Screwed-up drivers are getting annoying

As some of you may already know, I have an HP DV-7 laptop with Intel integrated graphics and Windows 7. A while ago, the drivers got updated (I don't remember if I updated them myself, if windows update did it for me, or if I went to Intel's website and it automatically detected what I had and updated my drivers accordingly), and that's when the problems started. I'll play a game, and then the game will crash to desktop and this message will come up in the corner of the screen, saying something like "Display driver crashed and has successfully recovered: Intel Graphics Accelerator for Windows 8(R) stopped working and has successfully recovered." This doesn't happen all the time, just occasionally, and iirc it only happens when I'm playing a game. At first it only happened with Warframe, but now iirc it's done this with Empire: Total War and possibly other games. I thought that since it mentioned Windows 8, I had the wrong drivers, so a couple months ago or so I went to Intel's website, looked for the correct drivers, thought I had found them, read that they apparently worked for both Windows 7 and 8, and downloaded them. However, the problem persists to this day, and always with the same error message. I'm getting annoyed.

Help, please?

Nuke your Intel video drivers, reinstall the ones for Windows 7:

Start > type "Device Manager" > click Device Manager > Display Adapters > Right click [your device here] > Properties > Driver > Uninstall

You will need to restart your PC.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=&ProductID=3319&ProdId=3319
Select the driver for Windows 7/8/8.1 for 32 or 64 bit depending on your system (explained below).


Should be golden. If not, you might need to do something more detailed. The above link assumes you have Intel HD graphics, which probably does not apply to older Intel integrated graphics devices.

Yeah, it's a 64-bit OS and yeah, it's Intel HD Graphics 3000. I should've mentioned those before.

Okay, old drivers have been nuked, new drivers are in, and only time will tell if it works. If it works, good, if it doesn't work, I'll post here.

Just had a crash. Same error message as usual, by the looks of it.

Are you overclocking? Does the temperature of the system get to unsafe levels?

Overclocking? No way, this thing gets hot enough as it is. I don't know the exact temps, but it gets quite hot. However, it's been no hotter than usual. In fact, it's probably been cooler lately than it's been over the summer, what with the weather cooling off and all.

And yeah, I should look it over for dust. Thanks for reminding me.

Aw crap, I'd forgotten what a ***** this HP was to take apart to clean. I probably didn't clean it well enough the only other time I tried.

edit: One screw that would sooner be stripped than be unscrewed, and there wasn't much I could do. So if it is a dust-related problem, there's not much I can do about it.

"Quite hot" doesn't really mean much, you need to monitor actual temps using this guy right here: http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

It can monitor both CPU and GPU temperatures, and has a nice overlay. You could maybe even underclock, I'm not sure if it supports integrated graphics or if its even possible to underclock them.

Report back with max temp and/or temp at time of crash. It can log results for you as well.

Uh, would something like this work? That one you linked looks like more than I need right now.

Yeah it "works", but MSI offers an ingame overlay so you can view the temps while you're in the game in real time. Otherwise you have to log and just play till crash then interpret logs.

It is a powerful program, but it's also a pretty lightweight one.

Okay, after installing that MSI thing and playing Warframe for half an hour, it said my CPU temps hit 90o C at one point, and were in the 80s for most of the time. I didn't have any ingame overlay active (I haven't figured the software out completely yet), but I was keeping an eye on the temps via frequent alt+tabbing between the game and the hardware monitor part of the MSI program.

CPU temps hit 90C? That is ridiculously hot. I hope you actually mean GPU because 90C on a CPU will possibly cause damage and other problems.

No, I mean CPU.

Yeah you need to cease playing games until you clean it out. Max temp for Sandy Bridge mobile processors is 85C, I'm actually surprised you aren't getting an emergency hardware shutdown.

Yeah, the 90 was a one-time thing afaik, most of the time it was in the high 70s to high 80s. Still, I'll see what I can do to clean it, or if I can't manage it, I'll take it somewhere and have someone else try.

My old 2010 laptop with an i7 peaks 85C and then it throttles to prevent cooking itself. You're definitely losing performance by running at such high temperatures.

Well, I tried again to disassemble this thing for cleaning, this time with limited success. My dad managed to get the one stripped screw out of the way, but the computer still wouldn't come apart. I managed to open it up enough to blow some canned air in there, but I imagine all it did was to move the dust around. So in the end I probably accomplished neither jack nor ****. I'll see about taking it to a computer repair shop next week.

Okay, what little I was able to do seemed to have no positive effect. CPU temps are remaining high during gaming; I think I even saw them hit 92C. Cripes.

Have you checked your BIOS settings? I think fans are regulated there, maybe the fan is set to work at an abnormally low level. It probably isn't that, but it would be an easy thing to change.

DanAngleland said:

maybe the fan is set to work at an abnormally low level

Click to expand...

Oh goodness no. At least, I quite doubt it. At full bore, the damn thing sounds like a jet engine. It's one of the reasons why I've wanted a new PC for a while.

Okay, I've taken the laptop to a computer repair place, and now it's behaving nicely with the temps staying in the low-mid 70s C at their hottest. No crashes as of yet, either, but time with tell with that.