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

I was thinking about writing about the power scheme, but when I personally changed mine from Balanced to High Performance, it did not resolve the issue. But in my case, my video card (Radeon 5870 1GB) was running at 157mhz core and 300mhz ram when idle. Under load it runs at 900/1200, so when a "hardware accelerated" app engaged the video card, my card continued to run at 157/300 rather than clocking up. I have put my video card in other motherboards and it has not crashed, but I have put it in other motherboards where it has crashed. It might be that some motherboards supply a higher voltage or automatically sense that the card requires voltage, and some motherboards do not. I'm no engineer so I can't know for sure what is at fault; Windows, the motherboard, the video card, or the video card drivers. Anyway, try using "High Performance", that has worked for some people.

thanks to your reply i think i may have fixed my problem what i did: i went to the power options in the windows 7 control panel it was set to balanced by default and balanced it recommended. i changed it to high performance and i haven't had the problem since i changed that.

thank you for this reply. this makes a lot of sense because this problem only happens to me when i'm using apps with hardware acceleration enabled and it seems like an under-voltage issue even though i have a 750w PSU. I was afraid there was something wrong with my ATI Radeon HD 5870 that i paid a pretty penny for. Maybe someone who knows more than I do about tweaking voltage setting that can come up with a safe fix for this? although disabling hardware acceleration fixes the problem, the video would be more clear with hardware acceleration enabled. i would like to be able to use hardware acceleration.

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.

“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

2011-04-25T19:45:40+00:00

I was thinking about writing about the power scheme, but when I personally changed mine from Balanced to High Performance, it did not resolve the issue. But in my case, my video card (Radeon 5870 1GB) was running at 157mhz core and 300mhz ram when idle.

Under load it runs at 900/1200, so when a "hardware accelerated" app engaged the video card, my card continued to run at 157/300 rather than clocking up.

I have put my video card in other motherboards and it has not crashed, but I have put it in other motherboards where it has crashed. It might be that some motherboards supply a higher voltage or automatically sense that the card requires voltage, and some motherboards do not. I'm no engineer so I can't know for sure what is at fault; Windows, the motherboard, the video card, or the video card drivers.

Anyway, try using "High Performance", that has worked for some people.
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Anonymous

2011-04-25T17:54:04+00:00

thanks to your reply i think i may have fixed my problem

what i did:

i went to the power options in the windows 7 control panel

it was set to balanced by default and balanced it recommended.

i changed it to high performance and i haven't had the problem since i changed that.
Was this answer helpful?

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Anonymous

2011-04-25T17:38:45+00:00

thank you for this reply. this makes a lot of sense because this problem only happens to me when i'm using apps with hardware acceleration enabled and it seems like an under-voltage issue even though i have a 750w PSU. I was afraid there was something wrong with my ATI Radeon HD 5870 that i paid a pretty penny for. Maybe someone who knows more than I do about tweaking voltage setting that can come up with a safe fix for this? although disabling hardware acceleration fixes the problem, the video would be more clear with hardware acceleration enabled. i would like to be able to use hardware acceleration.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2011-04-25T16:16:52+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.
Was this answer helpful?

60+ people found this answer helpful.

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