Running Windows 7, 32-bi,t on a Lenovo W500. Display Driver: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650. The error message (“display driver stopped responding & has recovered”) follows a system freeze, a short blackout. Then everything works fine. Downloaded the most current driver from the company's Web site. Seeemd to work for a day, but now I'm getting the same behavior. Crabby Office Lady

Hi again, I changed the value to 6 hex, and the fault still occurred, then changed it to 10 hex, and the problem is still there. With the longer times the problem is even more annoying as the whole screen locks up, and nothing can be done until the delay time is up. On that forum you linked to it says to try and set that value to zero. I'll do that now and see what happens. Thanks again!

Thanks Maxstr. I've made that registry change and we'll see how it goes. By the way, I'm running 64bit windows and it didn't say 34bit where you said it would, it just said DWORD 32bit. QWORD says 64bit. Thanks again! No problem, I hope it works for you. After I made the change myself, I never had it happen again. As for the "34-bit", that was a typo :)

Thanks Maxstr. I've made that registry change and we'll see how it goes. By the way, I'm running 64bit windows and it didn't say 34bit where you said it would, it just said DWORD 32bit. QWORD says 64bit. Thanks again!

Microsoft introduced a feature called Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) since Windows Vista. Basically it is a timer that counts how many seconds the video card has stopped responding to the OS (2 seconds by default) and it assumes the video card or driver has crashed. It restarts the video subsystem in an attempt to prevent a crash. Why this happens is anyone's guess. Maybe some system files related to video get corrupted, or the video drivers are poorly written, or the video card has a hardware fault. It could also be a program that drops the frame-rate too low, like a high-end (or buggy) game. Either way it's Windows reacting to a problem. The following is a way to extend the time Windows waits before it restarts the video. It doesn't "fix" the original issue, but it should prevent most, if not all, of the TDR's from happening. It's like disabling airbags in a car because they keep randomly deploying- it's not really a fix, but at least you can drive again :) Note: If you are not familiar with editing the registry, I wouldn't recommend changing the TDR. It involves creating new keys and values, which have to be exactly the same as the instructions, even the capitalization. Click Start, Run, and type "regedit" Navigate to: HKey Local Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ Locate the "GraphicsDrivers" key, and right-click on it. Click "New" and "DWORD Value" (it will say 32-bit if you are on a Windows 64-bit) Label the new value "TdrDelay" Double click on TdrDelay, and enter the number of seconds you want Windows to wait before timing out. The default is two seconds, so start out with 6, and you can make it a few seconds longer if it doesn't fix the issue. Close the registry editor and reboot the computer. This applies to any video card, Nvidia, ATI, or other. More info here: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/wddm_timeout.mspx (they say Vista but it also works with Windows 7 32/64) and a forum post here: http://forums.amd.com/devforum/messageview.cfm?catid=328&threadid=100142

“Display driver stopped responding and has recovered” error.

Anonymous

Running Windows 7, 32-bi,t on a Lenovo W500. Display Driver: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650.
The error message (“display driver stopped responding & has recovered”) follows a system freeze, a short blackout. Then everything works fine.
Downloaded the most current driver from the company's Web site.
Seeemd to work for a day, but now I'm getting the same behavior.

Crabby Office Lady

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous

Hello Crabby Office Lady,

This error can happen because of an outdated video driver, to many programs running at one time or even high CPU activity. There is a link to a KB article on the following post that gives more info on the issue and helps to fix it, see:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/error-display-driver-stopped-responding-and-has/1b6c2b8b-b0a7-49d9-bc3b-e9cc98d51004

L.D.

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334 additional answers

Anonymous

2011-01-28T01:03:59+00:00

Hi again,

I changed the value to 6 hex, and the fault still occurred, then changed it to 10 hex, and the problem is still there.

With the longer times the problem is even more annoying as the whole screen locks up, and nothing can be done until the delay time is up.

On that forum you linked to it says to try and set that value to zero. I'll do that now and see what happens.

Thanks again!
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Anonymous

2011-01-27T02:51:53+00:00

Thanks Maxstr. I've made that registry change and we'll see how it goes.

By the way, I'm running 64bit windows and it didn't say 34bit where you said it would, it just said DWORD 32bit. QWORD says 64bit.

Thanks again!

No problem, I hope it works for you. After I made the change myself, I never had it happen again. As for the "34-bit", that was a typo :)
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Anonymous

2011-01-27T00:55:59+00:00

Thanks Maxstr. I've made that registry change and we'll see how it goes.

By the way, I'm running 64bit windows and it didn't say 34bit where you said it would, it just said DWORD 32bit. QWORD says 64bit.

Thanks again!
Was this answer helpful?

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Anonymous

2011-01-26T22:59:56+00:00
Microsoft introduced a feature called Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) since Windows Vista. Basically it is a timer that counts how many seconds the video card has stopped responding to the OS (2 seconds by default) and it assumes the video card or driver has crashed. It restarts the video subsystem in an attempt to prevent a crash. Why this happens is anyone's guess. Maybe some system files related to video get corrupted, or the video drivers are poorly written, or the video card has a hardware fault. It could also be a program that drops the frame-rate too low, like a high-end (or buggy) game. Either way it's Windows reacting to a problem.

The following is a way to extend the time Windows waits before it restarts the video. It doesn't "fix" the original issue, but it should prevent most, if not all, of the TDR's from happening. It's like disabling airbags in a car because they keep randomly deploying- it's not really a fix, but at least you can drive again :)

Note: If you are not familiar with editing the registry, I wouldn't recommend changing the TDR. It involves creating new keys and values, which have to be exactly the same as the instructions, even the capitalization.
1. Click Start, Run, and type "regedit"
2. Navigate to: HKey Local Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\
3. Locate the "GraphicsDrivers" key, and right-click on it.
4. Click "New" and "DWORD Value" (it will say 32-bit if you are on a Windows 64-bit)
5. Label the new value "TdrDelay"
6. Double click on TdrDelay, and enter the number of seconds you want Windows to wait before timing out. The default is two seconds, so start out with 6, and you can make it a few seconds longer if it doesn't fix the issue.
7. Close the registry editor and reboot the computer.
This applies to any video card, Nvidia, ATI, or other.

More info here:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/wddm_timeout.mspx

(they say Vista but it also works with Windows 7 32/64)

and a forum post here:

http://forums.amd.com/devforum/messageview.cfm?catid=328&threadid=100142
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