weird display issue

[dissent]

So I had a weird display issue crop up this morning. When I bring up Newspapers.com and try to view an article, the screen goes black for a couple seconds, then comes back to a mostly white screen with a warning message about the display in the lower right corner for a couple seconds, then back to black and it repeats for a few seconds before just locking up and I have to shut down the power manually. It worked fine yesterday with no issues.

The warning/error message says that "display driver has stopped responding, but has recovered"

This is all on my old Win7 system that I put together in late 2012.

I suspected maybe an overheating or fan issue, but the BIOS doesn't show any temps that are way out of whack. Just using onboard graphics here. Fans all seem to be spinning. Don't think it's overheating.

I have an Intel DZ77BH-55K mobo. I'm wondering if maybe the power supply is starting to get flaky on me. I had a blue screen a few weeks ago out of the blue; hadn't had one in ages. Are the VR lights on the mobo supposed to just flash off and on in normal operation? Don't think its dust - did a thorough dust removal a couple of months ago. Is there a way to test if on-board graphics is having a performance issue?

edit - yeah, I know. I need to put a new box together.

[CDN_Merlin]

video drivers outdated? Maybe the sire is trying to use something your card can't handle?

[dissent]

I checked via Device Manager and it said the most recent driver was installed.

[CDN_Merlin]

I'd try to delete the video card from the hardware manager, reboot and then install the latest from the manufacturer's web site and not let Windows install the generic driver

[dissent]

Interesting. I went back to Device Manager and checked the version info on the current driver and it has a date of 9/26/2012. So yeah, pretty old. I checked on the Intel web site for the HD Graphics 4000 and it is now self service for driver updates, but they did have a newer one available for the Gen3 Ivy Bridge which was dated as of 2020. So I'll dl that and do a manual driver update and see if things are better.

EDIT - and BOOM! That seems to have worked. Didn't even need a reboot.

Guess you can't count on Windows to be assured that you have the absolute most recent graphics driver. And to think I trusted them

Thanks for the push merlin!

[dissent]

I still wonder though why, after nearly a decade, did the graphics driver finally crap out?

[CDN_Merlin]

corrupted file most likely.