Is my Laptop GPU dying/dead? Need help please!

[qqewqads213]

Hello.
I own a Lenovo Z51-70 80K6 notebook laptop that I bought about 18 months back.

Specifications:
CPU: Intel Core i5-5200U 5th Gen Broadwell CPU 2 Cores, 4 Threads, 2.3 GHz, (2.7 GHz on Turbo), 15W TDP
iGPU: Intel HD 5500
Memory: SK Hynix 8GB DDR3L (Single Stick)
Dedicated GPU: AMD Radeon R9 m375 4GB GDDR3 (shares from system memory), 75W TDP (HOT) (AMD Tropo)
Storage: WD Blue Caviar 1 TB 5400 rpm 2.5" SATA
OS: Windows 10.0 Home 10240

Okay. So my laptop was working all fine till 3 days ago when I was playing GTA Online and watching a video on YT. Then suddenly it froze the screen. I couldn't open up task manager and the num lock or caps lock keys wouldn't toggle when I pressed them. The only option I had was to forcefully shut down the laptop using the power button. Tried booting into Windows a couple times, got a black screen (with no response from caps, num lock). Got a successful boot once and it worked fine for like 30 seconds before a yellow alert box appeared in the notification area by the clock. I opened up task manager, saw that a Windows Host process was the culprit. It froze again. I completely shut it down booted into safe mode and checked the event viewer to see what exactly was the problem. There it said that the AMD Drivers stopped responding and successfully got restarted,I guess how because the PC totally froze. I booted into normal mode again but this time it BSOD'ed stating "THREAD_ERROR_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER (atikmdag.sys)". That time I was using Crimson 16.xx.x (<16.7x) version drivers. This error usually shows up when the drivers are faulty but mine never were. I did a system reset of Windows and it had the OEM installed AMD Drivers Catalyst 14.x or something. Removed the OEM installed AMD Drivers using DDU in safe mode, installed back Crimson which crashed my laptop a few more times giving errors mentioning atikmdag.sys like "PAGE_POOL_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA (atikmdag.sys)" (or something) and some more. I did another system reset but this time I used the OEM AMD Drivers and it worked all right except it crashed my PC (atikmdag.sys) or froze it when I tried to play any game. Did a couple more resets, used the AMD Driver Finder Utility to install appropriate drivers, still got same crashes.

I know for a fact that it's not the drivers and it can't be the RAM either. I tried different and newest versions of Crimson but no help. Please note that Crimson edition drivers froze my PC on startup (black screen) or on successful boots with a yellow alert box followed by BSOD, while the Catalyst drivers only crashed or froze the PC when I launched any game. Catalyst and Crimson both gave me BSODs all of which had one thing in common, atikmdag.sys. They both BSOD'ed with 'xxxxxx (atikmdag.sys)' errors and completely froze the PC.

I used my laptop to play games all day and night. My playing time on GTAO for the last 30 days is 12 days. The GPU chip runs hot because of the terrible cooling system but temps are ok (below 80C during gameplay).

Used BIOS to turn it to use the iGPU 'UMA Graphics' instead of 'Switchable Graphics' and everything works as it should in normal Windows mode. Can even play games off the iGPU.

What could be the problem exactly? Is my R9 m375 burned? Did any fluctuations in the current or voltage cause it to malfunction? Or is it's PCB damaged like solder went bad or whatever?

I currently have the OEM Catalyst drivers but I'm running off the iGPU (R9 m375 disabled through BIOS) and everything runs fine mind you, even games. When running with the switchable graphics (HD 5500 + R9 m375) can't play games and GPU-Z or HWiNFO would get stuck at 'Analyzing PCI Link' or something like that and it BSODs.

My laptop is not in warranty anymore. What do I do?

Thank you for taking your time to read this.

[The Sloth]

looks like your gpu is toast have you tried reinstalling drivers 

[komar]

if a complete reinstall of OS doesnt fix it theres nothing you can do other than take it somewhere for board repair (witch may not be worth)

[NTDaws]

Well if your pc is toast do you have a budget for a new pc? Maybe even a custom pc?

[qqewqads213]

18 hours ago, nerdslayer1 said:

looks like your gpu is toast have you tried reinstalling drivers 

I did mention that I installed different versions of Catalyst and Crimson drivers.

18 hours ago, komar said:

if a complete reinstall of OS doesnt fix it theres nothing you can do other than take it somewhere for board repair (witch may not be worth)

Complete reinstall of OS? You mean like completely format the disk partition where Windows is in and install again?

18 hours ago, Dawson Wehage said:

Well if your pc is toast do you have a budget for a new pc? Maybe even a custom pc?

No, I can't afford a new PC.

 

Thank you for your replies.

[Lord Nicoll]

19 hours ago, TheCyberDevil said:

Hello.
I own a Lenovo Z51-70 80K6 notebook laptop that I bought about 18 months back.

Specifications:
CPU: Intel Core i5-5200U 5th Gen Broadwell CPU 2 Cores, 4 Threads, 2.3 GHz, (2.7 GHz on Turbo), 15W TDP
iGPU: Intel HD 5500
Memory: SK Hynix 8GB DDR3L (Single Stick)
Dedicated GPU: AMD Radeon R9 m375 4GB GDDR3 (shares from system memory), 75W TDP (HOT) (AMD Tropo)
Storage: WD Blue Caviar 1 TB 5400 rpm 2.5" SATA
OS: Windows 10.0 Home 10240

Okay. So my laptop was working all fine till 3 days ago when I was playing GTA Online and watching a video on YT. Then suddenly it froze the screen. I couldn't open up task manager and the num lock or caps lock keys wouldn't toggle when I pressed them. The only option I had was to forcefully shut down the laptop using the power button. Tried booting into Windows a couple times, got a black screen (with no response from caps, num lock). Got a successful boot once and it worked fine for like 30 seconds before a yellow alert box appeared in the notification area by the clock. I opened up task manager, saw that a Windows Host process was the culprit. It froze again. I completely shut it down booted into safe mode and checked the event viewer to see what exactly was the problem. There it said that the AMD Drivers stopped responding and successfully got restarted,I guess how because the PC totally froze. I booted into normal mode again but this time it BSOD'ed stating "THREAD_ERROR_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER (atikmdag.sys)". That time I was using Crimson 16.xx.x (<16.7x) version drivers. This error usually shows up when the drivers are faulty but mine never were. I did a system reset of Windows and it had the OEM installed AMD Drivers Catalyst 14.x or something. Removed the OEM installed AMD Drivers using DDU in safe mode, installed back Crimson which crashed my laptop a few more times giving errors mentioning atikmdag.sys like "PAGE_POOL_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA (atikmdag.sys)" (or something) and some more. I did another system reset but this time I used the OEM AMD Drivers and it worked all right except it crashed my PC (atikmdag.sys) or froze it when I tried to play any game. Did a couple more resets, used the AMD Driver Finder Utility to install appropriate drivers, still got same crashes.

I know for a fact that it's not the drivers and it can't be the RAM either. I tried different and newest versions of Crimson but no help. Please note that Crimson edition drivers froze my PC on startup (black screen) or on successful boots with a yellow alert box followed by BSOD, while the Catalyst drivers only crashed or froze the PC when I launched any game. Catalyst and Crimson both gave me BSODs all of which had one thing in common, atikmdag.sys. They both BSOD'ed with 'xxxxxx (atikmdag.sys)' errors and completely froze the PC.

I used my laptop to play games all day and night. My playing time on GTAO for the last 30 days is 12 days. The GPU chip runs hot because of the terrible cooling system but temps are ok (below 80C during gameplay).

Used BIOS to turn it to use the iGPU 'UMA Graphics' instead of 'Switchable Graphics' and everything works as it should in normal Windows mode. Can even play games off the iGPU.

What could be the problem exactly? Is my R9 m375 burned? Did any fluctuations in the current or voltage cause it to malfunction? Or is it's PCB damaged like solder went bad or whatever?

I currently have the OEM Catalyst drivers but I'm running off the iGPU (R9 m375 disabled through BIOS) and everything runs fine mind you, even games. When running with the switchable graphics (HD 5500 + R9 m375) can't play games and GPU-Z or HWiNFO would get stuck at 'Analyzing PCI Link' or something like that and it BSODs.

My laptop is not in warranty anymore. What do I do?

Thank you for taking your time to read this.

It is still under warranty? If so contact Lenovo because that sounds like a hardware failure alright of the GPU.

[komar]

14 minutes ago, TheCyberDevil said:

I did mention that I installed different versions of Catalyst and Crimson drivers.

Complete reinstall of OS? You mean like completely format the disk partition where Windows is in and install again?

No, I can't afford a new PC.

 

Thank you for your replies.

 yes complete format and then install + possible new BIOS flash  - since its laptop you cant mess with the hardware so if complete software renwer doesnt fix it  its time for new one or board repair

[komar]

1 minute ago, Lord Nicoll said:

It is still under warranty? If so contact Lenovo because that sounds like a hardware failure alright of the GPU.

dude seriously read the prelast line

[Lord Nicoll]

1 minute ago, komar said:

dude seriously read the prelast line

Ain't got time to read a life story about it. Is the GPU on an MXM-PCI-e card? If it isn't then I'm afraid that GPU is gone, but Broadwell should have better onboard video than previous Intel chips. 

[qqewqads213]

1 hour ago, komar said:

 yes complete format and then install + possible new BIOS flash  - since its laptop you cant mess with the hardware so if complete software renwer doesnt fix it  its time for new one or board repair

Okay, I'm going to download Windows 10 on a removable flash drive and report the results here. I already have the latest BIOS. So, if reinstallation of the OS doesn't make it go away, it's a problem with the mobo and the GPU is good, right? Thank you for your assistance.

1 hour ago, Lord Nicoll said:

Ain't got time to read a life story about it. Is the GPU on an MXM-PCI-e card? If it isn't then I'm afraid that GPU is gone, but Broadwell should have better onboard video than previous Intel chips. 

No, the GPU is soldered/socketed into the motherboard. *I got chills while typing that*

[komar]

1 hour ago, TheCyberDevil said:

Okay, I'm going to download Windows 10 on a removable flash drive and report the results here. I already have the latest BIOS. So, if reinstallation of the OS doesn't make it go away, it's a problem with the mobo and the GPU is good, right? Thank you for your assistance.

No, the GPU is soldered/socketed into the motherboard. *I got chills while typing that*

if your gpu is soldered to the mb theres absolutely norhing you can do if its dead other than board repair or new mb entirely  - this is not a pc or those new very expensive laptops that have removable gpus and this is why most of the people play games on PCs  - so they dont have to throw the whole damn thing away if 1 thing burns out

[Lord Nicoll]

2 hours ago, TheCyberDevil said:

No, the GPU is soldered/socketed into the motherboard. *I got chills while typing that*

Well, I'm afraid as it's near impossible to actually buy these BGA chips from AMD without some form of industry connection even board repair centres are rather usless, I'm afraid you have an i5 battery powered paper weight. At least the iGPU is still functioning however. 

[CrackheadKyle]

Looks like your GPU has died so unless if a full wipe and refresh of windows doesn't help then either if your warranty is up try or a laptop repairer

[Zodiark1593]

Best to go with a clean Windows install before condemning the board, though if that fails to resolve the issue, you will need to start pricing board repair, or a new system altogether. Without warranty support, it would be a very lucky day to find a sympathetic tech to help you. 

[qqewqads213]

Okay, so I've wiped the HDD clean and installed Win_10 Home 1607 Build 14393 (64-bit ofc) and got the latest AMD Crimson Relive 16.12.1 Drivers for the GPU. I got like two BSODs so far, one I got with the OEM AMD Drivers and the other one I got while restarting the laptop after completing the setup for the 16.12.1 drivers. Things are strange now. The PC freezes for like 15-20 seconds, it does that 2 or 3 times during which the GPU fan (which is shared with the CPU) throttles up. Yes. During the time the system's frozen the fan spins like crazy. After freezing a few times it hits rock bottom. A one complete final freeze. On completely freezing, the fan spins very fast with a constant speed (like it would if the GPU was on >90% load indicating high temps on the GPU) and it would do that forever if I let it. You read it right, it just continues to spin with a very high speed until I force shut down the system.

[qqewqads213]

Some guy on another forum had the exact same issues that I have. His PC froze during a GTA Online session. Started getting black screens, BSODs and stuff. His setup included an i7-6700K, 16GB CV LPX 2.666GHz, GTX 1080, MSI/ASUS Z170A. He switched his GPU in his rig with his friend's but still had the same problems and his 1080 worked fine in his friend's build. It was NOT his GPU though, confirmed.
On my end, HWiNFO is now working. Well the PC does freeze when HWiNFO checks the hardware, but recovers back. I get a lot of false readings. Like the core and memory clocks of the GPU are shown to be around 200MHz (while they should be 900MHz and 1015MHz). VRAM memory is 1024KB. But it does show the right information when the GPU just starts to throttle up a bit and a few tens of seconds later, complete freeze.

So, if my GPU, sensors, PCI bus/controller or whatever hardware related went bust, what would my options be? Who could I take it to, to get it repaired? Coz it seems like a major failure here, on the micron level to me.

[qqewqads213]

I even got Windows 8.1 Pro 9600 installed on the laptop, but the GPU drivers would constantly crash and recover back if the GPU was being utilized. Hardware failure confirmed, what are my options?

[Lord Nicoll]

5 minutes ago, TheCyberDevil said:

I even got Windows 8.1 Pro 9600 installed on the laptop, but the GPU drivers would constantly crash and recover back if the GPU was being utilized. Hardware failure confirmed, what are my options?

I'm afraid you can't do anything, maybe look online for a 2nd hand motherboard for the system and try to buy it, or look for a new replacement, but that is all you can do unless you manage to find the GPU chip in a BGA package and there is a repair place locally that can replace the chip.

[qqewqads213]

The GPU had a semi-sorta heat death. I can say that because it always ran hot (75W TDP + crappy cooling solution). Would baking it bring it back?

[komar]

3 hours ago, TheCyberDevil said:

The GPU had a semi-sorta heat death. I can say that because it always ran hot (75W TDP + crappy cooling solution). Would baking it bring it back?

no its done  - only solution board repair

[komar]

3 hours ago, TheCyberDevil said:

The GPU had a semi-sorta heat death. I can say that because it always ran hot (75W TDP + crappy cooling solution). Would baking it bring it back?

+ do u think a chip that melted possibly from heat will be fixed magically with more heat?

[qqewqads213]

It's not permanently dead, it's like in a coma. Reflowing does help.

[momo12320]

I Have the same exact problem lol,I even downloaded win 10 too and then went back to 8.1 I was playing tw atilla then it froze and I had to force shutdown .

now I get Display driver has stopped responding I guess it was a bad idea getting this laptop xddddddd