DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED

[Timberhawk 1]

for the last month I've been running into a problem which makes Arma litterally unplayable for me; every time I try to start the game, within 10 seconds of arriving at the main menu, the game crashes with the following error:

 

DX11 error : buffer map failed : DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED

 

on occassion this not only crashes the game, but has also resulted in a full blue screen crash of my laptop.

 

I'm starting to get quite desperate, and I'm hoping someone here could help me out.

 

 

I've already tried a number of things, including but not limited to:

 

updating my drivers,

downgrading my drivers,

updating my BIOS,

running arma without mods,

installing the dev branch,

completely erasing and redownloading Arma on steam,

completely reinstalling windows 10.

 

 

and these are my system specifications:

 

Operating System
    Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
    Intel Core i7 6700HQ @ 2.60GHz 
    Skylake 14nm Technology
RAM
    8.00GB Dual-Channel Unknown @ 1064MHz (15-15-15-36)
Motherboard
    ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. GL552VW (U3E1)
Graphics
    Generic PnP Monitor (1920x1080@60Hz)
    Intel HD Graphics 530 (ASUStek Computer Inc)
    2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M (ASUStek Computer Inc)    
    ForceWare version: 391.01
    SLI Disabled
Storage
    931GB Hitachi HGST HTS721010A9E630 (SATA)  
    931GB Western Digital WD My Passport 0748 USB Device (USB (SATA))  
Optical Drives
    HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GUE1N
Audio
    Conexant SmartAudio HD

 

 

if anyone needs any more information to get to the bottom of this problem please let me know.

thanks for you help.