Desperate for computer help: hardware or compatibility issue?

This is killing me. I’m using an HP tx2500z with Windows 7 Home Pro 32 bit(came with Windows Vista installed), which has a Radeon HD 3200 video card. At semi-random times, my screen starts getting multicolored pixels all about while my mouse cursor freezes. A second later, it fixes itself and I get a message saying “Display driver stopped responding and has recovered”. Soon after that, the pixels get worse and the freeze time longer, the message pops up after fixing itself, then very shortly after that the screen fart basically results in a mostly black screen with random multicolored lines crossing the screen with pretty much neverending freeze that forces me to restart the computer. Now when I restart the computer when this happens, the HP logo is always clear and visible, but may be an awful pinkish color rather than the normal white. When it’s pink, the following pre-Windows loading screen is frequently screwy and leads to the PC kind of restarting itself. This may happen once before it loads or it may cycle itself indefinitely before, by chance, it gets through.

I’d say this problem occurs more often the hotter it gets, which has me thinking hardware. Thing is, I’ve had it work all day whilst very hot as well as have the pink screwy loading problem occur when I first turn it on in the morning, which has me hoping it is compatibility.

So I’ve googled this many times and I’ve seen others have had the same “display driver stopped responding and has recovered” message, but no mention of the bad startup problems and many seem to have it happen exclusively during games. I’ve re-installed Windows, which seemed to fix the problem for a week maybe. I’ve uninstalled the video card drivers before reinstalling the latest, and that has never helped. I finally flashed the BIOS, which fooled me into thinking it was fixed for about 2 days before the problem popped up.

Any ideas? I’ll take some pictures of the screens I get once it starts happening again and post them if it helps.

Non-expert: update your video card drivers. Make sure the video card fan is running and it’s not clogged with dust, hair, etc.

I’ve done both.

Please let us know the CPU and GPU temperatures you see 1/ soon after you turn the machine on and 2/ after it’s been running and in use for say 30 minutes. If you have no way of monitoring temps Google for SPEEDFAN.

2 questions:

  1. Did your computer have the same problems with Vista? Did you use the upgrade option or did you do a complete re-install?

and

  1. When you say you got the updated drivers, you got a package of them from HP, right? Not from the manufacturer? Also, you checked they were for Win7 and the right version of Win7?

Speedfan says the “core” is jumping between 80-90C, computer has been on for a little while.

Never happened with Vista, but it was several months after installing Windows 7 before it happened. I will try to find a copy of Vista and install it as a last case scenario.

Did the upgrade option first, then when the problem started I did the complete re-install.

The drivers are from AMD, haven’t gotten anything from HP. They definitely say they’re for Windows 7 32 bit.

Looks like a driver issue. Laptop drivers are custom-made by the manufacturer, so you need the exact driver set for your computer from HP.

You don’t need to re-install Vista to compare. Usually, there is a hidden partition on your disk that you can get to to bring it back to factory condition (mine is accessed through Bios, but you should check your manufacturer’s website first.)

80-90C is way too high. Check this article to learn how to interpret Speedfan.