Vista and 7.3 Display driver atikmdag stopped responding error

simland

I will provide an update on my situation. I'm dumb. V-Sync did nothing to help the issue.

I really have no idea what the fix could be. Low resolutions, no sound, ultra low graphics settings and v sync off seems to provide stability for an indeterminate amount of time, but the driver ends up crashing sooner or later. WoW is just...well wow. The new patch didn't seem to help WoW at all. I cranked all the graphics up and got a crash within 10 minutes.

All I can do is keep on keeping on. In the mean time crysis runs at great FPS and has no issues other than saving my game at a checkpoint takes forever.

lordtomaso

Hi guys,
same thing here, I usually have the error once per day, and it usually goes to blue screen once every week. So, all in all, not that bad (at least, better than some folks here).

Anybody installed the Catalyst 8.10?

Freelancer

This is worth a try, I've set it to 5 secs and I've got a recovery instead of BSOD.


Atikmdag crash. Is there a fix? - Page 4 - Guru3D.com Forums

Microsoft has a tweak for the Vista driver recovery. I set the delay back to 5 seconds, from the default 2seconds. Which means Vista won't reload the driver until 5 seconds of the video card not responding. After I did this, I no longer get BSOD's. However, the driver will be reloaded.

I am now trying 20 seconds, to see if maybe Vista just isn't patient enough (well, if there is a bug in ATI's drivers).

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device...m_timeout.mspx

I have the reg key here so you can easily import it. This is for Vista:
http://ordorica.org/misc/tdrdelay.reg

drwho

@ Catalystcather. Well, you were right about the cheaper Corsair ram I bought not being the solution. All it did was slow down the atikmdag problem somewhat. After about two days the problem came back worse than ever. I even went back to XP Pro but I started having problems with that too.


Finally remembered reading somewhere in this thread that somebody had had problems with their Realtek sound drivers. I"ve been using the onboard sound on my motherboard so I could use a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150 to do video capture. I'm in the process of putting alot of old VHS tapes on DVD. So anyway, I replaced the WinTv card with my SB X-Fi card and my computer has been rock solid for the last two days. I really think the culprit was this Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150 card. So in my case, the atikmdag problem turned out to be hardware related.


I will report back if any more problems occur.

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Panther-D

Well, I've just noticed that when I move windows around on the desktop, they leave a white path behind until the computer has a half second free time to redraw those areas. So something else does get disabled too with Aero, not just the transparency and 3D stuff. If I switch Aero on, there are no such white paths, windows move around smoothly.

Anyways, I don't see any clue that somebody is really working on this... The problem isn't even recorded in the Catalyst "release notes" despite it's a "known issue under windows vista"! Why? And what use is this thread then?
And please, tell me: why is "City of Villains: Flashing observed in the game when super AA is enabled in Catalyst Control Center and the resolution is at 2560x1600" more important than a BSOD when you just want to use the computer for ANYTHING? How many people run this "City of Villains" in 2560x1600+SuperAA (!!!)? Do you really think this was the most important thing to fix? (Why?)

rychas

Has anyone played with the new fan speed options of the 8.10 drivers and CCC? Is it helpful to this whole atikmdag situation?

DarkiKun

I have set the delay to 10 secs and it seems to have completely fixed it for me, i can't replicate the problem anymore, it used to happen a lot when playing a game and watching movie files on the 2nd screen. and now i can't even make it happen anymore for a long time, seems good.

Thanks a LOT for this info =D

Zardon

Only way I fixed the issues on my friends Sony Laptop was to reformat the hard drive and reinstall the OS from fresh. Going on other posts regarding this, it could very well be just a short term fix.

Freelancer

Well, I have actually suffer a freeze of 20 seconds this morning, then a VPU Recovery. I guess this setting cannot actually "fix" the problem but it may help to turn BSOD into VPU recovery.

I wouldn't conclude the problem is gone unless there is at least one MONTH without any BSOD/VPU recovery. I have had like one week without problems, then BAM, two BSODs within one day. It just came randomly.

DarkiKun

Well it used to happen like 4 times a day while playing but now, nothing yet, so it may at least have lowered the chances.

Raduque

Well, I disabled TDR and don't seem to have any problems. In my case, I'd get them when browsing with Aero enabled. Sometimes when watching videos on my second monitor. I disabled the TDR ability in the registry and rebooted over 5 days ago.

So far, nothing.

Freelancer

Which registry key did you use to do so? Thanks.

P.S. I'm using Vista Home Basic (with no Aero) and I still get TDR in 2D view - I have a dual monitor setup.

Raduque

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDriv ers

Make a new DWORD named TdrLevel and give it a Decimal value of 0(zero)





I went 9 days and it froze. I switched back to aero basic.

Bone_Daddy

I have recently disabled my secondary monitor when gaming. So far. So good. I'll keep you all posted.

lordtomaso

I'm error free since I disabled Aero (11 days now).

The fact that there are multiple solutions to solve the issue is really strange. I guess the symptom might just be the same for everyone, but the problem is not.

CATALYSTCATCHER

Correct!!! TDR is a catchall, and the message is very generic.

The TDR can occur for many many reasons. Essentially the message indicates that Windows does not have a clue what happened but has decided to restart the video driver which has not responded for 2 seconds. So some TDRs will have a fix, for example if overheating is the real problem then resolvong the overheat will cure the TDR.

The dual display TDR (and others) are a little more mysterious because 2 displays should work properly yet once you combine Areo, the DWM and 2 displays numerous people run into the TDR events. Even then they are random events which makes troubleshooting problematic.

At this point my TDRs are cured (3 months and counting) and the offending display that seemed to be the cause/trigger, is sitting on a developers desk for long term investigation.

Dyre Straits

I have only very recently started getting the TDR myself. AND, so far, it seems to ONLY occur when I've failed to turn off Dual Monitor Display. I do have AERO enabled, but, it doesn't seem to be a problem as long as I only use a single display.

In my case, I get that 'Display Driver Stopped Responding...' error and the screen flashes about 4 times and then the system reboots. It does, however, seem to occur most frequently when I've been playing a 3D game with Dual Monitors active -- with the game restricted to one monitor -- and then exit the game.

Will continue to monitor this and report any additional information.

BUT, honestly, for 'years' I've been 'TDR Free'.

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CATALYSTCATCHER

All my TDR events were at the desktop. But most frequently occured right after a log in. I am guessing, but it seems to occur when vista is busy restoring/switching display modes. Always a very annoying occurance.

Minid33

Hi, i'll be honest, i have read some of this forum but 40 pages is far too epic to spare time for. I recently bought a 1GB 4850, i'm now running 2 17 inch monitors and frequently switch between dual DVI and a single DVI and Svideo to my TV, with full aero glass. I get this error daily while navigating my desktop with regular programs like IRC, MSN etc. I have tried re-installing the drivers, with no success. Aswell as this error I have noticed that when I have the catalyst control center aswell as the base drivers it consumes a whole core of my CPU. I am currently running 8.10 Drivers launched in oct 15th. Can you summarise the fixes of the past 40 pages that are known to work for my situation?

The rest of my system spec is;
socket 754 4200+
gigabyte k8n SLi
2 GB Corsiar XMS DDR-400

I would be glad to run any tests or provide further information should you request it. Thanks in Advance - Minid33

lordtomaso

Hi,
- try diabling Aero
- install only the Catalyst drivers, not with the whole CCC

rychas

Well after erasing the whole system and install the ATI modified drivers (laptop here!) straight onto the VGA generic adapter, without the CCC, I no longer have the atikmdag problem... instead, the problem still happens, only by the name of 'infinite loop'.

It happens less often, about 4-5 times a week, always when using some sort of 3D application. It freezes and BSODs a 'driver got stuck on an infinite loop', when it used to be the atikmdag message.

No Aero and no external displays. Could this be a hardware fault?

goaty

I'm happy to report that I've found out the culprit behind the problems I've been experiencing (TDRs occuring randomly) - it was one of my memory modules.

A small note to other users: I didn't experience any problems in XP and memtest didn't show any errors after I left it overnight several times, so I've ignored the possibility that my RAM was faulty for a while, but I've tried using the modules one by one and noticed that TDRs only occur with one of them. So I strongly suggest that anyone that experiences such problems and can't pinpoint the cause of the errors to make sure that the RAM modules aren't faulty (not only memtest, test each module individually).

Hope it helps.

Freelancer

If you do memtest with only the faulty module, can memtest detect it?

goaty

Hm, haven't tried it, I'll give it a shot.

UPDATE: No errors after 6 hours/16 passes.

megatech

Hello all.
I too am having this annoying problem.
As some people has said, on my system it only happens when Aero is enabled with 2 monitors.
I tried that delay thing in your reg. This stopped the BSOD.
While my screen was blanking and the driver restarting. I disabled aero and it fixed it.
I re-enabled aero and it was blanking again.
I did the same with disabling the second monitor.
So it must be a Aero with 2 monitor bug somewhere.

Regards
Mark

sparkies

Amazingly, more than half a year after it has been first reported, there is still no fix for the problem when you have dual display with extended desktop AND Aero enabled.

I was wondering if anybody here has an idea about whether ATI/AMD is actually aware of the problem and are doing something about it?

OldBuzzard

Oh, ATI are aware of it. VERY aware. However, I seriously doubt that there is really anything that they can so about it.

" Amazingly" YOU do not seem to be 'aware' that CATALYSTCATCHER, an ATI employee who posted just 8 posts before yours, has been a frequent visiter/poster in this thread. They are not only aware, they are working with us.

I, and a lot of others, are pretty sure that it's a Viata problem and not an ATI or nVidia problem. Yes, there nVidia owners that have TDR problems too.

The clue is that not EVERYONE that is running 2 monitors with Aero active have TDR's. Others that have only ONE monitor have TDR's as well. Also, what "fixes" TDR's for one person, won't fix it for another.

Actually, it's becoming clear that the "TDR" isn't always associated with a DISPLAY issue, but is also used as a "'catch all' for any number of other issues.

Shucks, it can't even be narrowed down to a hardware OR driver issue, as for some people changing hardware cures it, for others it doesn't. The same goes for drivers.

That's what makes the whole TDR problem so frustrating. Not only for us users, but for ATI and nVidia as well.

The only thing that is consistant with ALL TRD's is Vista. That's where the problem is, and it's going to take MS to get off their butts to cure them.

__________________
When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

maxwell005

its not a vista related issue... i got this error on vista, tried xp and got the same error. The solution for me was to use just one stick of ram instead of 2... i bought 1 2gb ram stick and it made my day no more TDR for me. I think the cause of that error can be anything... it must be a compatibility problem.

megatech

I am also using Vista 64 and CCC 8.10.
PS What does TDR stand for???

Freelancer

I heard that putting 2 sticks of RAM on SINGLE channel instead of dual can fix the problem. Would like to hear reports on this.