My graphics card keeps freezing. Help!

[Phxantom16]

Hey guys

 

I just installed a graphics card into my Dell OptiPlex 380 PC because i need two monitors and the PC doesn't have enough display ports. It is an old card and works fine for dual displays. The card is an AMD Radeon HD 5400 Series. The card is old, but works!

 

However, whenever i do something like play a video, look at a GIF image or do anything similar which involves motion, the graphics card completely freezes up the screen, making the PC unable to do anything and then i have to force shutdown my PC. I have tried stuff like changing the drivers but still the same issue, or is the card faulty.

 

Another thing to note, my PC has two operating systems. Win 7 and Win 10. This issue only occurs on Windows 10 and if i play a video or GIF or whatever on Windows 7, it is all fine and still works without freezing. Strange right!

 

This is driving me crazy and making me unproductive.

Can someone please help and give me some advice?

 

Thanks!

Edited March 7, 2020 by Phxantom16

[ZeroHour]

I hate to say it but I suspect its a w10 driver issue, I think AMD pulled making new drivers for the older cards a few years ago so the driver probably doesn't work well with the later w10 builds due to driver changes.

[Ditto]

Is it a thing to run the driver (install) in compatibility mode? I'm not even sure that's a logical thought, but it might spark something that leads to a solution.

[Protec]

Could you try lowering the clock speed?

[Phxantom16]

That might be a possibility. I will look into it

[bald_pig]

The card is on the list of supported cards for Win 10, I suspect you may have a faulty card

[Protec]

If it's not being used for anything graphically intensive, just put a GT 610 or something in it.

[3s-gtech]

I don’t have many 5400 cards, but I have lots of 5500s. They work perfectly in Windows 10 with the default drivers.

[Phxantom16]

Thanks for all your replies and suggestions. I did suspect my card may be faulty, but i don't understand why it works perfectly fine in Windows 7, and plays up in Windows 10. I figured because my PC is from 2009, and Windows 7 is from 2009 the card may work better with older hardware. I don't think it is faulty and it could be a major driver issue in Windows 10.

[Ditto]

I agree it has the evidence to suggest it's software not hardware. Are you on the latest BIOS (A07 I believe). Could you advise which driver version is running under each of W7 and W10. One last question, how much RAM in the PC.

[HTCPCP]

From experience, AMD graphics are far from brilliant. Does your machine have inbuilt graphics, as if so, you can remove the AMD graphics card, boot in and remove the driver (and any other versions installed) completely using something like 'Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU)'. I also suggest downloading the latest driver from AMD, and disconnecting the machine from the internet to prevent Microsoft 'helpfully' installing its version of the driver for you when you turn on the computer with the graphics card again...

 

shut down, re-install the graphics card, and install it from the downloaded AMD installer and see if that works. If not, have you tried a clean install of Windows 10, rather than an upgrade?