Laptop momentarily hanging after amd driver update

Hi,

Today I updated my AMD drivers (i.e. AMD Catalyst Control Center) from version 12 to 14.501.1003 in an effort to boost frame rates during gaming. I didn't see any performance boosts, but I didn't rollback to the earlier version. Ever since then, my laptop seems to hang after I close a performance demanding game. The freeze isn't permanent and takes between 30-45 seconds before it goes away, but it's still nonetheless annoying and might be indicative of a greater issue for my computer. In addition, I've found that every time I shut down my computer, after the "Shutting down..." appears the screen simply goes black and does not fully turn off until I manually do it myself with the power button.

I'm not sure if all these problems are stemming from the update itself, but I can't think of anything else I've done that would cause these issues.

Laptop: HP Pavilion dv6 Notebook PC
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
CPU: AMD A8-3520
GPU: Radeon HD 6620G + HD 7690M

I don't know what other info is needed, so please reply if anything else is required. Thank you!

 

I'm not sure about the model number/part number.

I have 6GB of RAM.

Also, I've noticed that now if I take my computer out of sleep or hit ctrl+alt+del sometimes it will hang momentarily too.

I've read somewhere that I may be able to solve this problem by unplugging my laptop and taking the battery out, and then holding the power button down for a few minutes. I'm not sure if that's a safe thing to do, can anyone advise?

 

I've also noticed that when it does freeze up, my CPU usage jumps to 99%.

 

Sorry, here it is:

HP Pavilion dv6-6c40ca Entertainment Notebook PC
Model: A7G91UA

 

I've already done this before. All that happens is that the freezing issue goes away but now I'm absolutely unable to open any games or any applications like Steam, as well as my Windows 7 desktop gadgets not working.