Graphics card crashing during games, no recovery

[Faddler]

Card: ASUS Radeon HD7870

CPU: i7-2600k

OS: Windows 10 Pro

RAM: 16 GB Kingston HyperX

PSU: 650w Corsair

Over the past month my computer has been plagued by my graphics card crashing usually once per day since my upgrade to windows 10. Originally it started off as a "Display Driver has failed but recovered" which I attempted to troubleshoot, but throughout this month it has evolved into a full graphics card crash that turns my entire screen black, with only the outline of windows being around while the inside of the windows are all black. The crashes seem to come once a day, and they have no signs before the crash. They only happen when a game is open, in focus, on the screen though. Once the card actually crashes, it does semi-recovery but my windows lacks explorer and every window I open is completely black with an outline, so I can't even navigate anywhere. Sounds and my mouse/keyboard still works too. I understand it is an old card, but I am trying to get a bit more life out of it until I can afford a new 1060 or something.

 

Current Diagnosis:

No clue what it is right now. I've watched the temperature of the card and it goes nowhere above 65* C

 

So far I have taken these steps:

Underclocking the card's memory and core to 50 mhz below reference

Swapping to a new PSU

Reinstalling drivers, and trying legacy drivers as well

Increasing the power limit

Reseating the card

Limiting FPS in games

 

I really have no clue what it could be at this point, and I feel like I've tried everything but reinstalling windows 10. If you have any suggestions let me know. I've never really bothered to register on the forums before, but I do browse quite a bit.

[Nixblicker]

Which connectors are you using? Have you tried chaning from DVI to HDMI to Displayport?

Any issues with Refresh Rates or the like? VSync?

The card itself is decent enough - but based on what you've tried so far, even for me the next step might be a clean windows install.

1 more thing reg. drivers: You might try uninstalling AND deleting them from the Device Manager, rebooting and using whatever driver Windows then installs from the web - since just uninstalling will normally use whatever is still present on the system.

[Nord]

It is most likely a software issue, if you did upgrade to windows10 using microsofts update and "self installation" programm w/o actually reformating - there is your problem.

 

But you should also try a clean driver install like Nixblicker said, use "DDU", just google exactly that and let it remove all and any traces of GPU drivers it can find.

 

Dont use Catalyst Control Center.

 

If that still does not fix it, I'd blame windows10. You even said before the upgrade it worked and honestly for you, especially with that hardware, there is literally no benefit to gain from win10 other than being spyed at.

Rollback to your previous OS and live w/o such issues. Win 10 is still a beta at best, alone the hardcore and very shady "force-upgrade" techniqes microsoft does employ to get people to install win10 should be alarming. Thats like a guy running behind you at the streets repeadetly offering you free cookies, throwing them at you and almost trying to forcefeed them to you.. there just has to be a catch in both scenarios.