"Display Driver has failed ...." - Battlefield 3

[Bob151]

I have this newer PC which I just use for PC gaming.

Win 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit patched, MSI 880G-E45, AMD 840, 8 GB CL8 1600 DDR3 G.Skill, Gigabyte HD 6850 1GB. I am not overclocking anything. Not the CPU, GPU, or DDR3. AV is Avira. Catalyst drivers 11.10. I've updated them few weeks ago, and the problem has not changed. I've forgot to say that this evening I've updated to 11.12 and the same problem with failing drivers remains.

Safe Mode boots and scanning with Malwarebytes and Avira find nothing. I've defraged.

I know its not the best hardware there is to have, but I'm on a budget.

I can play BF:BC2 all day long without errors. Well, maybe once a month or so.

BF3 is a totally different case. I can't play this thing without some kind of crash every single day. If I'm not getting the "Display Driver has failed but recovered" message when starting the game or during the game, I can get complete lockups which somehow timeout and return control of the OS to me.

This problem began after a patch they released, but maybe they released it shortly after retail release. However, I didn't have the hang of BF3 so I wasn't playing it that much. Maybe the problem has been there all along.

When this crashes, I can't play the game again until I either reboot or kill the BF3.exe AND that eacoreserver.exe process it spawns.

When it crashes, I get artifacts. I'm getting them right now while composing this and the GPU temp is only 34C.

Temps? I've loaded up CPUID's HW monitor and I've never seen the temp max above 57C. Is that too hot, I thought it was normal for GPUs to get hot while gaming. MAX any CPU core temp is 38C.

This is very annoying. I've had NV and ATI products over the years and am not aligned with either side. I've NEVER had this much trouble.

Thanks.

 

[IAteYourMother]

I had this problem and ended up RMAing my 4890. I'm pretty sure it's a hardware issue.

 

[Bob151]

I was sort of thinking that too, but it will run furmark for hours.

 

[stahlhart]

Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) errors with Nvidia cards appear to be particularly troubleseome for this game for some people. Do a web search on "TDR BF3" to get an idea.

 

[QuantumPion]

Underclock or overvolt your video card by about 10%.

 

[s1njin]

Underclock or overvolt your video card by about 10%.

I have a EVGA Superclocked GTX 570. Are you saying I might have the same problem?

 

[tweakboy]

I read your OP,

My conclusion is the VRAM memory on your video card is busted.

Its showing artifacts, and if its showing it in the desktop too you need to RMA the card ASAP!

I read that you did not OC any of your rig. Im ruling that out, your temps are good. But it doesnt matter, VRAM can go bad,,, or it was a defective card from beginning and slowly the problem gets worse and worse.....

Your card is busted,, RMA it and find a temporary card mean time. gl

 

[leeland]

Any chance you could or would do a format and reinstall of the game?

I had issues with crashing on a fairly clean install...with vanilla BF3...and as the updates flowed in...the problems got worse...I stopped playing all together.

formatted the drive, reinstalled everything fresh...reinstalled BF3 with the latest revision...

No problems since...hasn't crashed in about 40 hours of game play.

Just a thought.

 

[tdawg]

Timeout Detection and Recovery (TDR) errors with Nvidia cards appear to be particularly troubleseome for this game for some people. Do a web search on "TDR BF3" to get an idea.

I think I suffer from this at least once per session. I'll drop back to the desktop and have to kill BF3.exe. Then I can restart the game and hopefully not crash back to the desktop. It's very random because a couple of nights ago I was able to make it through an entire session of a 1750-ticket Conquest match on Metro, then I left the server, joined another one with a couple of friends, and was playing for all of 2 minutes when I crashed back to the desktop.

On rare occasions, I get the "display driver has failed" message, but most times my card just powers down and my monitor goes to sleep and then wakes back up to the desktop.

 

[QuantumPion]

I have a EVGA Superclocked GTX 570. Are you saying I might have the same problem?

I have a GTX 580. My game either crashes to desktop or gives me a display driver stopped responding after 30 seconds - 5 minutes of play - unless I underclock or overvolt (I do the latter) by ~10%. Doing this stops all crashes and I have been playing stably ever since. My guess is it is either a hardware fault or video bios/firmware problem.

I think I suffer from this at least once per session. I'll drop back to the desktop and have to kill BF3.exe. Then I can restart the game and hopefully not crash back to the desktop. It's very random because a couple of nights ago I was able to make it through an entire session of a 1750-ticket Conquest match on Metro, then I left the server, joined another one with a couple of friends, and was playing for all of 2 minutes when I crashed back to the desktop.

On rare occasions, I get the "display driver has failed" message, but most times my card just powers down and my monitor goes to sleep and then wakes back up to the desktop.

Overvolt or underclock your card, I bet that will fix your problems as well.

 

[aigomorla]

artifacts are a no good sign.

if you just had the driver crash, it could be a bad driver install, however since ur seeing artifacts, im guessing bad hardware.

 

[tdawg]

Overvolt or underclock your card, I bet that will fix your problems as well.

I clocked the card back to NVidia reference specs - 822MHz for the GPU and 1644MHz for the Shader clock. Default memory clock seems under NVidia referenceat 1000MHz. Any recommendation for new clock speeds?

Also, Gigabyte Easy Boost sees an updated bios, but won't connect to download it. When I download it manually and then try to flash it via the utility, it fails with the very comforting message of "Flash bios file fail!".

Thanks,
Trevor

 

[Albatross]

I think it`s overheating,try hacking the default fan speed.

 

[suklee]

I clocked the card back to NVidia reference specs - 822MHz for the GPU and 1644MHz for the Shader clock. Default memory clock seems under NVidia referenceat 1000MHz. Any recommendation for new clock speeds?

Also, Gigabyte Easy Boost sees an updated bios, but won't connect to download it. When I download it manually and then try to flash it via the utility, it fails with the very comforting message of "Flash bios file fail!".

Thanks,
Trevor

I had the same issue with my Gigabyte "OC" card that was overclocked to 900 out of the box - it would always crash when run at that speed until I downclocked to 850MHz or so. After I upped its voltage to 1.015 (from 0.95 I think) I can now run at 900. I still get the occasional BF3 hard lock, but I am not sure if it's due to my CPU being overclocked. I will dial my 560Ti back to 880 or so to see if the problems still occur.

 

[QuantumPion]

I clocked the card back to NVidia reference specs - 822MHz for the GPU and 1644MHz for the Shader clock. Default memory clock seems under NVidia referenceat 1000MHz. Any recommendation for new clock speeds?

Also, Gigabyte Easy Boost sees an updated bios, but won't connect to download it. When I download it manually and then try to flash it via the utility, it fails with the very comforting message of "Flash bios file fail!".

Thanks,
Trevor

My 580 GTX's reference GPU clock is 772 Mhz @ 1.00 V. BF3 ceases crashing if I drop my clock rate down to 650 Mhz or increase voltage to 1.065 V. Higher voltage seems to cause occasional hard freezes but lower results in occasional driver crashes. It took some trial and error to find the right spot that is stable. So for your card I would start by dropping the clock down to 700 Mhz and see if that works. If it does in fact stop your crashes, then you can try increasing your voltage instead of decreasing the clock to retain performance. Memory clock rate does not need to be adjusted.

 

[s1njin]

If this is what it takes to run a game on a relatively high end card, that's just plain awful. I mean, if you're not heavy into this type of thing you're completely SOL. 90% of the buying public have no idea how to underclock or overvolt squat - they just buy whatever Anandtech or Toms Hardware or whatever NewEgg rated highly and run with it.

This is why so many people fall back to consoles. Ignorance is bliss if you can't see the difference (because you have no gaming rig to refer to for comparison), and the friggin' game just works. Period.

It may get patched like anything else. But all this nonsense is nonexistent.

As the buying public, there should be outrage over this garbage so that drivers and games work better. We are not getting what we paid for in many instances (or at least until it ends up on Steam for 10 bucks, which this game will never do).

 

[Harrod]

I had the same problem, it turned out I had 1 bad stick of ram.