“Display driver stopped responding and has recovered” error.

Anonymous
2009-10-13T16:38:34+00:00
  • 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

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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
2012-01-27T00:10:30+00:00

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This error can happen because of an outdated video driver, to many programs running at one time or even high CPU activity.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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  1. Anonymous
    2012-11-29T14:51:01+00:00

    Based on some research I've done on this topic, I learned that with certain video cards, Windows 7's power saving settings reduce the voltage to the video card too much when it's idle.

    Many 3D cards require a minimum voltage to be stable, but when "idle", they are basically asleep so everything should be ok.

    However, now that so many apps are "hardware or video accelerated" (like Flash, Quicktime, Java, Firefox 4, IE9), the video card is being used when it's in "idle mode" and under-voltage.

    The only way to fix this is to tweak advanced settings using 3rd party tools (and possibly fry the video card), or wait for MS to patch this, if ever.

    Most intelligent answer so far, if i hear update your driver one more time.......

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-11-29T08:44:01+00:00

    i am having this on win 8 release preview, so its still not fixed yet.

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-10-30T11:47:09+00:00

    Had the problem when activating commands in Autocad. I changed the regedit manually, set the TDR to 6 and it worked well. No problems when using Autocad Civil3D 2012 with Lenovo W520, quadro 1000M.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-10-28T21:19:16+00:00

    this is just getting silly now, spend good money for an os that continually crashes out, its been happening for ages.

    i have tried EVERYTHING that has been told "oh this will work" well now i am severly miffed that it continues.

    latest drivers, win7 64 bit upto date, nothing elsehappens except this sodding error.

    no point in really asking for more help as nothing works,

    so with the win 8 just released will this error be forgotten about even more than the op had back in 2009 ???

    totally ridiculous ...

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