Hondo88

Hi there to everyone on this forum. I am very new to here [new as of about 10 minutes ago], although I was browsing as a guest for a few hours here at work looking for a solution to my problem.

I have a HP Compaq nx9420 Buisiness Laptop which has run without really much trouble for the last few years. I had a defective fan which HP replaced under warrenty, and got two pieces of nasty malware which required me to wipe the drive and start fresh. But recently after I installed XP SP3 I startd having issues with my card. Some games and programs will randomly crash to my desktop [and the desktop resolution will not reset until I restart], or during really bad times I will get a blue screen which tells me the file ati2dvag.dll failed and was stuck in an infinite loop and the computer is now performing a memory dump.

I have looked at all kinds of solutions for this, I used old drivers - didn't work, I used new drivers - didn't work, I tried doing the PCI to PCI bridge solution I read on some forums - didn't work, and I even just cleaned out the inside of my laptop and replaced te heatsink paste to make sure it wasn't an overheating problem - also didn't work. My next step was that I was going to try omega drivers, or another set of ATI drivers I found which are newer than the ones I tried from autoupdate, and from HP's website.

But before I tried these I saw on the omega drivers website a link to these forums and decided to post here to see i maybe anyone else had this problem and was able to resolve it. I'd appreciate any and all advice! Thank you.

-John

*EDIT* Sorry also forgot to post some specs that may help with anyone who has a possible solution for me.

The computer is an HP Compaq nx9420, 2GB of RAM [two sticks, one was added around Febuary of this year], 1.83GHz Intel Processor, and the OS is Microsoft Windows XP Home/Professional 64 Bit SP3, with an Ati Mobility Radeon x1600 Graphics Card [256MB of memory], Directx 9.0c. Also of note that on a fresh reboot the computer will pass all tests in dxdiag, but after a crash to desktop will fail most of the tests.

Hondo88

*Update For Anyone Who May Have A Solution*

I tried the new set of ATI drivers I found and they are not compatible with my notebook, and I installed the Omega Drivers which seems to have eliminated my blue screen, but now I occasionally crash to my desktop instead of getting BSOD. Any suggestions on a further tweak of the Omega Drivers, or some other solution that could eliminate this crashing completely?

Current Configuration: Omega Drivers [Latest Version] installed, with the PCI-to-PCI bridge in place for the, I believe, AGP to PCI driver. [I tried with and without the PCI-to-PCI Bridge and neither worked better than the other.

The only other thing I thought it could be is possibly that part of the problem might be related to the second stick of RAM I installed since the failure is only when the system is being taxed; and since the BSOD has been eliminated [so far?] by installing the Omega Drivers, that possibly there is a compatability issue when the system dips into the second RAM stick since [I believe] the RAM is accessed sequentially and my computer accesses the primary RAM slot first. Any suggestions, or related experiences, or links to solutions I missed would be appreciated.

-John H.

cozumel

Hi Hondo88 and welcome to the world of DriverHeaven.

Firstly, I am not a graphics guru or anything but did a little checking in to your problem.

HP Notebook PCs - Windows XP Serious Error Referencing File Ati3d1ag.dll, Ati2dvag.dll or Ati2mtag.sys Occurs After Startup or Boot is referenced on the HP website.

Have you all the latest drivers, firmware and bios for your notebook?

You could also try the HP notebook forums.

Good luck!!

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Hondo88

Hey thanks for the reply . And yes I have updated all my BIOS and graphics drivers, as well as checked with that link and contacted HP customer support and ATI customer support to no avail. From what I was told by both representatives nether really support the card anymore. ATI made it a "legacy" card which means it SHOULD fall under a general driver [but this driver is incompatible with HP!] and HP doesn't really provide updates for it either they said [last one was late-ish 2008 if I remember correctly]. and the conflict seems to be with XP SP3 or possibly my upgraded RAM. I am now using Omega Drivers which seems to have eliminated the BSOD, but I still crash to the desktop in programs after a bit of use. I am going to try this afternoon removing the RAM and trying the most recent ATI/HP drivers and the Omega Drivers to see if the problem is resolved. Sadly if it isn't the only other course of action I could think of was a wipe and rollback to XP SP2 when everything was functioning as intended. But I was hoping there was a magic tweak I could use to fix the problem. Sadly It seems to not be the case. Thanks though for the reply.

-John H.

cozumel

Have you tried DriverHeaven Mobility Modder and DriverCleaner (to ensure all the leftovers of old drivers are cleaned from the registry etc)? They may help with SP3 problem/conflict.

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Hondo88

I haven't yet but I'll give them a try as soon as I get off from work. Does the mobility modder work in conjunction with the most recent ATI drivers or is it a set of drivers independent of ATI drivers?

cozumel

You download the modder and run it to modify the latest catalyst before you install the drivers.

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