device thread stuck in driver

[Levi Strauss]

Dear LTT members and people who are more computer literate than me.

 

I've got a very old pc pls dont hate: core 2 quad q6600, gigabyte ga-g33m-ds2r, 4gb kingston 800mhz ram, sapphire hd 7850. it still works. sort of.

Recently I started getting blue screens with the 'device thread stuck in driver' error message.

It seems like the problem is with the video card driver, because when I used the onboard graphics (lel can you imagine?) I dont get the bluescreen.

But the plot thickens. If I let it crash and restart after immediately, windows loads normal and I can play rocket league with no problems at all.

So my prime suspect is the RAM, because of its volatile nature. Problem seems to occur only after complete shutdown.

 

So my 2 questions to you would be:

-Is it a general health problem for a PC to begin every startup with a bluescreen crash? (Im mostly afraid for the sata hdd because of its contents)

-Is there a way to fix the problem without getting any new parts for the pc? (tbh I would rather buy a new system eventually than trying to fix this old hero)

 

Many thanks

Levi

[Zmax]

Have you tried a repair in windows 10 option, or restore keeping old files

[Levi Strauss]

8 minutes ago, Zmax said:

Have you tried a repair in windows 10 option, or restore keeping old files

have tried fresh multiple windows versions all seemed to have the same problem

 

8 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

Don't double post.

dont post if you dont have anything to contribute

[suchamoneypit]

You only waited an hour before double posting. Thats not proper forum use.

 

As for your question, the only time I got the error you have, both times it was a dying GPU. It doesn't necessarily mean its your actual GPU drivers themselves, your GPU is your display driver, in the sense its the object which "drives" your displays. It might not always crash, but it will be more and more common until the GPU finally gives out. I cannot 100% diagnose your issue, but I will say I spent over 4 hours researching and troubleshooting this issue myself when I had it (and my problems matched yours) and it was a dying GPU.

[Levi Strauss]

2 hours ago, suchamoneypit said:

You only waited an hour before double posting. Thats not proper forum use.

 

As for your question, the only time I got the error you have, both times it was a dying GPU. It doesn't necessarily mean its your actual GPU drivers themselves, your GPU is your display driver, in the sense its the object which "drives" your displays. It might not always crash, but it will be more and more common until the GPU finally gives out. I cannot 100% diagnose your issue, but I will say I spent over 4 hours researching and troubleshooting this issue myself when I had it (and my problems matched yours) and it was a dying GPU.

thanks for your contribution. I too found sources suggesting the same idea and the fact that onboard GPU runs without problems only confirms this theory. Although it's funny that the gpu is the 'youngest' part of the system (also the hdd) and breaks first. The only reason why I'm not entirely sure, is because this only happens at startup and so far never during actual gpu load. Restarts are also okay, but Sleep triggers the same problem. Maybe the GPU's onboard memory acts similarly to RAM and flushes data out when not powered? That would defo explain everything.

 

as for the double post:

 

[suchamoneypit]

35 minutes ago, Levi Strauss said:

thanks for your contribution. I too found sources suggesting the same idea and the fact that onboard GPU runs without problems only confirms this theory. Although it's funny that the gpu is the 'youngest' part of the system (also the hdd) and breaks first. The only reason why I'm not entirely sure, is because this only happens at startup and so far never during actual gpu load. Restarts are also okay, but Sleep triggers the same problem. Maybe the GPU's onboard memory acts similarly to RAM and flushes data out when not powered? That would defo explain everything

 

VRAM just stores textures for the GPU core to instantly access them, I don't think it has anything to do with it. If you're able to get a hold of another GPU to test, it can confirm it is a bad GPU.

[Levi Strauss]

13 hours ago, suchamoneypit said:

VRAM just stores textures for the GPU core to instantly access them, I don't think it has anything to do with it. If you're able to get a hold of another GPU to test, it can confirm it is a bad GPU.

thanks man, I'll definitely try that. I'll let you know what happened.

[Levi Strauss]

interesting update. (will make no sense)

>installed a fresh windows to an ssd (currently using hdd) with the same configuration

>unplugged hdd, plugged in ssd

>used onboard gpu for installation, unplugged dedicated gpu

>install finished but was too lazy to install all the drivers etc. wanted to play rocket league

>unplugged ssd again

>plugged back hdd, plugged back dedicated gpu

>old system now works without problems

>mfw