AMD driver crashes continually while gaming. Any solutions?

Question

I built a light gaming computer around February, mainly to play skyrim on. It was working fantastically up until about two weeks ago. Now, every few minutes (around every half hour or so when I'm not gaming) the screen momentarily goes black, then a notification box pops up saying "display driver stopped responding and has successfully recovered". Occasionally, the whole display just stops and the sounds go on repeat, and even ctrl + alt + delete won't get my screen back. I really hate having to shut down my computer manually. I've worked my way down the troubleshooting list on the AMD support website, to no avail. I've even done the complete reinstall of windows.
Here's my specific build:

HITACHI HDS721050CLA362 (0F10381) 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Item #: N82E16822145299
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$84.99

COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS500-PCARD3-US 500W ATX12V v2.3 Power Supply
Item #: N82E16817171031
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$49.99

ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM
Item #: N82E16827135204
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$18.99

ASRock A770DE+ AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
Item #: N82E16813157226
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$59.99

SAPPHIRE 100323L Radeon HD 6570 1GB DDR3 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
Item #: N82E16814102934
Return Policy: VGA Standard Return Policy
$74.99

AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Deneb 3.5GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Desktop Processor HDZ970FBGMBOX
Item #: N82E16819103894
Return Policy: CPU Replacement Only Return Policy
$144.99

2x2 GB DDR2 RAM (originally ordered DDR3 by accident, traded with a local tech guy for another set. Could this be what's causing my issues? The set was pre-used, if gently)

I haven't done any overclocking, and the temperature never gets very high. 500 Watts for the PSU seemed adequate, and I've installed and reinstalled all the latest drivers. I'm getting a little desperate. If you know of any solutions, or have any ideas, I would be eternally grateful.

I'm starting to see the value of product registration and warranties. I didn't register anything when I bought it, have I missed my chance? If no, what are the useful links to report problems? I would also be eternally grateful for any help in getting replacements or my money back.

Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

I sometimes also have failure display driver as you did, but not as much as it bothered me. Probably once every months.



Here are my tips:



-Driver

Uninstall the driver totally, let it work without any driver. Restart it. And then download an older ccc from amd.



6570 is a pretty old gpu, so you shouldn't use the latest driver. If problem still exist, uninstall , restart and get an even older driver.



I overclocked everything but within safety region. The instability mostly caused by the gpu not fit for the driver.



-HDD

The last thing to blame is HDD. The problem i mentioned was only occur before i get SSD. After SSD was installed, never happen to me even once. My HDD was 1 year old seagate, and very much work 15hr/day. Its not totally break, but sometimes when i played BF3, the hdd caused staggering, which led me getting SSD. Problem gone and so does the driver failure.

Answer 2

Video drivers crashing after being installed and reinstalled tells me that your drivers are at fault. And simply getting the latest drivers won't fix it.



Whenever installing new video card drivers you must COMPLETELY uninstall any current video card drivers that you have installed. You must not install new video drivers on top of old ones and you must be completely sure that ALL the remnants of old drivers are removed before installing new ones. Often, merely uninstalling drivers via Programs And Features in Control Panel is not enough. Remnants are sometimes left and they will conflict with a new installation of drivers and cause instability / crashes.



I recommend uninstalling all AMD drivers through control panel > programs and features, and then running driver sweeper http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/



This will ensure that all video drivers are gone and give you a clean slate to install the new ones on.

Answer 3

Make sure PCI card is correctly Installed into desktop, be sure to have installed radeon graphic driver's from manufacturer website.

Answer 4

Try out different versions of the driver. 12.4, 12.1, 11.8, etc.



You'll still be able to register most likely.