]