FIX 'THREAD STUCK IN DEVICE DRIVER' error for Windows 8/8.1/10

I am a proud owner of a Dell Inspiron 15R 7520 SE laptop with a superb performance.

However a villain attacked the paradise when, to remove the annoying 'Please update to Windows 8.1 for free' notifications that begged sadly to me, I updated to Windows 8.1. It took around an hour and a half before laptop was fully back online! But it wasn't the same as before, it was crippled, limping, slow, sluggish and worse than a 2004 Pentium4 PC.


 ERRORS:

1) Boot time went from around 1 minute to a maximum of 7 minutes.

2) Unable to recover laptop from sleep mode. When I pressed power key to revive it, it used to RESTART. Very annoying!

3) Blue Screen appeared every time I Shut down and booted up again..something like this one.
And it showed 'THREAD STUCK IN DEVICE DRIVER'

4) ATI Technologies (AMD Graphics card) not working properly message in Notification centre.

So I searched online and found that many other Dell Inspiron brothers had the same problem.

SOLUTION:

I searched for that Thread Stuck in Device driver error. It means that the Graphics card is getting confused on start-up and goes in infinite loop. That causes blue screen.

The problem is the latest 'Intel HD Graphics 4000' Driver updated on 30th September was clashing with my AMD Raedon HD 7730 Graphics driver.

So reinstall the Intel HD Graphics 4000 driver and reinstall the AMD Readon HD 7730 Graphics card driver after that. You will have to download them from Dell website.

Note:
- DO NOT uninstall any graphics driver...you may lose your display. (It'll be working but no driver to interface with Windows).
- Video driver updating takes patience and calm! Don't hurry!

Step 1: Service Tag

--> Go to support.dell.com
--> Type in your 'Service Tag' (Its under your laptop...if it isn't then dell can detect automatically too so don't worry if you cannot find)

Step 2: Download Drivers

--> Got to the 'Drivers and Downloads' tab and select the 'Video' drivers.
--> You will see that your current Intel HD Graphics 4000 Driver is a newer version of the one listed there by Dell. That is causing this problem in the first place.
--> Download them. (around 300 MB+ so it takes time)

Here are the links:

Intel HD Graphics 4000 driver for Windows 8.1/10 x64

AMD Raedon HD 7670M/7730M Graphics Driver for Windows 8.1/10 x64

Note: These are links to latest drivers present on Dell Support website as of 6th Nov 2014. Dell may update them so better visit website and check instead of downloading from link

Step 3: Install Intel HD Graphics drivers

--> First execute the Intel HD Graphics exe file and it will tell you 'Newer version of driver already installed'. Ignore this message and install anyway. Your screen may flash (turn ON and OFF at times) so don't worry and be patient. Restart your laptop.

Step 4: Install Graphic card drivers

--> Next execute AMD Graphics driver file and install it. (This takes around 5-10 minutes so be patient). Screen flashes (turns ON and OFF) but don't worry. Restart after installation complete!

Step 5: Disable automatic driver updates

For Windows 8.1, Press Windows + x ---> Select Control Panel ---> Go into Windows Update ---> Be sure you have the 'Intel HD Graphics chipset driver' update unchecked whenever you install updates and go into Update Settings and select 'Download updates but let me choose when to install them'.

For Windows 10, follow this link - Disable driver updates on Windows 10 -> How-To Geek
(Special shout-out to How-To Geek as they are my favorite website for almost anything related to software debugging)

Enjoy your Windows 8.1/10 original performance! You will see it has improved a lot over Windows 8! Cheers!

EDIT: I have edited this old but famous post on my blog and tailored it to Windows 10 too as many people faced this problem after upgrading to Windows 10.