Hardware issue or software?

woodmass14

Estimable
Aug 2, 2015
38
0
4,610
Hello, folks.

I have a 5 year old laptop that suddenly had issues. A few days back i unplugged the HDMI cable i had attached to it (Usually plugged into hdmi) and my screen messed up and the computer switched off. Looked to me like a graphics hardware issue when it happened. However, there was a large windows update before it happened. I installed a fresh version of windows hoping to fix it but up on installing the amd video drivers my computer restarted itself leaving it unable to finish the installation.

The next day i decided to open up my laptop and change the motherboard with a spare i had but noticed it took an Intel processor so my amd a10 won't fit that motherboard unfortunately (Same board in every way, even the same dedicated graphics, just different processor socket.) . Anyhow, i put my computer back together, started it up and tried reinstalling the drivers one final time. And it worked. Both gpu's were showing in device manager and could use hdmi again.

A few days later the computer done the same thing but with the hdmi still plugged in, computer restarted and windows stopped the driver. Reinstalled AMD drivers and now it works again.

Is this a hardware issue? Sounds like it to me but maybe it's not. Any ideas, folks? Also, is there anyway to just use the APU over the dedicated graphics? I've tried disabling the dedicated graphics but the computer still buggered up, hope it's not a processor issue.

Thanks!
Adam
 

woodmass14

Estimable
Aug 2, 2015
38
0
4,610
Well i've seen many posts with similar issues as of late. Either people are getting bad drivers or this new windows update has broke a lot of computers. Even a fresh install of windows and old amd drivers won't fix the problem which leads me to believe it's a hardware issue, unless some firmware changes within the bios when installing new driver version or windows updates. No clue what it is tbh. Will pick up a cheap intel processor to try out that spare motherboard in the meantime and update windows and amd drivers to see if it happens again.
 

woodmass14

Estimable
Aug 2, 2015
38
0
4,610


This is AMD. Won't do me any good im afraid.