Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 January 20

= January 20 =

"Display driver stopped responding and has recovered"
My screen periodically goes blank (once a day or so), then comes back and redraws the screen from a bunch of grey tiles in each window, then gives this message. It's an ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 on Windows 7, and has been doing this for a couple weeks now. So, should I believe that it's really the driver, and download and re-install it ? Or could it be the graphics card itself ? Any other suggestions ? StuRat (talk) 03:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Worth checking for an updated driver first, sure, and if there isn’t one, you could track down the previous version. ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:33, 20 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Had this problem with a laptop supplied by my employer. Got an updated image installed, and the problem disappeared. I.e. pure software. Not a hardware issue. So hunt for a different driver. HiLo48 (talk) 06:19, 20 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Ok, will do. StuRat (talk) 06:32, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

gtx disabling
I got a gtx 580 in my pc, and I want to have it completely disabled so it doesn't eat up any psu power and the fan is off but without having to go and physically remove it out of the pc, so I thought would it suffice to just unplug the power cord ( i believe there were two of them ) from it will it then be just like it weren't installed there? Or will the pci ex still recognize it and be drawing some power for it?

thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.35.10.30 (talk) 07:42, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the results of this could be unpredictable, and I would not do it in my machine, I would be surprised if it booted up in these conditions - some power is apparently drawn from the PCI board, so by turning the fan off you could maybe fry it.  nonsense  ferret  12:45, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Up to 75W will be drawn from the board. The power it draws when the PCI express connector is removed may be a but more variable but it's still easily possible 75W will still be drawn. The card should be designed to operate in a lower functionality mode without the PCI express power connectors. You may also have to put up with annoying warnings during POSTing or in your OS, particularly if the drivers or software is installed (which you most likely can't help if your integrated or other graphics is also Nvidia). Most modern cards, I'm pretty sure extremely high end ones like that have a resonable level of power saving during low usage. Not to the extent of CPUs, but still enough to cut power consumption a fair amount. It wouldn't surprise me if by doing this you'd actually increase power consumption most of the time if the power saving modes aren't operated properly when the card is in reduced functionality mode. Nil Einne (talk) 15:58, 20 January 2013 (UTC)