Screen problem(goes blank) and "display driver stopped working..."

nerdinator

New Member
Hi.
My system specs:
Windows 7 64 bit Service Pack 1
RAM 4 GB
Intel Core 2 Duo processor E8400 3 GHz
CPU Speed : 2987.8 MHz
ATI Radeon HD 4350
360 GB Hard Disk(half full in both drives(I have 2) )
It's a Dell Inspiron 535s

THE PROBLEM:
1. Frequently,while I'm using the computer,screen gets stuck(mouse can be moved though) ,the screen goes blank(like when it turns off) for a couple of seconds and then it is back with a message at the bottom.,saying,

"Display driver ATI Radeon Family stopped working and has recovered successfully".

2. There are also moving marks on the left side of the screen (horizontal red blurry lines that move around up and down),which don't always exist.

The screen going blank happened about 10-15 times till this point of my typing.

Here is what I've done so far:
1.Reinstalled OS.
2.Reinstalled ATI driver software(catalyst control center)

3.I checked the temperatures of the CPU and mother board using Speccy.
CPU temperature varies from 57 to 63 C while motherboard temperature stays around 30.

I have no games installed on my computer.
It is basically used for internet,music,videos and a little programming.

Please help me.
THank You
 
Are you using the cd that came with the card to install the drivers or downloading the latest from the ati/amd website? You should use the website to get the latest drivers.
 
Sorry for my late reply.

@johnb35,
I went to the amd site and got the latest driver software for Win7.

I installed ubuntu 12.04 along with win7.
It doesn't give problems like this. But there is this other problem I find with ubuntu.
While using the computer the screen goes blank and that is it. I cannot turn it back on. I could hear some audio playing behind even with the blank screen. Then I have to manually turn off the cpu and turn it back on. This has happened about 5-6 times in 3 days and I can't draw any conclusions about when it happens and how often it does.

But there are no other issues with linux(ubuntu).

Is it a driver related issue or is it a hardware issue?
 
I would say driver related. As I said earlier, try installing an older set of drivers and see what happens. Uninstall the old ones first though.
 
Another thing I can recommend is to disable any warnings of overheat in the BIOS, as well as Intel SpeedStep. I had crashes all the time until I did that (and also made a custom fan speed graph with Afterburner) and now it seems to be resolved.
 
I would say driver related. As I said earlier, try installing an older set of drivers and see what happens. Uninstall the old ones first though.

I have been trying to find an older version of Catalyst Control Centre.
I found this page:
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/previous/Pages/radeonaiw_xp.aspx
and this
http://www.oldapps.com/ati.php

Will any file that supports win7 64 bit do the job?(in the 2nd link)
I am not sure of which of them to use since they don't say "for AMD 4350".
 
Use the first link and try various drivers. I would try up to 6 different versions and if they all don't work right then it may be a video card issue. You might want to try the card in a different computer.
 
I tried hard (because my display would simply go off all the time) and tried other older drivers in the above link. But none of them solved the problem.

There is another major problem now.
Most of the times,now the screen goes blank even before the OS choosing menu is displayed(bios,bootloader,the Dell logo). That is to say my monitor is simply doesn't show anything. The monitor is alright though,I checked. I turn my CPU,monitor on,the monitor shows "Power Saving Mode" message. And it stays blank.
When it does work till I can choose OS,I choose Win7,and go to safe mode and many a times the same problem occurs there as well.
And even when I choose Ubuntu, the same problem.

I have now disabled the graphics card in Device Manager in Windows. But yet this happens. Now that card is disabled the earlier problem of "Display Driver Stopped ...." message after screen blanking out for 2 seconds doesn't happen.

From my knowledge,the system doesn't use the graphics card in safe mode or at least to show BIOS options. It uses a less capable inbuilt card. Correct?
And...This happens even with the graphics card disabled.
SO is it really a graphics card problem at all?

And the same thing happens in Ubuntu. Ubuntu would be using its own driver. So can it be a driver problem?
 
Yes, it is needed or you wouldn't have anything on the screen. The only thing you can do is start diagnosing parts.

1. Video drivers
2. Video card
3. Monitor

Try the card in a different system and see if it does the same thing. Try a different monitor.
 
Sorry to bump after this long, I thought I'd post how it got fixed finally.
We tried another card and that didn't work either. So I had to actually get the motherboard fixed by a computer technician(*PCI slot was changed*). And then we tried our graphics card. It didn't work. I then got a new Nvidia graphics card which worked.
Thank You for your time.
 
Back
Top