Windows 7 64-bit SP1 ASRock P67 Extreme4 i5-2500K HIS Radeon 6950 2GB --- H695F2G2M Corsair 8 GB RAM --- CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 Samsung Spinoint F3 1 TB --- HD103SJ Corsair 750W PSU --- CMPSU-750TX Samsung SyncMaster SA350 (everything at stock settings) This past April, I built a computer for my brother. He has played Fallout 3, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins, and StarCraft II, among others, without problems. Some games, however, habitually crash, and seemingly for the same reason. It first started happening with The Witcher 2 about one month ago, in which the game would usually cause the graphics driver to crash, greeting me with a "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" message. It does not happen during any other tasks, only in certain games. I first thought that this was a DX 11 issue, but that does not seem to be the case. The very interesting thing is that it only seems to happen in these games when the resolution is set to his native one, 1920x1080. There are some other peculiarities, such as Unigine Heaven crashing at DX 9-11 @ 1080p, but working fine @ 1080p with OpenGL. Here is a list: Crysis 2 1920 x 1080, DX 11 --- crash 1600 x 900, DX 11 --- OK 1920 x 1080, DX 9 --- OK 1600 x 900, DX 9 --- OK 1920 x 1080, DX 9, texture patch --- OK Witcher 2 1920 x 1080, ultra, no Ubersampling, no AA --- crash 1920 x 1080, lowest settings --- crash 1600 x 900, ultra, no Ubersampling, no AA --- OK Metro 2033 1920 x 1080, DX 11 --- crash at menu (menu is in 3D) 1600 x 900, DX 11 --- OK Metro 2033 Bechmark Utility 1920 x 1080, DX 9, 10, 11 max --- OK Unigine Heaven 1920 x 1080, DX 9, 10, 11, max --- crash 1920 x 1080, OpenGL - OK 1920 x 1080, DX 9, lowest --- crash 1600 x 900, DX 9, 10, 11, max --- OK DiRT 2 1920 x 1080, DX 11, max --- OK Dragon Age: Origins 1920 x 1080, DX 9, max --- OK Mass Effect 2 1920 x 1080, DX 9, max --- OK Fallout 3 1920 x 1080, DX 9, max --- OK Crysis 1 w/ CCC mod 1920 x 1080, DX 10, max --- OK StarCraft II 1920 x 1080, DX 9, max --- OK --------------------------------------------------------------------- A few additional things to note as well: --- When The Witcher 2 is set to a lower resolution, it does not crash, and neither does 1920 x 1080 AFTER playing with a lower resolution first. --- The Witcher 2 did not immediately start crashing when he first started playing one month ago, only about an hour into the game. --- Crysis 2 still crashes when switching resolutions, from non-native to 1080p, mid-game with DX 11 enabled. --- The Crysis 2 crash is not a "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered," but rather, a MSVCR90.dll crash error. --- YouTube videos sometime stutter; not sure if it's flash or the driver; have not seen this myself, but my brother says that it happens occasionally. The audio stutters when this happens. This also happens when he's watching a video or playing music through the Zune software (Zune software is similar to a media player). --- The monitor, Samsung SyncMaster SA350, came with only an analog connector (d-sub VGA cable). I had a analog-to-digital connector (the 6950 only has DVI and HDMI plugs). Not sure if this has to do with anything, but the AMD drivers list the monitor's refresh rate as 75, while I've seen some games reference it as 60. Perhaps the change in resolution (1080p to 1600x900) also does something to the refresh rate, causing the game to become stable? Anyway, enabling/disabling vSync doesn't have an effect on this issue. --- Temps are excellent. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Some things that I have tried without any luck: --- Reformatted, reinstalled Windows, loaded the Witcher 2 @ 1080p on a pretty bare system (but with all updates to the core Windows installation) --- Uninstalled the latest Realtek onboard sound drivers, SATA drivers, Intel drivers, LAN drivers, and pretty much all the drivers that came with the motherboard --- Used the latest drivers for the motherboard --- Updated the bios --- Memtest86+ for several hours -- no problems --- Bumped up the vccio voltage to the motherboard to second-highest preset option (~1.1, ~0.9 is default) --- Latest version of DirectX --- Bumped up the voltage to +20% max AMD overdrive --- Used an ASUS 6970 bios (first came across the problem while still on the 6970 bios) --- Flashed back to the original HIS 6950 bios --- Latest Windows drivers --- Used ATI drivers 11.11, 11.9, 11.8, 11.7, 11.6, 11.4 --- Changed the power settings to "high performance" from "balanced" in the Control Panel --- Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) registry edit; set it to 8 without a restart Does anyone have any more ideas for me?
Wow, that's alot of detail. I've had a similar issue with 2 nVidia cards, and in both cases they had to be RMA'd back. Just out of interest, try multiple applications going like unigine (windowed) with furmark (also windowed) and gpu-z. Just to load it up and see if it can force a crash. One last thing to check; what are the temps like?
I definitely tried using windowed mode, as well as various graphical settings. None of these things had an effect on the crashes. The temps were excellent across the board. The GPU would reach 65C max, which I think is fairly typical for this card. I tried using a different monitor and an HDMI connection with no luck. I actually started the RMA process and will see what happens with that. I installed my old 7800 GT on my brother's computer without any problems. Unigine Heaven does not crash @ 1080p @ DX 9 @ low, which it always crashed at with the 6950. Let's hope that it's the card.
Card I think, you've tried everything else, bar perhaps the PSU being on its way out (crashes under heavy load).
I don't know, Marvin, that PSU is excellent. Unigine Heaven crashes at the lowest settings with DX9 but @ 1080p, but doesn't crash at the highest settings with DX 11 @ 1600 x 900, which should be quite a bit more demanding even if the resolution is a little lower. Take a look at the Metro 2033 bechmark utility -- no crashes there, and way more demanding than the Metro 2033 menu, which crashes there.
Happened to me, I had to enable GPU scaling and it fixed it right up. AMD driver issue for 6xxx series cards.
With the way my brother's monitor is, I believe that I had to have GPU scaling on by default, but I may be wrong. Are you saying that you had the same exact problem -- namely, your games would crash @ 1080p, but be fine on anything smaller? I didn't sent the card out yet, just packed it into the HIS box. Maybe this calls for another look. I don't understand why I have not come across any posts about this, though.
RedDethX, would you be able to elaborate a little more? Was your problem games crashing @ 1080p during games? Has anyone ever heard of this issue? I cannot seem to find any other users/posters experiencing this so I am wondering where RedDethX was looking that he discovered that this is a driver issue in the 6xxx series.
Sorry for the slow reply, and yes, same thing, it would be fine at lower resolutions but on 1920x1080@60Hz (my monitors native res and refresh rate) it wouldn't work without GPU scaling.
RedDethX, I tried to enable GPU scaling, but the crashes still persist. I will send out the card tomorrow. Somer, are you telling me to update or that Windows update is the culprit?
