Amd driver has stopped responding and has recovered

[sabyasachidas]

I currently own an HP pavilion DV 6000 series beats edition laptop. I bought it around mid-2011. The computer is equipped with a quad core i7-2630 processor, 8GBs of RAM, 1366x768 resolution screen, a 1 gb AMD 6770m graphics card (of GDDR5 specification). 

Since the time I have bought it, it has not been functioning properly. The main problem being that, under gaming situations, after sometime, the computer freezes. Everything freezes. The sound gets stuck. Sometimes, I am able to press 'ctrl+alt+del' and return to desktop. At which time, I get a message saying something like "Amd driver has stopped responding and has recovered". However, ninety percent of the time, the computer fails to recover from the freeze and goes into a Blue screen, where it shows 'atikmpag.sys' as the source of the problem. On restarting the computer again, everything is back to normal, until I start gaming again. This problem crops up no matter what game I play. Also, it only seems to occur when i run the games on the AMD graphics card. When I run them on the integrated card, Windows does not crash. Since the integrated card is not as powerful as the discreet card, I have to make do with choppy graphics quality, when playing games.

I have given my computer to HP through their service center in Singapore, where I currently stay. The laptop has been serviced three times by them in total. Before the first service, I had the same problem apart from a couple of malfunctioning USB ports which did not work and a misaligned screen. After the first service the USB port problem and the screen issue was fixed. They replaced my motherboard. They also reinstalled windows. But the graphics problem remained. So, I gave it for a second service, where they took the laptop and did exactly the same thing. They changed my motherboard, and reinstalled Windows. But, in vain. The graphics problem stayed. On the third service, they said they would do a more thourough check. They took my laptop from me for almost ten days. This time, they replaced my motherboard and my graphics card. They again reinstalled windows. Few days later, when I tried to play games again, the graphics problem erupted.

I fail to understand why this kind of a problem should persist even after being serviced by technicians thrice. Since I am a student, I use the laptop for studying as well. Each time, they take the laptop away from me; I have to go through so much trouble because I do not have my laptop. Also, I have noticed that one of the keys on the keyboard is starting to fall off. This is a clear sign of poor quality control on HP's part. I cannot use this laptop for such mundane tasks like watching YouTube videos. This too leads to a crash or a freeze. I paid a decent amount of money to buy this laptop. I bought it for playing games. It is definitely not living up to my expectations. My four year old Dell had blue screens only twice. It has almost never failed on me. However, this kind of record should be easy with my current HP laptop, however it is not.

*To all those people who are planning to purchase an HP computer, beware that they are all prone to crashes frequently. You are better off not buying HP. If you do, you will regret it, just like me.*