Vista and 7.3 Display driver atikmdag stopped responding error

razorirr · Dec 25, 2007, 04:51 AM

Ive gotten it playing basically every game from steam and watching movies a few times. even had it happen just going into crossfire.

Its running whatever the current drivers as of the 21 of december for it are. i cant tell. evenually as it crashes enough they just dont bother to enable on start anymore and you cant see. this is going to take a format. there goes all my steam games while im at home on dialup instead of at college on a t3/internet 2 pipeline...

System:
Vista 64 business
Dual Radeon HD 3870s
MSI K9A2 Platinum
2.2 Quad core Phenom (AMD)
8 Gigs Gskill ddr2 800

Your Worst Nightmare · Dec 25, 2007, 09:44 PM

Has this ever happen to anyone while using youtube? As that seems to be the problem for. Now it screwed up screwed up my computer to the point where I have to click on something with my cursor like 20 times instead of the usual once, WTF is going on?!?!?!?!

mttran · Dec 28, 2007, 05:03 PM

did 7.11 fix this problem?

DemonRage · Jan 1, 2008, 11:05 PM

To come back on what I said a couple of weeks ago:

Quote:

Originally Posted by DemonRage

I downloaded a newer video driver (based on Catalyst 7.9) from the ASUS site and left powerplay ON while playing games. It seems to run more stable, no driver resets so far.

(The old driver was based on Catalyst 7.6)

My problem is solved with this new video driver. I've been gaming a lot and didn't see any strange things happen since its install.

Except for one well known problem with ATI's (Mobility) Radeon HD 2400 and HD 2600: Bioshock crashes.

BFsMarvinTM · Jan 6, 2008, 09:22 AM

Well I am still having this problem and have a ticked reopend with ati.
They did send me this and I did every thing short of a new mobo. (dont have the money for that), also not sure if anyone posted it, I did not see it but here it is. Hope it helps some of you out.

here is the link
AMD Customer Care

Tekkie · Jan 6, 2008, 09:25 PM

I am having the same issue with a Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 Pro (512 MB). I don't play games on my PC. I have noticed that with no load, just sitting at my Windows Desktop, that the GPU temp sits at 86~89 degrees and will jump to 92~93 degrees. I did not have any problems with the on board video card. I have tried different drivers, all with the same result. I have not had a chance to check the temp when the error comes up.
Could it be a cooling issue?
I have no other issues with the PC at all, other than the video problem.
The machine is less than 1 month old.

Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel Q6600 Quad Core (2.4 GHz).
2 Gig DDR2 667.
320 Gig Hdd.
HP W2007 running DVI in.
Viewsonic VA903B running VGA in.
It is an HP Pavillion A6245N.

SypherNL · Jan 12, 2008, 02:49 PM

*Sigh*

Its been months.. months! I am still having problems with my 2900XT.
During that time I sometimes get an answer to my (still open) ticket at ATi.

But they say: nah, the drivers are fine.. the card is broken: RMA.
So I answered: "How can my card be broken when there are lots of people having this same problem?"

When I use the secondary output with my HDMI cable, there are random crashes.
These crashes occur once a.... well, its not really easy to say.

In december i was "crashfree", no atikmdag resets .. Nothing. And in the last 3 days I've had 2 atikmdag crashes.

How strange is this:

Problem occurs: The video hangs, screen turns black
My small tool disables the secondary output to stop it from getting caught in the reset loop.
Most of the times it does stop.
When I enable the secondary output, after waiting a minute, or 5, it is working again. No crashes for at least an hour (haven't tried it longer)

So, crash -> disable secondary output -> wait -> enable -> presto. working again.
Most of the times I killed the "ati2evxx" process (two in the task manager), waited, enabled it again trough services.msc. I don't know what this process is or does, but maybe....

This card costs too much money to be using "dirty" workarounds getting it to work.

And I doubt that the problem is the temperature. Yeah, its most of the time cooling like a madman (once every 5 minutes for 30 seconds, or once every 3 sometimes), but I can play games for hours without taking a break.

So why can't I just watch 3 hours of movies or TV shows without crashing?

I should add that I always use the most recent drivers, and all of them showing the same problems.

Racemouse · Jan 13, 2008, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SypherNL

*Sigh*

Its been months.. months! I am still having problems with my 2900XT.
During that time I sometimes get an answer to my (still open) ticket at ATi.

But they say: nah, the drivers are fine.. the card is broken: RMA.
So I answered: "How can my card be broken when there are lots of people having this same problem?"

When I use the secondary output with my HDMI cable, there are random crashes.
These crashes occur once a.... well, its not really easy to say.

In december i was "crashfree", no atikmdag resets .. Nothing. And in the last 3 days I've had 2 atikmdag crashes.

I have the same prob. with atimdag - resetting the videodriver, and then looping that. I only experience problems when trying to play games with 3d graphics...

I only got this problem after new years - even uninstalled Vista and went back to XP to see if that would help, but no.
I haven't contacted ATI on this problem... I am running with a radeon 1300 - with which I have had no trouble in the past... Likewise I haven't had my computer opened.

Dyre Straits · Jan 13, 2008, 06:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tekkie

I am having the same issue with a Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 Pro (512 MB). I don't play games on my PC. I have noticed that with no load, just sitting at my Windows Desktop, that the GPU temp sits at 86~89 degrees and will jump to 92~93 degrees. I did not have any problems with the on board video card. I have tried different drivers, all with the same result. I have not had a chance to check the temp when the error comes up.
Could it be a cooling issue?
I have no other issues with the PC at all, other than the video problem.
The machine is less than 1 month old.

Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel Q6600 Quad Core (2.4 GHz).
2 Gig DDR2 667.
320 Gig Hdd.
HP W2007 running DVI in.
Viewsonic VA903B running VGA in.
It is an HP Pavillion A6245N.

Sorry for the delayed response to you.

And, welcome to DriverHeaven!

Those temperatures at idle are very much too high! On some Sapphire cards awhile back, it was determined that the heatsink and fan assembly had not been properly mounted. This appears to be the case with yours. Temperatures at idle should be more around the 40C with maybe 50C.

Now, if you're using F readings, disregard this. But, if those temperatures are C readings, definitely check out the heatsink, thermal compound and contact Sapphire about the problem.

SypherNL · Jan 13, 2008, 06:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dyre Straits

Those temperatures at idle are very much too high! On some Sapphire cards awhile back, it was determined that the heatsink and fan assembly had not been properly mounted. This appears to be the case with yours. Temperatures at idle should be more around the 40C with maybe 50C.

My HD2900XT is "idle" around the 70C. When it reaches 70.3 it starts cooling, which takes 30 seconds or so. Then he reaches 65C and climbs up back to 70C, when the cooling kicks in again.

I've installed RivaTuner to check out some of the sensors. The "Ambient Temperature" is most of the times between 60C and 65C.

I have to admin that my cores of my CPU are on the high side as well, so..

But 40 or 50?

ja37 · Jan 13, 2008, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveBackham

I bought two 'identical' Packard Bell iMedia 2579 PCs in the same store at the same time back in March. The PC's have a date stamp on the back of 27-Dec-2007 stating made in China. One PC works absolutely fine and the other has this 'display driver error'.

I have tried the RTM Vista driver, the Catalyst 7.2, 7.3, 7.4 and 7.6 version drivers all without any luck. The RTM driver gives an R300 driver error message, whilst the Catalyst drivers give the atikmdag driver error message.

So in order to see if I could work out what was going on I swapped over the ATI Radeon X1650 graphics cards between the two machines. The other machine then started having problems and the previously failing one worked fine.

This conclusively ruled out anything to do with software configuration, since the software is the same on both machines, and each machine works with the same working card, and doesn't work with the non-working card. Although the error message suggests a fault with the driver, we're all using a driver which essentially works if the card itself is a good one.

I deduced from this that there is a batch of cards that have this problem whilst there is another batch which don't.

The serial numbers on my two cards are A064600111697 (working) and A064600113152 (not-working).

So I guess I'm looking for either PC World, or Packard Bell or ATI to replace the 'faulty' card with one that works properly.

Hope this info helps other people.

Dave.

I had suspicions of this, mainly due to the randomness of crashes along with controlled crashes, or crashing at given points of action.

CLEARLY not software, it is a defective chip somewhere. It is known, and still on the market, thus it is THEFT, and pre-meditated.

Soulution = don't sue, GANG WAR ON ATI OFFICES AND PERSONEL!!!

1 year and this shit is still being made and sold.

nVidia uses same companies to manufacture, NUKE CHINA and all behead all CEO's of ATI, ASUS, nVidia, etc etc etc etc.

I AM ONE PISSED OF LAST TIME CUSTOMER!!!!!

Thnx...

ja37 · Jan 13, 2008, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Your Worst Nightmare

Has this ever happen to anyone while using youtube? As that seems to be the problem for. Now it screwed up screwed up my computer to the point where I have to click on something with my cursor like 20 times instead of the usual once, WTF is going on?!?!?!?!

This crap didn't start for me until I finished installing vista ultimate and got all the updates, then got busy on another pc and looked over for some reason to that one then it blinked, clicked, black , striped, black , white squares, black stripped, each change crashed my monitor too, caused it to reset, then lock ups, gradually worse over 8 hours.

I searched all the manufactures sites, all have NO info, and what I see here and other forums is that they HIDE THIS FACT. that means DELIBERATE ABUSE OF CUSTOMERS or more like DELIBERATE THEFT....

ATTACK ATI!!!

:mad :

IN FORCE WITH NUMBERS!!!!

BRAND NEW

Asus M2A VM HDMI
AMD Athlon X2 64 Dual-Core 4800+
4 Gigs Kingston 667
Pinnical Movie Board for Vista
IDE 500 Gig WD HD
LiteOn 16x SuperAllWrite DVD (everything + - r rw ram dl) LightScribe
1.44 Hitachi
EarthWatts 380
Microsoft standard Keyboard
Logiteck optic mouse with 6 way scroll wheel
ProView 19 inch crt

one fucking ASUS EAH2600PRO HDMI VIDEO TRASH (IT IS ATI or RADEON who ever the fuck their criminal alias is this week)

Running Vista Ultimate w/all updates except holdem poker trash.

No anti virus yet, only the stock stuff in Vista, just finishing getting the drivers in for the all the hardware, between all the fucking crashes...

ANYONE KNOW WHERE I CAN FIND SOME OF THESE CEO'S

I got a big knife and towel just itching for some action.....

warpt72 · Jan 14, 2008, 12:16 AM

I just got my Radeon HD 3870 today because my old Nvidia 7900GS was having a very similiar problem. after installing the drivers, i start playing WoW. after about 30 i start to get screen flickering. a dew minutes later my screen went black, but the music kept playing. after restarting my computer, i started to surf the internet and the same thing happened. So it must not be the grphics card becuase the same problem happened with my 7900GS.

Dyre Straits · Jan 14, 2008, 12:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SypherNL

My HD2900XT is "idle" around the 70C. When it reaches 70.3 it starts cooling, which takes 30 seconds or so. Then he reaches 65C and climbs up back to 70C, when the cooling kicks in again.

I've installed RivaTuner to check out some of the sensors. The "Ambient Temperature" is most of the times between 60C and 65C.

I have to admin that my cores of my CPU are on the high side as well, so..

But 40 or 50?

I've had a couple dozen (at least) ATI cards over the past several years. I've pretty much kept up with idle/load temps and I'd be quite concerned if I had a card that was idling in the upper 60Cs and especially into the 70Cs. Let alone the 80s!!!

My currently in-use HD2600XT PCIe card is idling in the mid 40Cs. (See screenshot)

While I'm aware that these cards are advertised to perform at temperatures even up to and around 100C, I'd be climbing the walls if I ever saw one of my own cards hit that high of a temp!

Even in such demanding games as Crysis (which I can play for hours on end without any kind of lockups/BSODs or other such problems) the temps on my own cards never hit the 80s. If they did, I'd be looking into better cooling.

My other ATI card, X1950 Pro PCIe has also performed well for me under both XP and Vista and I keep it at the relative same temps as the HD card.

***Veridian3*** · Jan 14, 2008, 04:21 AM

The 2900XT is a very hot card. 60+ seems about right, and I've seen them easily hit 80+ when gaming so no need to worry or contact the manufacturer. If you wanted to lower the temps or get quieter cooling then the only option is a better cooler from a 3rd party.

Dyre Straits · Jan 14, 2008, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veridian3

The 2900XT is a very hot card. 60+ seems about right, and I've seen them easily hit 80+ when gaming so no need to worry or contact the manufacturer. If you wanted to lower the temps or get quieter cooling then the only option is a better cooler from a 3rd party.

SypherNL states that his idle temps are at 70C and that his CPU temps are also high. I have to wonder if there's an airflow problem with the case? Where is the case located? I know of some people who put the case in an enclosed area which is a no-no.

Are there sufficient airflow fans in the case?

Also, I'm reading on several other forums that many are seeing idle temps of their 2900XT running in the mid-50Cs. So, I'm led to believe that there is a way to keep these cards cooler under different circumstances.

I'm not at all concerned when load temps reach the 80s. My own X1950 Pro does that but I still like to see it averaging more in the upper 70Cs when gaming. Keeping the card cooler results in lower power consumption as well because as the card heats up it requires more power to perform. So, working on a better cooling scheme will result in overall better performance and lower costs.

Also, I was mostly concerned with this 2600 user's situation:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/1115939-post366.html

SypherNL · Jan 17, 2008, 05:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dyre Straits

SypherNL states that his idle temps are at 70C and that his CPU temps are also high. I have to wonder if there's an airflow problem with the case? Where is the case located? I know of some people who put the case in an enclosed area which is a no-no.

Are there sufficient airflow fans in the case?

I am using a Nexus Breeze case, specially designed for airflow. Would be strange when the airflow is crap for a case which is advertised as a very good airflow-case

My computer is under my desk, and has around 25CM free space at the back of the case. There are some cables but I've tucked most of them away.

The air-intake of the case is located at the bottom of the case, this is a filtered air-intake.
The air outtake goes trough the PSU, as there are no other fans in the case to in- or output air.

The PSU doesn't really produce high temperatures, the card doesn't produce air that hot.

Anyhow, I've just installed the 8.1 drivers + hotfix + CCC and i am now hoping they somehow solved it

I don't seem to have that "ATi Overdrive" you showed previously.

Dyre Straits · Jan 17, 2008, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SypherNL

I am using a Nexus Breeze case, specially designed for airflow. Would be strange when the airflow is crap for a case which is advertised as a very good airflow-case

My computer is under my desk, and has around 25CM free space at the back of the case. There are some cables but I've tucked most of them away.

The air-intake of the case is located at the bottom of the case, this is a filtered air-intake.
The air outtake goes trough the PSU, as there are no other fans in the case to in- or output air.

The PSU doesn't really produce high temperatures, the card doesn't produce air that hot.

Anyhow, I've just installed the 8.1 drivers + hotfix + CCC and i am now hoping they somehow solved it

I don't seem to have that "ATi Overdrive" you showed previously.

In order to get the ATI Overdrive, you have to use the Advanced view of the CCC. It won't show up in Basic view.

To get a good reading on all the component temperatures in your system, download PC Wizard 2008 and run the Temperatures Utility. Be sure to go into the Options and click the "Sensors in Realtime" setting. Also, there's a setting to select "Enable GPU access" so select that as well.

CPUID

I'd even experiment with removing the side cover off the case and place a small fan blowing into the case just to see if it makes a difference. My own PC case is placed on top of my desk with plenty of open spaces around it. The general advice is to not place the case on the floor if there's carpeting there. That tends to draw a lot of dust into the case. However, I realize yours is filtered. But, if that's the way that case is setup, you definitely need to check that filter often as they'll tend to clog up and restrict airflow into the case.

Good luck!

Sunrazor · Jan 17, 2008, 10:31 PM

Here is my story and I need help bad.

Gear:

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 Motherboard, all BIOS settings on "safe"
Intel Quad Core 6400 CPU
Corsair XMS 6400 4GB (4x1GB) running on SPD settings
HIS 3850 IceQ3 TurboX Limited Edition 512MB VGA cards X 2 sitting in Crossfire config on default clocks.
Corsair 750W TX PSU
Lian-Li chassie with 3 120mm fans
Seagate 250GB ES series HDD S-ATA 300
Vista 64 Basic fully patched
Latest ATI drivers on clean install

Problem is I get the driver stop error and Vista then restarts it usually. Sometimes it hangs but not very often. CoD4 does the driver stop fairly often (maybe every 10-15 min) but WoW does not seem to be doing it that much. Once in maybe 2 hours.

It has no effect switching off crossfire apparently as this still persists. I have no artifacts and the temperature of the VGA cards is roughly 60-65 degrees C at load. I have ran this exact rig with a HD2900 Pro card for some time without a single hickup whatsoever.

I have no idea whatsoever what is causing this and was thinking of installing old XP again to see if it persists there. Anyone have any advice? It is breaking my heart not to be able to use it as it should.

SypherNL · Jan 17, 2008, 10:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dyre Straits

In order to get the ATI Overdrive, you have to use the Advanced view of the CCC. It won't show up in Basic view.

To get a good reading on all the component temperatures in your system, download PC Wizard 2008 and run the Temperatures Utility. Be sure to go into the Options and click the "Sensors in Realtime" setting. Also, there's a setting to select "Enable GPU access" so select that as well.

CPUID

I'd even experiment with removing the side cover off the case and place a small fan blowing into the case just to see if it makes a difference. My own PC case is placed on top of my desk with plenty of open spaces around it. The general advice is to not place the case on the floor if there's carpeting there. That tends to draw a lot of dust into the case. However, I realize yours is filtered. But, if that's the way that case is setup, you definitely need to check that filter often as they'll tend to clog up and restrict airflow into the case.

Good luck!

Thanks for your response. I am (always) using the advanced view, but there is no ATI Overdrive. Quite odd.

I was using RivaTuner to gather the information,fanspeed etc information. I think I can be sure that other programs like the one you've mentioned, are reporting the same, right?
(PC Wizard is not working on my Vista x64 pc. It crashes at the Splash screen)

I don't have carpeting (its really annoying with a chair

), but I have laminate.
The case isn't placed directly on the floor but it is on a 5 centimeter high block. Because the case is constructed quite odd (when placed there is a very small area between the case and the floor.), I've changed my desk a bit so it is a bit higher (better intake). I dust my room twice a week, but checking the airfilter is a good idea. The pc is running for around 7 months now.

Enough about temperatures, sorry for going off-topic

My opinion is: temperature couldn't cause this. When watching HD content (x264) on my PC (Videolan player), fullscreen on the secondary monitor the card isn't getting hotter then when I have the secondary monitor disabled.

Ah well, lets see if the 8.1 helps.

Sunrazor · Jan 17, 2008, 10:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SypherNL

Thanks for your response. I am (always) using the advanced view, but there is no ATI Overdrive. Quite odd.

I was using RivaTuner to gather the information,fanspeed etc information. I think I can be sure that other programs like the one you've mentioned, are reporting the same, right?

I don't have carpeting (its really annoying with a chair

), but I have laminate.
The case isn't placed directly on the floor but it is on a 5 centimeter high block. Because the case is constructed quite odd (when placed there is a very small area between the case and the floor.), I've changed my desk a bit so it is a bit higher (better intake). I dust my room twice a week, but checking the airfilter is a good idea. The pc is running for around 7 months now.

Enough about temperatures, sorry for going off-topic

My opinion is: temperature couldn't cause this. When watching HD content (x264) on my PC (Videolan player), fullscreen on the secondary monitor the card isn't getting hotter then when I have the secondary monitor disabled.

Ah well, lets see if the 8.1 helps.

Don't know if this is your issue but some cards from ATI require a 6 pin PCI express power connector to activate Overdrive options. If you connect a 4 pin to the card it will work just fine allthough no Overdrive is available.

The temps for you are fine. A friend of mine has 2 of those in crossfire mode and they almost hit 90 degrees under load which is normal according to contact with ATI. ANd it works fine apparently too.

brian henry · Jan 18, 2008, 12:10 AM

i jave a radeo 2600 pro agp and been trying to fix my driver for windows vista and found the omega drivers Windows XP v4.8.442 and used them for vista and they work no freezing up not error messageing when gameing. used these tweaks If your AGP card is not supported by the latest ATI drivers...
Sometimes the drivers don't get updated for every card for every driver release, so you need to edit a couple files to add your card. Run the installer, and continue until you extract the driver into a folder under C:\ATI\SUPPORT\. At the next opportunity, cancel the installation and navigate to the C:\ATI\SUPPORT\ folder in Windows Explorer. Edit the files as follows, and you can then run C:\ATI\SUPPORT\{Current Version}\Driver\setup.exe.

The files you need to edit are:

Windows Vista
C:\ATI\SUPPORT\[Current Version]\Driver\Packages\Drivers\Display\LH_INF\CX_*****.i nf

Under "[ATI.Mfg]", add the following lines. You can do a search for "HD 2400" to put the lines with the other entries for the HD2000 series, if you wish.

"ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C4
"ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C6
"ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9587
"ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9586

The lines can be placed anywhere under the "[ATI.Mfg]" section. For example, your entry could look as follows:

[ATI.Mfg]
"ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C4
"ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C6
"ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9587
"ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9586

Windows XP/MCE
C:\ATI\SUPPORT\[Current Version]\Driver\Driver\XP_INF\CX_*****.inf

Under "[ATI.Mfg.NTx86]", add the following lines. You can do a search for "HD 2400" to put the lines with the other entries for the HD2000 series, if you wish.

"ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C4
"ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C6
"ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9587
"ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9586

The lines can be placed anywhere under the "[ATI.Mfg.NTx86]" section. For example, your entry could look as follows:

[ATI.Mfg.NTx86]
"ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C4
"ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C6
"ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9587
"ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9586

C:\ATI\SUPPORT\[Current Version]\Driver\Driver\CX_*****.INI
C:\ATI\SUPPORT\[Current Version]\Driver\Driver\INSTALL.INI

In both files, under the "[WINXP]" section, add the following at the end of the second line, which starts "R6=DriverPath_R6":

,0x94C4,0x94C6,0x9586,0x9587

For example, your entry could look as follows:

[WINXP]
Label=R6,R6_2,R6_3,R6_4,R6_5,R6_6,R6_7,R6_8,R6_9,R 6_10
R6=DriverPath_R6,0x554F:0x149218BC,0x7162:0x300114 7B,0x94C4,0x94C6,0x9586,0x9587
DriverPath_R6=\XP_INF,CX_52443.INF TO GET THEM to INSTALL thanks to the latest omega drivers....

thosj · Jan 18, 2008, 01:53 AM

You know, I'm not sure this is an ATI issue at all! Read on.

I just built a new Vista Home Premium box. Originally with Nvidia 8800GTS 640. I got this problem with that card, the driver was nvlddmkm. I bought a Sapphire 3870, installed today after removing Nvidia drivers and using DriverCleaner.net on it. The computer does the same thing only with atikmdag. What the hell? If anything, it happens more with the ATI. I have 8.1 drivers freshly downloaded and installed. NO gaming, just at the desktop. Can't pinpoint what I'm doing when it happens, surfing, typing, NOTHING. CCC shows temp at 40c, so it's not hot.

This happened immediately upon installing Vista, even with the naked Windows Nvidia driver!! Happened with 4 different Nvidia drivers. Happens with ATI 3870 with 8.1. Something is telling me this is NOT a video driver or video hardware issue, but something else. RAM? MB? Intel Quad Core, VISTA? My 8800GTS worked flawlessly for a year or so on an ASUS A8N-SLI Premium with an FX-60 and Mushkin and Vista Ultimate.

I've wondered about putting the vid card in the other PCI-x slot. Or connecting the monitor to the other DVI. Easy enough to try, I guess.

ASUS P5E WS Pro, Q6600, 2 GB Ballistix 1066
Tuniq Tower 120 for as-cool-as-it-gets-on-air
above video cards with latest drivers.

SypherNL · Jan 18, 2008, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SypherNL

Ah well, lets see if the 8.1 helps.

Confirmed that it doesn't

Edit:
I've just sent more system information (msinfo32 dump) to the support staff, so they will escalate my issue once again.
Hopefully this can be resolved, after months of this atikmdag crashes and blue screens it's time to fix this!

Edit 2:
Check out this strange story:

Quote:

- ~ 22:00 atikmdag crash
- ~ 22:00 secondary monitor disabled
- ~ 22:01 ati external event .... disabled
- ~ 22:06 ati external event .... enabled
- ~ 22:06 secondary monitor enabled
*no problems*
- ~ 23:45 atikmdag crash
- ~ 23:45 secondary monitor disabled
- ~ 23:45 ati external event .... disabled
- ~ 23:51 ati external event .... enabled
- ~ 23:52 secondary monitor enable
Did NOT work: Kept on crashing.
Added this to the registry:
----
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\GraphicsDrivers]
"TdrDebugMode"=dword:00000003
"TdrDelay"=dword:00000005
----
Tried it again. Still no effect. Tried it trough Ultramon, trough Windows and the Catalyst Control Center.
Did not work, kicked me out straightaway.

I tried this 3, 4 times with a few minutes in between to avoid the blue screen.
But it didn't work, kept on kicking me out.

But then I did not pick "Expand" but "Clone".
Did NOT kick me out!

So it seems it has something to do with desktop expanding. Enabling clone mode did work, while expanding didn't.
It's really odd, but I can see that this could be some kind of issue that most people didn't notice because the majority of users with 2 screens are using expanded instead of clone.

Note:
I've written a small tool that disables the secondary monitor when a atikmdag crash occurs (using the eventlog)
This saves me from bluescreens when it goes into a deadlock (5x reset = bluescreen).
So "kicking me out" means: atikmdag crash + my tool disables the monitor.

I am waiting for Ati's response on my previous reaction so I can inform them about this. Hopefully they're able to nail this problem

Sunrazor · Jan 21, 2008, 08:43 PM

One step closer... just because I was curious, I ran memtest. Guess what? Some memory module is probably faulty. Got error at:
3326.8 MB adress: 000cfeee788 errors: 78

I suppose this is not occuring just because there is a protected adress of some sort. This is really an error. And it might explain all the weirdness I have been having with freezing games.

Interesting!

Sunrazor · Jan 22, 2008, 08:00 PM

I am ready to give up now. XP didn't do anything. Same hanging/freezing without the driver restart. Tried memtest and got fail on one adress but seems like it does not help how many or few sticks of ram or switching them around to get rid of it. It stays. DOn't know if it is a memtest bug and not related to the graphics problem with the driver stopping to respond. I am hating my computer by now.

candikane · Jan 23, 2008, 04:32 AM

Not sure if this is an ATI or hardware problem although it could be in some peoples cases, I'm convinced its vista. I dual boot XP and vista 64 on 2 seperate HDD's and atikmdag only crashes on vista 64. I just recently installed vista and have had nothing but absolute frustration trying to get most games to get beyond 2-3min.
Even now when i use XP, no problems whatsoever.
I'm using catalyst 8.1 in both OS's.

I've searched long and hard for a solution to this as well as other vista game related issues and although some have found solutions none have worked for me. Especially with STALKER. I think I'm going to give MS a shout and see if they can clarify whether theres something internal to vista that doesn't want to play nice with ATI drivers.

BFsMarvinTM · Jan 23, 2008, 08:06 AM

well I am still getting this error and I have done a reload new memory new card(replaced by ATI) new psu and ran stuff and still getting this error. ATI can not reproduce this error according to them and it is very annoying. any ideas? I have tried everything here and no luck 8-( any one want to trade my 1900xtx for a 8800gt? hehe

CBRacerX · Jan 23, 2008, 05:50 PM

I joined just to post my frustration here:

I have a newly build system that is experiencing the same issues, but with no gaming being performed. Specs are:

Antec 900 case
Mainboard : Gigabyte P35-DS4
All bios settings on SAFE - no overclocking.

Chipset : Intel P31/P35
Processor : Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2400 MHz
Physical Memory : 8192 MB (4 x 2048 DDR2-SDRAM )
Video Cards :
ATI Technologies Inc ATI Radeon HD 3870 (Gigabyte version with Zalman cooler)
VisionTek Radeon X1550 Series

Catalyst 7.12

Hard Disk : SATA (150 GB)
DVD-Rom Drive : ASUS DRW-2014L1T ATA Device
Monitor Type : ACER AL1916 - 19 inches
Monitor Type : Acer AL1912 - 19 inches
Monitor Type : Samsung SyncMaster - 22 inches
Network Card : Realtek Semiconductor RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC
Operating System : Windows (TM) Vista Ultimate Professional 6.00.6000 64 bit
DirectX : Version 10.00
Windows Performance Index : 5.5

Doing nothing more than internet browsing and Office apps - getting the stopped responding error and usually full lockup requiring a hard restart. OUCH. Desktop is Extended across all three monitors. Have another system (HP factory) which had Vista 32 bit and the X1550 in it (paired with X700 and same three monitors) with NO issues like this for six plus months.

Problems started once the multiple monitors were introduced. I had no issues doing basic setup with single display.

Sunrazor · Jan 23, 2008, 09:45 PM

Flashed BIOS which got rid of my memory trouble but still same thing both in vista and xp. ATI driver stops.

Jan 6, 2008, 09:25 PM	#366
Tekkie DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Having the same issue I am having the same issue with a Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 Pro (512 MB). I don't play games on my PC. I have noticed that with no load, just sitting at my Windows Desktop, that the GPU temp sits at 86~89 degrees and will jump to 92~93 degrees. I did not have any problems with the on board video card. I have tried different drivers, all with the same result. I have not had a chance to check the temp when the error comes up. Could it be a cooling issue? I have no other issues with the PC at all, other than the video problem. The machine is less than 1 month old. Windows Vista Home Premium Intel Q6600 Quad Core (2.4 GHz). 2 Gig DDR2 667. 320 Gig Hdd. HP W2007 running DVI in. Viewsonic VA903B running VGA in. It is an HP Pavillion A6245N.

Jan 12, 2008, 02:49 PM	#367
SypherNL DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 25 Rep Power: 0	Sigh Its been months.. months! I am still having problems with my 2900XT. During that time I sometimes get an answer to my (still open) ticket at ATi. But they say: nah, the drivers are fine.. the card is broken: RMA. So I answered: "How can my card be broken when there are lots of people having this same problem?" When I use the secondary output with my HDMI cable, there are random crashes. These crashes occur once a.... well, its not really easy to say. In december i was "crashfree", no atikmdag resets .. Nothing. And in the last 3 days I've had 2 atikmdag crashes. How strange is this: Problem occurs: The video hangs, screen turns black My small tool disables the secondary output to stop it from getting caught in the reset loop. Most of the times it does stop. When I enable the secondary output, after waiting a minute, or 5, it is working again. No crashes for at least an hour (haven't tried it longer) So, crash -> disable secondary output -> wait -> enable -> presto. working again. Most of the times I killed the "ati2evxx" process (two in the task manager), waited, enabled it again trough services.msc. I don't know what this process is or does, but maybe.... This card costs too much money to be using "dirty" workarounds getting it to work. And I doubt that the problem is the temperature. Yeah, its most of the time cooling like a madman (once every 5 minutes for 30 seconds, or once every 3 sometimes), but I can play games for hours without taking a break. So why can't I just watch 3 hours of movies or TV shows without crashing? I should add that I always use the most recent drivers, and all of them showing the same problems.

Jan 14, 2008, 12:16 AM	#373
warpt72 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Same Problem I just got my Radeon HD 3870 today because my old Nvidia 7900GS was having a very similiar problem. after installing the drivers, i start playing WoW. after about 30 i start to get screen flickering. a dew minutes later my screen went black, but the music kept playing. after restarting my computer, i started to surf the internet and the same thing happened. So it must not be the grphics card becuase the same problem happened with my 7900GS.

Jan 17, 2008, 10:31 PM	#379
Sunrazor DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 18 Rep Power: 0	HIS 3850 IceQ TurboX x 2 on Vista 64 problem Here is my story and I need help bad. Gear: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 Motherboard, all BIOS settings on "safe" Intel Quad Core 6400 CPU Corsair XMS 6400 4GB (4x1GB) running on SPD settings HIS 3850 IceQ3 TurboX Limited Edition 512MB VGA cards X 2 sitting in Crossfire config on default clocks. Corsair 750W TX PSU Lian-Li chassie with 3 120mm fans Seagate 250GB ES series HDD S-ATA 300 Vista 64 Basic fully patched Latest ATI drivers on clean install Problem is I get the driver stop error and Vista then restarts it usually. Sometimes it hangs but not very often. CoD4 does the driver stop fairly often (maybe every 10-15 min) but WoW does not seem to be doing it that much. Once in maybe 2 hours. It has no effect switching off crossfire apparently as this still persists. I have no artifacts and the temperature of the VGA cards is roughly 60-65 degrees C at load. I have ran this exact rig with a HD2900 Pro card for some time without a single hickup whatsoever. I have no idea whatsoever what is causing this and was thinking of installing old XP again to see if it persists there. Anyone have any advice? It is breaking my heart not to be able to use it as it should.

Jan 18, 2008, 01:53 AM	#383
thosj DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	You know, I'm not sure this is an ATI issue at all! Read on. I just built a new Vista Home Premium box. Originally with Nvidia 8800GTS 640. I got this problem with that card, the driver was nvlddmkm. I bought a Sapphire 3870, installed today after removing Nvidia drivers and using DriverCleaner.net on it. The computer does the same thing only with atikmdag. What the hell? If anything, it happens more with the ATI. I have 8.1 drivers freshly downloaded and installed. NO gaming, just at the desktop. Can't pinpoint what I'm doing when it happens, surfing, typing, NOTHING. CCC shows temp at 40c, so it's not hot. This happened immediately upon installing Vista, even with the naked Windows Nvidia driver!! Happened with 4 different Nvidia drivers. Happens with ATI 3870 with 8.1. Something is telling me this is NOT a video driver or video hardware issue, but something else. RAM? MB? Intel Quad Core, VISTA? My 8800GTS worked flawlessly for a year or so on an ASUS A8N-SLI Premium with an FX-60 and Mushkin and Vista Ultimate. I've wondered about putting the vid card in the other PCI-x slot. Or connecting the monitor to the other DVI. Easy enough to try, I guess. ASUS P5E WS Pro, Q6600, 2 GB Ballistix 1066 Tuniq Tower 120 for as-cool-as-it-gets-on-air above video cards with latest drivers. Last edited by thosj; Jan 18, 2008 at 01:58 AM.

Dec 25, 2007, 04:51 AM	#361
razorirr DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	Ive gotten it playing basically every game from steam and watching movies a few times. even had it happen just going into crossfire. Its running whatever the current drivers as of the 21 of december for it are. i cant tell. evenually as it crashes enough they just dont bother to enable on start anymore and you cant see. this is going to take a format. there goes all my steam games while im at home on dialup instead of at college on a t3/internet 2 pipeline... System: Vista 64 business Dual Radeon HD 3870s MSI K9A2 Platinum 2.2 Quad core Phenom (AMD) 8 Gigs Gskill ddr2 800

Dec 25, 2007, 09:44 PM	#362
Your Worst Nightmare DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Has this ever happen to anyone while using youtube? As that seems to be the problem for. Now it screwed up screwed up my computer to the point where I have to click on something with my cursor like 20 times instead of the usual once, WTF is going on?!?!?!?!

Dec 28, 2007, 05:03 PM	#363
mttran DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	did 7.11 fix this problem?

Jan 6, 2008, 09:22 AM	#365
BFsMarvinTM DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 30 Rep Power: 0	Well I am still having this problem and have a ticked reopend with ati. They did send me this and I did every thing short of a new mobo. (dont have the money for that), also not sure if anyone posted it, I did not see it but here it is. Hope it helps some of you out. here is the link AMD Customer Care

Jan 14, 2008, 04:21 AM	#375
*Veridian3* Administrator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cloaked Posts: 4,837 Rep Power: 174	The 2900XT is a very hot card. 60+ seems about right, and I've seen them easily hit 80+ when gaming so no need to worry or contact the manufacturer. If you wanted to lower the temps or get quieter cooling then the only option is a better cooler from a 3rd party.

Jan 18, 2008, 12:10 AM	#382
brian henry DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	i jave a radeo 2600 pro agp and been trying to fix my driver for windows vista and found the omega drivers Windows XP v4.8.442 and used them for vista and they work no freezing up not error messageing when gameing. used these tweaks If your AGP card is not supported by the latest ATI drivers... Sometimes the drivers don't get updated for every card for every driver release, so you need to edit a couple files to add your card. Run the installer, and continue until you extract the driver into a folder under C:\ATI\SUPPORT\. At the next opportunity, cancel the installation and navigate to the C:\ATI\SUPPORT\ folder in Windows Explorer. Edit the files as follows, and you can then run C:\ATI\SUPPORT\{Current Version}\Driver\setup.exe. The files you need to edit are: Windows Vista C:\ATI\SUPPORT\[Current Version]\Driver\Packages\Drivers\Display\LH_INF\CX_***.i nf Under "[ATI.Mfg]", add the following lines. You can do a search for "HD 2400" to put the lines with the other entries for the HD2000 series, if you wish. "ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C4 "ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C6 "ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9587 "ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9586 The lines can be placed anywhere under the "[ATI.Mfg]" section. For example, your entry could look as follows: [ATI.Mfg] "ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C4 "ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C6 "ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9587 "ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9586 Windows XP/MCE C:\ATI\SUPPORT\[Current Version]\Driver\Driver\XP_INF\CX_*.inf Under "[ATI.Mfg.NTx86]", add the following lines. You can do a search for "HD 2400" to put the lines with the other entries for the HD2000 series, if you wish. "ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C4 "ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C6 "ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9587 "ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9586 The lines can be placed anywhere under the "[ATI.Mfg.NTx86]" section. For example, your entry could look as follows: [ATI.Mfg.NTx86] "ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C4 "ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV610, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C6 "ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9587 "ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT AGP" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9586 C:\ATI\SUPPORT\[Current Version]\Driver\Driver\CX_***.INI C:\ATI\SUPPORT\[Current Version]\Driver\Driver\INSTALL.INI In both files, under the "[WINXP]" section, add the following at the end of the second line, which starts "R6=DriverPath_R6": ,0x94C4,0x94C6,0x9586,0x9587 For example, your entry could look as follows: [WINXP] Label=R6,R6_2,R6_3,R6_4,R6_5,R6_6,R6_7,R6_8,R6_9,R 6_10 R6=DriverPath_R6,0x554F:0x149218BC,0x7162:0x300114 7B,0x94C4,0x94C6,0x9586,0x9587 DriverPath_R6=\XP_INF,CX_52443.INF TO GET THEM to INSTALL thanks to the latest omega drivers....

Jan 21, 2008, 08:43 PM	#385
Sunrazor DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 18 Rep Power: 0	One step closer... just because I was curious, I ran memtest. Guess what? Some memory module is probably faulty. Got error at: 3326.8 MB adress: 000cfeee788 errors: 78 I suppose this is not occuring just because there is a protected adress of some sort. This is really an error. And it might explain all the weirdness I have been having with freezing games. Interesting!

Jan 22, 2008, 08:00 PM	#386
Sunrazor DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 18 Rep Power: 0	I am ready to give up now. XP didn't do anything. Same hanging/freezing without the driver restart. Tried memtest and got fail on one adress but seems like it does not help how many or few sticks of ram or switching them around to get rid of it. It stays. DOn't know if it is a memtest bug and not related to the graphics problem with the driver stopping to respond. I am hating my computer by now.

Jan 23, 2008, 04:32 AM	#387
candikane DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	Not sure if this is an ATI or hardware problem although it could be in some peoples cases, I'm convinced its vista. I dual boot XP and vista 64 on 2 seperate HDD's and atikmdag only crashes on vista 64. I just recently installed vista and have had nothing but absolute frustration trying to get most games to get beyond 2-3min. Even now when i use XP, no problems whatsoever. I'm using catalyst 8.1 in both OS's. I've searched long and hard for a solution to this as well as other vista game related issues and although some have found solutions none have worked for me. Especially with STALKER. I think I'm going to give MS a shout and see if they can clarify whether theres something internal to vista that doesn't want to play nice with ATI drivers.

Jan 23, 2008, 08:06 AM	#388
BFsMarvinTM DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 30 Rep Power: 0	well I am still getting this error and I have done a reload new memory new card(replaced by ATI) new psu and ran stuff and still getting this error. ATI can not reproduce this error according to them and it is very annoying. any ideas? I have tried everything here and no luck 8-( any one want to trade my 1900xtx for a 8800gt? hehe

Jan 23, 2008, 05:50 PM	#389
CBRacerX DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 28 Rep Power: 0	I joined just to post my frustration here: I have a newly build system that is experiencing the same issues, but with no gaming being performed. Specs are: Antec 900 case Mainboard : Gigabyte P35-DS4 All bios settings on SAFE - no overclocking. Chipset : Intel P31/P35 Processor : Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2400 MHz Physical Memory : 8192 MB (4 x 2048 DDR2-SDRAM ) Video Cards : ATI Technologies Inc ATI Radeon HD 3870 (Gigabyte version with Zalman cooler) VisionTek Radeon X1550 Series Catalyst 7.12 Hard Disk : SATA (150 GB) DVD-Rom Drive : ASUS DRW-2014L1T ATA Device Monitor Type : ACER AL1916 - 19 inches Monitor Type : Acer AL1912 - 19 inches Monitor Type : Samsung SyncMaster - 22 inches Network Card : Realtek Semiconductor RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC Operating System : Windows (TM) Vista Ultimate Professional 6.00.6000 64 bit DirectX : Version 10.00 Windows Performance Index : 5.5 Doing nothing more than internet browsing and Office apps - getting the stopped responding error and usually full lockup requiring a hard restart. OUCH. Desktop is Extended across all three monitors. Have another system (HP factory) which had Vista 32 bit and the X1550 in it (paired with X700 and same three monitors) with NO issues like this for six plus months. Problems started once the multiple monitors were introduced. I had no issues doing basic setup with single display. Last edited by CBRacerX; Jan 23, 2008 at 05:58 PM.

Jan 23, 2008, 09:45 PM	#390
Sunrazor DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 18 Rep Power: 0	Flashed BIOS which got rid of my memory trouble but still same thing both in vista and xp. ATI driver stops.