"display driver has stopped working"

[cleverpun]

Every so often, all my programs will crash and then I'll get the title error message. If Im playing a game, the program will stay open but become unresponsive, and I'll have to restart my computer to get things working again.

 

I'm using a Radeon R9 280X (manufactured by XFX), and all my display drivers are up to date (to the standard version, not the beta version). Im using Windows 10, and I have an Intel Core i5-4690K.

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Uncle Dong]

I sometimes get this with my GT 740 when i play certain games, I havent had it happen since i updated my drivers though.

 

Are you playing in fullscreen or windowed?

Is it a specific game thats doing this or is it everything? Mine used to crash alot playing dark souls 2 making my screen white and frozen.

 

And have you checked your GPU temp when playing games?

[cleverpun]

I sometimes get this with my GT 740 when i play certain games, I havent had it happen since i updated my drivers though.

 

Are you playing in fullscreen or windowed?

Is it a specific game thats doing this or is it everything? Mine used to crash alot playing dark souls 2 making my screen white and frozen.

 

And have you checked your GPU temp when playing games?

Its happened with Smite (fullscreen), Paladins (Fullscreen), Hearthstone (windowed), Chronicles: RuneScape Legends (Windowed and fullscreen), and some other games. It hasn't happened with Fallout 4, from what I can remember.

 

Temperature usually is normal (40-45 degrees), though some games generate a lot of hard drive noise.

[Vrakos Anthrakir]

I've had this happen to me several times, only in skyrim.  happens to me when I try to run too many mods/try to load too many high res textures, etc.

 

I think it gives me the error when % of physical memory used gets too high (close to or above 90%)

                                                    ^ that tab in the task manager

[Uncle Dong]

Its happened with Smite (fullscreen), Paladins (Fullscreen), Hearthstone (windowed), Chronicles: RuneScape Legends (Windowed and fullscreen), and some other games. It hasn't happened with Fallout 4, from what I can remember.

 

Temperature usually is normal (40-45 degrees), though some games generate a lot of hard drive noise.

Do you have pagefiling? It could because you reach the point where page filing starts to get used (around 80% RAM used i think)

My guess is that your running low on RAM Because you said your harddrive gets noisy when it happens

[cleverpun]

Do you have pagefiling? It could because you reach the point where page filing starts to get used (around 80% RAM used i think)

My guess is that your running low on RAM Because you said your harddrive gets noisy when it happens

I don't know what pagfiling is.

 

I think the harddrive noise is more of the game in question. Smite doesn't make a lot of noise, but it still get the driver failure

[Uncle Dong]

I don't know what pagfiling is.

 

I think the harddrive noise is more of the game in question. Smite doesn't make a lot of noise, but it still get the driver failure

Pagefiling is like virtual RAM when you run low it starts throwing stuff in it, Pagefiling is stored on your harddrive and is usually enabled by default and 1GB default.

 

Has this always been happening or when you did something?

[Findiculous]

Did you install any drivers recently (You said all drivers were up to date) before this started happening or has it been going on for a while?

 

A long time ago I had an NVidia card which had a faulty update come out which caused the issues for me so I had to use the original driver discs and reinstall manually to outdated drivers and slowly update until I found the one that was faulty and then avoided installing it. Rather lengthy solution but it did the trick.

 

I had another problem with Windows 7 2 years ago where a faulty update caused and endless update loop which wouldnt complete so I had to find the driver which caused the loop and delete it (again it was time consuming as I had to revert changes each time I did it wrong)

 

Edit: This might help. Be sure to make notes on every change you make just in case so you can revert back if not functioning correctly

[Redux!]

Oh! So it might actually not be my graphics card dying! I'm having the same GPU (R9 280X, but the HIS one) but I'm running Windows 8.1 so it's not exactly a W10 issue. Experiencing the same problem.

It's very weird. Sometimes it can show the message before I even manage to join the server, and sometimes I can be running the game for 2-3 hours straight with no driver crashes...

 

I'd assume our cards just hate Source Engine in general (it happens in CS:GO for me too).

[krawtch]

i used to get this on my old pc with an AMD GPU.

turns out I was bumping the case slightly with my leg, and the GPU wasn't screwed in tightly and the bumps were causing it to lose connection to the motherboard for a split second, and the error would pop up.

[Redux!]

I was dusting off my PC a few days ago so I remember reseating the GPU and making sure it's installed correctly. Not the case for me, especially since no other game is causing similar issues. Not even GTA V.

[Light_soul]

I'm just going to throw this out there, but battle.net doesn't like to function with r9 280x series cards. You can verify this issue if you can not open battle.net after one of these crashes, yet when I have the issue it doesn't happen when I'm in game, and only videos/streams bug out. I'm assuming this isn't your case since you seem to have different issues, but I might as well throw my findings . If this is the case you just have to not keep battle.net open when not needed. 

[krawtch]

also try using a display driver uninstaller if you haven't before.

installing new driver updates overtop of old driver updates causes problems sometimes.

[Redux!]

Can't do that either, krawtch My OS is screwed and it won't boot up if I try to uninstall the driver by any methods. And reinstalling my entire OS would take quite a lot time, so I'd like to bear with my current installation, as I'll be switching to Windows 10 once Redstone Update 2 comes out.

I don't even have Battle.net installed, Light_soul, but thanks for the suggestion

[Twins_Mercury]

Can't do that either, krawtch My OS is screwed and it won't boot up if I try to uninstall the driver by any methods. And reinstalling my entire OS would take quite a lot time, so I'd like to bear with my current installation, as I'll be switching to Windows 10 once Redstone Update 2 comes out.

I don't even have Battle.net installed, Light_soul, but thanks for the suggestion

 

The OS is supposed to default to a generic driver if you uninstall the official one. Maybe try doing it in Safe Mode?

[Redux!]

The OS is supposed to default to a generic driver if you uninstall the official one. Maybe try doing it in Safe Mode?

It does. That generic driver is what's causing the problem. Check this thread: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/620444-black-screen-with-blinking-mouse-cursor-in-safe-mode-and-after-removing-gpu-drivers/

[cleverpun]

Update: it happened again. I was watching youtube, but battle.net was running in the background. However, other times it happens when only Steam is running (the aforementioned Smite crashes), so I'm still not sure thats the culprit. It certainly could be a factor

[AwesomeMcCoolName]

Update: it happened again. I was watching youtube, but battle.net was running in the background. However, other times it happens when only Steam is running (the aforementioned Smite crashes), so I'm still not sure thats the culprit. It certainly could be a factor

I'm too lazy to read the thread, so if this has already been mentioned, just pretend I said nothing. 

 

Run DDU to uninstall your GPU drivers and then do a fresh install. After doing that I would recommend

running MSI Afterburner whenever you're using your computer and pay attention to: CPU/GPU usage and RAM/VRAM usage. That way if the issues wasn't fixed you'll at least be another step closer to determining the issue. 

 

Make sure your CPU/GPU/RAM/VRAM's overclock are completely stable.

 

If none of that looks out of place and you're still having issues, then I would recommend formatting and doing a fresh install just to eliminate any potential issues. You could try and track down the source of the problem, but I would personally rather spend 20 minutes to reinstall Windows then spend hours trying to figure out some bug. 

[Redux!]

Run DDU to uninstall your GPU drivers and then do a fresh install. After doing that I would recommend

running MSI Afterburner whenever you're using your computer and pay attention to: CPU/GPU usage and RAM/VRAM usage. That way if the issues wasn't fixed you'll at least be another step closer to determining the issue. 

 

Make sure your CPU/GPU/RAM/VRAM's overclock are completely stable.

 

If none of that looks out of place and you're still having issues, then I would recommend formatting and doing a fresh install just to eliminate any potential issues. You could try and track down the source of the problem, but I would personally rather spend 20 minutes to reinstall Windows then spend hours trying to figure out some bug. 

DDU won't work for me.

GPU and VRAM usage are quite low (what would you expect from a Source game...). CPU is more overwhelmed, but that's correct.

 

My GPU isn't overclocked. In fact, I even tried underclocking.

 

Yeah, 20 minutes or reinstalling Windows. Only if Steam is the only thing you keep on your PC. Not a case for me.

[cleverpun]

Alright, after trying some (but not all) of the suggestions here, I think that Light_soul was right about it being battle.net. I'm still not entirely sure, but I'll keep an eye out and let people know if it happens again while battle.net is not running

[Redux!]

Hopefully getting rid of battle.net is something that's going to fix your problem, cleverpun. I'm still seeking for programs which could cause failures for me like these (battle.net isn't one of those, as I don't even have it installed). My suspects for now are f.lux and Synergy. I was actually suspecting my browser running in the background causing the issue, but I tested it and it doesn't seem to be the case.

I'll let you all know too.

[Redux!]

Actually, a few weeks ago I switched to a clean install of Windows 10 (after the Anniversary Update was released) and I'm yet to experience any driver issues I've had on 8.1. Although given the fact that OP also has Windows 10, it may be caused by a program I don't have installed yet.

Synergy has been causing a few issues with other programs (like Photoshop) but during all of the time I had it enabled, my game was still running fine. Hmm...