Vista and 7.3 Display driver atikmdag stopped responding error

JCKSON79

I freakin' took out my 4850 HD today and put some new heatsinks on it. If you remember my earlier post stated that I had put an Acceloro heat sink on it because the card new out of box ran to freaking hot. Anyways, I put some new heatsinks on it and benched it. I used video card stability test. The bench is 3 min long and normally I could only get through about 20 secs before the atikmdag error came up. Amazingly, It made it for most of the test ranging from 300 fps to 367 fps, which is great! Then out of nowhere the dreaded atikmdag error! Damn.

demskyr

Okay, so I have tried all the tricks so far. I just clean installed Vista 64 again, and the error came up.

In fact I was getting the BSOD every 7 minutes or so. Randomly, on the net, in a game, just sitting in desktop, etc.

I got a little angry and I deleted ATIKMDAG.SYS from the system/drivers folder in Windows.

That was 2 hours ago, and no BSOD. This could just be a coincidence since I have gone 11 hrs once without a BSOD after clean install of drivers. But i didn't reinstall drivers this time and it has been stable longer than ever.

So question, could this work? Just delete ATIKMDAG.SYS everytime? Anyone know why this wouldn't work?

E-D@N

OMG?! u did what?

JCKSON79

I do not think that deleting it will fix the problem. It may just create more issues. Let us know how that works out for you. So you are getting BSOD every 7 min? I only get it when I run a game for to long or when I benchmark my card. Usually I can stop it from going to BSOD if I shut down the programs I am running before it occurs.

SV110MHH

When you clean installed Windows... did you install all updates via Windows Update too?

I still think one of the culprit is a vague Update in there somewhere...

As I stated... my computer ran solid for 3 weeks (1 week with the games that are seemingly causing the errors now).... before mine came up.

demskyr

Well, 4 hrs without a BSOD. I have to go to work tonight, but I will have my wife and son test it out. They like to watch Youtube movies and usually that would cause a BSOD within 5 minutes of playing any videos. But I have been testing Youtube for 3 hours now. Nothing.

This is so frustrating, cause I feel that I am still going to get the BSOD, but everytime it goes for a couple hours without BSOD I get some hope, just to see it dashed to pieces.

Yes I installed ALL updates Windows had this time. But I was getting the BSOD without those updates and with, so they don't seem to be involved.

As for deleting the file, I haven't seen any negative associations with it. I have been able to play World in Conflict for 50 minutes with no problem. I was also able to connect my TV through S-Video and CCC. No problem. Those things usually would cause a BSOD within minutes.

Oh, I have not tried to reboot the system since I deleted the file though. That is where the problem will probably come up. But then I will just delete it again if this works out.

Of course, I think I am still going to RMA the whole system if the company would ever get back to me.

I will keep you up to date.

E-D@N

good news so far...

all games running smooth for more then 2 hours straight.. that PSU does the job!

anyway - i did some stress tests... and i had 1 crash... since i've opend Windows media Player with a WMV movie + Winamp MilkDrop Visuals + YouTube + Flash game...

maybe it was a bit 2 much... anyway - i'm still testing, maybe some other drivers could handle that stress test also...

Good night folks!

demskyr

Update on deleting ATIKMDAG.SYS.

14 hours without any glitch.

I am able play games, watch movies, play flash and youtube, surf net, connect TV and watch on that.

I can not explain why this works, but it seems to.

I rebooted, and of course windows complained that there was no ATI driver, and then nothing would work. Simple, I had made a copy of ATIKMDAG.SYS. After the reboot I put the file back in it's place, rebooted again, so that Windows would load the driver. Then I deleted it again. Windows thinks it has the driver, but it isn't there to cause the BSOD now. And the computer is working fine.

Go figure.

I don't see how this works, and it probably won't for anyone else. But just letting you know.

I will be sending this computer back though, as I don't think I should have to do this, they should sell a WORKING computer.

Good luck all!

CATALYSTCATCHER

The driver is loaded in memory when windows is started up. So deleting the file will only cause a problem when you restart windows. (As you know). I have no idea why it makes a difference with the TDRs but I really can't see how it possibly could.

If you have a return policy, it seems like a good idea to return the system and maybe the supplier can figure out what the problem is.

demskyr

Yeah, it must have just been a coincidence or something. A strange one though, seeing that it stopped the BSODs as soon as I did it.

After 24 hrs and 43 minutes of no errors, I got a BSOD just a few minutes ago.

Going to try the 8.12 beta drivers, see if there is anything there.

SV110MHH

I just don't understand why when I built my system... I had no problems for 3 weeks... then all of a sudden (when I installed EVE Online and Warhammer)... then it started.

See.... I only get it when I am playing games (which COULD be a hardware issue)... but others get it just sitting there... that is why I cannot think it would be hardware/heat related.

evilid

Finally resolved my issue.

I had a Diamond 4850 and it worked flawlessly.
It was too noisy and 90 degrees on load.
So I put Accelero S1 on GPU, the supplied heatsinks on RAMs, but I kept the original heatsink on the VRMs.
It was obviously quiet and only 60 degrees on load.

However, it became very unstable on many games, mostly graphic intense games.
I could play them only anywhere between 3-10 minutes, then black screen.
Furmark stability test could be sustained only 20-30 seconds.
I get better temperature, but unstable video card.
Totally didn't make sense.
I tried many tricks stated here including down-clocking GPU as shown on my early posts.

I decided put the turbo module to cool it down further.
I acheived 48 degrees on load, only 10 degrees down.
But it was totally stable.
No game crashes (Splinter cell, Advanced warfighter, Half-Life 2 etc) after 3 hours of each game play.
I did Furmark stability test for 1 hour and it didn't crash so I quit it.
It never went over 54 degrees during the test which is absolutely amazing.


It has been three days.
About 14 hours of graphic intense game plays.
4 times of 1 hour long Furmark stability test.
I start to believe I fixed the issue.

I believe my issue was something to do with the BIOS of GPU.
And I am trying to dig more on that direction.

JCKSON79

My problem is the same. It only occurs when I play a game or when I benchmark my card and everything was fine for months. It just started happening.

JCKSON79

Well, I just played The Witcher for almost 2 hours and my monitor shut down. I am think that this is a power supply problem. The only thing I did was remove the 3 atikmdag files that I could find on my computer. I just deleted them and have had no BSOD since my previous post. I am going to try again tomorrow and will let you know what the results are.

demskyr

Quick question for everyone.

Is it possible to get the ATIKMDAG.SYS BSOD because of inefficient power?

I have a 750 Apevia Warlock PSU, but I have had my computer plugged into the same wall as my other computer.

I turned of my other computer, just to see.

I have turned Aero back on my system, and started to test around. It has been stable for about 3 hours with everything on maximum.

Could just be a coincidence again, but was just checking if anyone knows if the power consumption could have been causing it.

I don't see how, but then again I am not an Electrical Engineer.

CATALYSTCATCHER

Neither am I :-) But it is possible that bad AC power could cause a problem. But I think it is extremely unlikely.

If there is a problem it probably won't be the 2 PCs it is more likely that furnace in the basement clicking on regularly because it is cold. Or maybe your house gets water from a well and the electric pump comes on regularly. Or some other large appliance creating glitches on the circuit.

I have seen cases where the client would keep their PC in an office that was over the stock room or the metal shop on the first floor.

UNFORTUNATELY for them the conveyer system from the stock room or the arc welders below would create havoc (spontaeous resets :-) with the PCs connected in the same building. And the PCs were on dedicated circuits.

Do you have an arc welder in the building? :-)

I know those are extreme cases but they prove the possibility.

It pays to keep an open mind when dealing with power problems. Surge suppressors or a decent UPS could probably filter the power but they can be an expensive step unless you are convinced you have an AC power problem.

australis

Hmm after reading nearly all of the posts in this thread I decided to share my experiences. Yes, I'm one of those who gets sick of tdr errors. I tried all the advices given here that works for the others but they didn't work for me. Some said it could be a heat problem so I installed an additional fan on the side of the case that blows directly over my graphics card which runs a bit hot (71C@idle) but quiet. I even underclocked it to 4850's default speed but it didn't work except making it 8C cooler!! Decreasing the core clock 40Mhz makes it run really cooler, I didn't expect this. I build my system a month ago and played colin mcrae dirt, cod world@war,cod modern warfare with settings that my computer can handle. No tdr's. But when I started to play crysis this tdr problem arised after passing half of the game. And I don't remember if I updated my os. But probably. Loosing settings in game, or tips on this site didn't work. My computer is "ill" with this tdr plague! And I don't think this is a hardware issue. 'cause I tested my ram modules for 10+ hours with memtest86+, tortured my cpu with prime95 for 5+ hours and as for the gpu it's already tortured by the games I mentioned So this should be a driver or vista issue and waiting here for it to be solved. Here is my sys. specs.
Q6600@stock
2x2 Mushkin 1066 rams
powercolor 4850 pcs+ @665,993 not oc'ed
550w seasonic s12 energy+ psu
gigabyte ep45-ds3r mobo and a dvd writer.
Vista ultimate SP1 with all the updates.

JCKSON79

So I was able to play thw Witcher again today for about 2 hours and then suddenly the screen flickered with red, blue and green pixelated blocks and then turned completely green. I put the graphics from the in game menu on medium and had no problems until after the 2 hours. I have had no Error msgs about atikmdag either. I have not switched drivers since deleting the atikmdag files. I am currently running CCC 8.6 and 8.5 drivers on my 4850 HD Visiontek.

The.Rat

Have you rebooted since you deleted the atikmdag files? I'd be surprised if you have because atikmdag is the display driver.

cheers

JCKSON79

Yeah, I have been playing the Witcher for anywhere between 1-2 hours and things are fine no atikmdag.sys errors. The only thing that I am having an issue with is my monitor shutting down after the two hours. I am guessing that this is a PS issue. I have a new Corsair ATX 700 watt coming to me from an ebay auction. I will try that and see if it fixes the prob.

The.Rat

Thanks for the reply.

That does seem odd. If you deleted atikmdag.sys, I wonder what display driver your system is using?

Could you please do a search of your system and see if any atikmdag.sys have reappeared ans whether they are the same as the ones you deleted or older/newer version?

You might also want to check in Device Manager for the properties of your video card and on the "Driver" tab see if atikmdag.sys is now listed.

cheers

JCKSON79

there is no ATIKMDAG listed under the driver details in device manager and I am running 8.5. I did have to add a fan today I was running a bit hot. Hopefully I can continue long enough to finish the Witcher. I am gaining another computer with XP pro and beefed up system from a friend on a trade for some carpentry so I am stoked to go back to XP for a bit. I am going to load that sucker with some games, it is expendable for the work that I am doing.

E-D@N

ATIKMDAG is listed...
\System32\Drivers\atimkdag.sys

anyway - had a fine weekend with my "new" old PSU...
looks like the temperature is now cooler then it was before...

games are working very good... sometimes things get stucky... but Vista actually saves the show... still testing, but i can already tell that it works better...

The.Rat

That is really strange. I was under the impression that atikmdag.sys was the main video card device driver and that while deleting it would initially not cause a problem (it would be in memory already), you would have problems if you rebooted.

Can you do the following please.

1. Reboot your computer
2. Open Command Prompt
3. Type the following commands

cd \
dir atikmdag.sys /s /a /p

When finished (shouldn't take more than a minute or two) please post any results.

Hopefully Catalystcatcher might be able to explain what's going on if no instances of atikmdag.sys are found.

cheers

sparkies

Hi Demsky,

I wonder if you could tell us how you got on with the 8.12 beta drivers? on my machine (mobility radeon 2600, dual screen, Aero ON), 8.12RC2 sofar has not bombed.

Cheers,
Sparkies

E-D@N

Dudes with AGP Cards that are looking for HOTFIX...

look no further... Visiontek did da Job!!
Thank goodness for Visiontek!

SV110MHH

Who in the heck has AGP cards anymore?

Panther-D

Oh, so the dual-monitor FIX is to go to the store and buy a brand new monitor. Or two, just to be sure. LOL...
Sure I will, once ATi sends me the money. Or should I just do it and then send the bills to them? Pff...

And what's that story that the engineers don't have TDRs with the monitor CatalystCatcher had? They had a whole system showing the problem, so if they wanted to fix it, they had everything to test.
But they had a better idea! Let's take the system apart, and owww... no more problems... so they can't fix it. What a shame. I really understand, they did everything. That's the way to go.

brandeat8

Mine is having the same problem. It will have the bsod that has static in it and the error message, "display driver atikmdag stopped responding and has successfully recovered". It's very bizarre because I narrowed the problems down to World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. I tried all the newest driver updates and that didnt help. I recently reformatted my computer and everything worked perfect. 0 BSOD, 0 Driver errors for 8-9 hours if not more. I started to install WoW and the first version install went great, no problems. I installed the second one, same thing 0 problems and nothing went wrong. I installed the third version, wrath of the lich king, and saw I that it would take a while. I went to sleep and woke up, when I woke up I saw the same errors returned with the same problems.

I don't know what to do I tried installing the drivers that was on Gatway, the newest one on ATI and even tried to update it through the control panel (and it says I have the most up to date one). I use Vista and this problem oddly doesnt occur while I play the game. It however occurs very very frequently when I'm online looking at different sites. Please help.

JCKSON79

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6001]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Users\Justin & Kristin>cd\
C:\>dir atikmdag.sys /s /a /p
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is DCB9-CC63
Directory of C:\Windows\System32\drivers
06/21/2008 09:45 AM 3,695,616 atikmdag.sys
1 File(s) 3,695,616 bytes
Directory of C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\ati ilhag.inf_31a384
6f
11/02/2006 12:36 AM 2,028,032 atikmdag.sys
1 File(s) 2,028,032 bytes
Directory of C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\cl_ 57724.inf_6f98c9
31\B_57738
12/20/2007 08:55 PM 3,478,528 atikmdag.sys
1 File(s) 3,478,528 bytes
Directory of C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\cl_ 59347.inf_8d854a
29\B_58538
01/22/2008 02:39 PM 3,482,112 atikmdag.sys
Press any key to continue . . .
1 File(s) 3,482,112 bytes
Directory of C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\cl_ 65814.inf_24ceff
fa\B_65860
06/21/2008 09:45 AM 3,695,616 atikmdag.sys
1 File(s) 3,695,616 bytes
Directory of C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\cl_ 67980.inf_1216bc
11\B_67690
07/31/2008 11:40 PM 3,894,272 atikmdag.sys
1 File(s) 3,894,272 bytes
Directory of C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\cl_ 70229.inf_b3b9bd
90\B_71400
10/28/2008 08:11 PM 4,017,152 atikmdag.sys
1 File(s) 4,017,152 bytes


I have know idea what this means, but here is the stuff that you were looking for Rat. I am still able to play the Witcher, however I am not trying any other games at the moment because I just want to finish the witcher and then figure out this atikmdag crap.