A fairly common type of error on Windows PCs, both Windows 10 and 7 and 8.1, is one that says, " The video driver has stopped responding and has been successfully reset ." Even if, according to the message, the error seems to be resolved, there may be consequences such as closing the program or game that was running or, worse, with the screen turning black or freezing the computer with the blue screen of the error serious.
In this post, we try to understand what are the causes of the error on the video drive that stops responding and try to find a solution to not make it appear again.
READ ALSO: Optimal configurations for NVIDIA and AMD graphics card
The causes of this problem can be summarized in three categories:
- Fault in the video card driver that requires an update
- Weakness of the video card that cannot manage too many open programs or 3D graphics.
- A GPU (video card) configuration issue that takes too long to process graphics and display it on the screen.
1) Video driver problem stops responding after a recent update
If this problem happened after a recent driver update, it would be advisable to uninstall it so that the PC returns to its initial state. In fact, it may happen that the new driver has problems with the computer in use, so better to go back to a previous version.
Then go to the Control Panel and then to the Device Manager, expand where video cards are written, select the one that can be Intel, AMD or NVidia, right click on it, go to Properties and then, to the driver tab, click on Roll Back Driver.
2) Increase the processing time of the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) .
Another way to solve this problem is to increase the GPU processing time. To do this you need to modify a registry key, being careful not to modify different things.
To do this, click on Start and then go to Run or press the Windows-R keys together.
Type regedit in the search box and run it. From the left tree, expand the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ GraphicsDrivers
Press the right mouse button on the white space on the right, click on New, DWORD value (32 or 64 bit depending on the system used), name the TdrDelay value, click on it and write, as Value data, 8 . Click on OK.
This change can be achieved automatically by downloading and running a specific Fix it for Windows 7 provided by Microsoft.
In Windows 10, you can use the automatic troubleshooting solution for the same problem. You can download it from here.
3) Install all the latest updates.
As written in the first point, if the unresponsive driver problem came up after an update, it was better to restore the driver to its initial state. However, if it appeared without any update, then it is appropriate to do it immediately and download the latest version of the AMD or Nvidia (or even Intel) video driver from the respective official sites. In addition, it is also necessary to install all Windows Update updates, among which there may be an error correction.
4) Limit heavy programs and visual effects
If the problem occurs when you keep several programs or windows open together, this error message can be the simple consequence of a memory deficit. In other words, the computer doesn't make it and you have to close something to get it back on purpose.
It can also help decrease the visual effects of Windows which is also one of the ways to optimize Windows 10 and 8 and decrease the consumption of system resources
From Control Panel -> System Performance -> Advanced Tools -> Change Windows Appearance, to the Visual Effects tab, set the best performance option.
5) If you already have the most updated driver version, the graphics performance parameters may have been poorly configured by the management program . For example, for AMD video drivers there is AMD Catalyst Control Center which allows you to change some performance related parameters. In any case, try to restore the default settings which are the safest and most stable.
6) On an older computer, with a video card that does not support GPU hardware acceleration, it is worth trying to disable hardware acceleration .
