Help! Display crashed

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abhijit_reddevil

Manchester United
Hello friends,

I am posting here after a long time.

I am facing with a peculiar and familiar problem. Recently I have installed Civilization 6 along with the additional scenarios released in December 2016. The system was running fine for couple of days and I could play civ 6 without any issues. Then suddenly the game crashed while running, also the desktop was not responding. I had to hard boot the desktop. Since then everytime I have started the desktop, after showing the windows 7 splash screen while booting, I am getting a blue screen with some vertical lines instead of the user login screen. However, it seems that windows itself has not crashed as I am able to hear the login sound.

I am using the following configuration of desktop (old config from 2011):

Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H ver 2.1 motherboard
AMD Phenom II X4 955 processor
8GB DDR3 RAM
Sapphire Radeon 6870 1GB DDR3 graphics
Coolermaster 500W PSU
Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit Service pack 1
HP 21" LED monitor

I am using the latest AMD drivers 15.7.1 for the above graphics card.

I was guessing it was a problem with the display driver so I searched the AMD website for further updates without success. Then I booted to safe mode and uninstalled the drivers, however on restarting the AMD driver got installed automatically and I was facing the same issue. Then again I booted to safe mode and disabled the graphics card from the device manager. I could boot and login normally, but as expected, Civ 6 will not run on generic windows drivers. As a last resort, I opened the cabinet and physically removed the graphics card, cleaned and reinstalled it but the issue was not solved. I got the same blue screen along with vertical lines on the login screen.

I don't use the desktop extensively, only used for playing casual games like Civ 5/civ 6, etc and some office work. I have the PS3 and my laptop to do the other things. So I would not be ready for a graphics card replacement, since I guess the newer cards will not be supported by my system. But if that is the last resort, I may have to do it, at the cost of some substantial investment. At this moment the desktop is unusable, please help.

Regards.
 
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abhijit_reddevil

abhijit_reddevil

Manchester United
Dont have another spare system to try. Even close relatives dont have desktops now.

BTW, I tried uninstalling the drivers in safe mode, also doing a clean uninstall through a AMD utility available on the AMD site. Installed the immediately previous version driver 14.12. Same issue. Tried replacing the HDMI cable with a spare one. Same issue. Tried through DVI, same issue. I uninstalled CC cleaner, same issue.

One particular thing I noticed is that the PC itself does not hang. Only the display is blank and has vertical lines--though I am not able to login. Pressing the power button once on the cabinet while in this situation seems to shut down the PC normally. I am still not convinced if the hardware has failed. If it would have failed, then the display would not have come in safe mode, also the drivers (previous version) would not have auto-detected the GPU and finish the installation normally. In device manager it shows Radeon 6800 series under display adapter section.

Its driving me nuts. Any other suggestions before I call the hardware guy? I am convinced he will tell the hardware has failed and will ask me to upgrade the desktop which I am not willing to do on the same 6 year old desktop.
 

topgear

Super Moderator
Staff member
Ditch the graphic card - use your motherboard onboard VGA / DVI port. Install VGA driver and if display comes fine then your ram is probably ok. If you still want to play games on pc buy a new graphic card - almost every new graphic card should be compatible with you pc.
 
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abhijit_reddevil

abhijit_reddevil

Manchester United
The display comes fine when I boot into safe mode. As soon as I install any catalyst driver the issue comes up. Then I have to boot into safe mode to uninstall the driver. Then windows uses the generic windows display driver. I googled and found this was a issue faced by many people but no one could find a solution. There are numerous threads in AMD forums. As a last resort I am trying clean installing windows and the drivers. If that also does not resolve the problem then the hardware is most probably dead.

Btw, which one of the graphics cards among nvidia 730/740/750 will work on my system? Any suggestions for AMD too? I don't want to spend too much.
 
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abhijit_reddevil

abhijit_reddevil

Manchester United
Friends, the hardware guy indeed mentioned that that GPU is gone. :(. But it lasted 6 years - MSI Radeon HD 6870 twin frozer edition. Now I am looking for a replacement. Have placed my queries in the sticky thread in this section.
 

topgear

Super Moderator
Staff member
Friends, the hardware guy indeed mentioned that that GPU is gone. :(. But it lasted 6 years - MSI Radeon HD 6870 twin frozer edition. Now I am looking for a replacement. Have placed my queries in the sticky thread in this section.

same happened with my HD6850.
 
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