Vista and 7.3 Display driver atikmdag stopped responding error

evilid

I meant VRMs (Voltage Regulator Modules) and RAMs on the video card.
If these get hot, the card becomes unstable.

SV110MHH

What do I use to get that info?

evilid

4870 has a diode sensor on VRM area, but unfortunately 4850 doesn't.
So if you have 4870, you can use Everest or GPU-Z to monitor.
However, if you have 4850, you don't have many options other than putting an aftermarket cooler with large and efficient sinks on VRMs and RAMs.
Accelero S1 with turbo module and Zalman sinks will cost you about $50 total, so it could be worth to try before abandoning the video card IMHO.

The.Rat

Well in an interesting development I've managed to confuse myself totally with the atikmdag errors in Event Viewer. Until now, it was only when I played a video file (any type at all) that I got a series of 16 atikmdag errors in Event Viewer. Today I went to play a FLAC encoded music file but found I had no suitable codec. i found a freeware codec for Windows Media Player and installed it. It worked perfectly, however everytime I open windows media player and play the FLAC audio file I get the series of 16 atikmdag errors. This does not happen i I play mp3 music files.

I have no idea why playing a FLAC encoded audio file in media player would have any bearing on my video drivers. I tried even using WMP with visualization turned off but made no difference.

Becoming more confusing

CATALYSTCATCHER

It could be VISTAs DRM checking routine that is somehow triggering the TDRs. That is just a guess, probably influenced by my opinion of DRM. :-) But Video and audio can be protected against copying and Vista does do checking. Sounds reasonable to me that the dual display TDR may also be triggered in the same way because there are 2 displays to be monitored and 2 takes longer than 1.

But I am guessing.

The.Rat

And I suppose there isn't any way to disable that DRM checking to see if that's the case?

EDIT: Just a thought. Is it possible that ATI could patch the drivers so that they ignore the DRM checking?

CATALYSTCATCHER

Uhhhh, :-) just imagine how M$ and the DRM czars in Hollywood would react. I envision burning at the stake, or perhaps crucifiction. :-)

I am sure that in the developer / debug world they would do just that to isolate problems but that kind of capability would never be released into the wild as it is a blatant violation of the rules.

However, the more I think about DRM the more I realize that at least part of the chain does extend out to the display. Therefore it seems possible that intimate connections with the display must be monitored by the system. So it then seems possible that if there are issues at the display<>graphics card communication level they may lead to black screens OR TDRs.

That is a lot of IFs with NO PROOF, just PURE SPECULATION on my part!
But you come up with a theory first and then prove or disprove the theory. You know, the scientific method rather than the SWAG approach like we see many times in the forums.

SWAG typical forum example: OP says the game crashes and gives very little detail. Then a bunch of replys occur and say Blah drivers suc, did you uninstall first, or the PSU is too small or you are overheating, all without any clues from the OP. :-) Sorry, it's the result of constantly being told we are idiots. aka shell shock, battle fatigue. :-) Well we might be, but we are very very experienced graphics card idiots:-)

CATALYSTCATCHER

DUDE. You have made a VERY IMPORTANT POINT. Thank you.

Overheating VRMs are an extremely likely possibility for causing problems. Paricularly when the stock coolers are removed and an aftermarket cooling solution is installed. The stock coolers while allowing a hotter running GPU, they were designed to keep a proper balance between the temps of the VRM, GPU and memory.

The VRMs MUST be cooled when any OCing occurs. WHY? When you overclock the POWER REQUIREMENTS of the GPU go up very quickly. Thats where all the additional heat comes from. If only the GPU is cooled the temperature on the VRMs will very quickly sky rocket and effectively shut everything down. There is no point cooling the engine if the supercharger overheats and destroys itself.

Cooling must be a comprehensive solution.

So, if 3rd party cooling is being applied the VRMS and memory MUST also be cooled.

Esteban2k

Ok Posting that again cause i don't think many people read my earlier post :

From my actual computer state since 1 month+ my TDRs are -------> FIXED <------
after 3 years of Headache and Money spent in like X motherboard/ram/Cpu/Ati Graphics cards.

So please check that (for yourself) :

1.If you have a lot of TDR :

- Check your Graphics card temps ( GPU , Memory , Vrms) AND/OR
- Check your Memory Sticks ( Ram stick Corrupted) AND/OR
- Check your Power Supply is Powerful Enough to supply all your computer AND/OR
- Remove All your Overclocking.

After that you should not have any spamming TDRs occuring , but if like me you still have some totally random TDRs in long period time ( like 2 weeks without TDRs then coming back...)

- Check if you re using a old Screen Monitor ( like i had a pretty OLD LCD 17") and remove it , take an other screen for test or buy a new one or whatever i don t know from where it comes (maybe in HDCP chains management with driver trying to occurs on what screen your graphics card is connected or what ( since i saw some having instant problem trying to read DRMed movie)) but removing that screen had finished to cure ALL my TDRs i never got one more since. So change your fucking damn screen (i don t know when a screen can be called : "old" ) i hope you will thanks me for life

and IF it s still doing it after then.... no i don t think it can be still TDRs after i m sure it s Computer part Failure or Monitor Screen related.

And please if you manage to not have anymore TDR with that report it for others ppl
thannnk youuuuuuuu

evilid

I have seen several posts where people describe that their stock cooler was not making a proper contact with either VRM and RAM.
If you happen to have this kind of card, you get higher temperature on your VRM and RAM which in turn can induce instabilities.

The.Rat

yes sorry I should not have mentioned disabling DRM and realised that after I posted tho when I added the edit I obviously didn't explain myself clearly enough.

The point I was trying to make was that "IF" DRM is a cause of the TDR's then is it possible to release a beta set of drivers for testing that does not produce the EventID 52236 events in Event Viewer when triggered by a DRM event. Instead let Vista do it's own thing as far as DRM is concerned.

I hope that's more clear.

I just don't understand why video drivers would be triggering these errors (if indeed they are DRM related) rather than Vista itself. My understanding is that if Vista detects a copyright video/music file/stream/feed and doesn't find the necessary certificate then it won't play or record it. I may be wrong tho.

I watch a lot of live video which is DRM protected through my ISP as part of the package I pay every month. I still get the errors in Event Viewer in fact I get the errors every time I watch any form of video including live free-to-air TV and recordings.

If I don't watch any video at all or play any FLAC audio files then I don't get any TRD errors.

I have no idae how I could prove the DRM theory tho.

cheers

The.Rat

Just an update. Today I downloaded and installed 3DMark06 and ran it a few times. To my surprise I found that it never at any stage generated a single TDR error. That suggests (for me anyway) that my TDR errors are purely 2D related and not 3D related. Running any form of video, be it file or live TV (I have 4 TV tuners installed) or playing a FLAC music file generated an instantaneous TDR error in Event Viewer.

None of my system is overclocked. Everest reports temps as normal for my system (even tho ambient temp is ~30 C here in Oz). Memtest show no errors after several hours, so it seems everything is running as it should.

If it wasn't for the fact that my Event Viewer is filled with about 7000 TDR errors I would never know I had a problem (that's if I do in fact even have a problem). I don't get any BSOD or video glitches.

It's starting to point to DRM being a more likely possible culprit.

cheers

JCKSON79

So I have sold my video card and I am now using onboard. It was a fun experience switching back to onboard. My monitor did not want to stay powered on so I got pissed at one point and just manually shut off my PC because I got sick of it shutting off. Don't ever do this with Vista! I screwed up my boot sector and spent all day and night doing recovery on my computer. Luckily I managed to save all of my files. Unfortunately I had to reinstall all of my games and programs. Anyways, I may try a different video card at sometime I have the $ out away to build a new system but I have told hold on to it because of the tough times we live in.

Today a friend of mine gave me another stick of RAM and I hear that Vista 32 will only recognize 2GB. Has anyone got it to recognize 3GB, please let me know. Thanx.

The.Rat

Yes vista32 will automatically recognize 3gig of RAM. No problem at all. It won't recognize 4gig or more tho. I have 4gig installed with Vista 32 Business and it only recognizes 3.4gigs.

cheers

JCKSON79

Yeah but Ihave installed it and I know that it is the right kind, but for some reason it shows that I have just under 2GB (1918 MB). What the heck Vista?

SV110MHH

Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

That link is the Newegg images link for the card I have..... is there something that the fan on here is NOT covering?

The.Rat

There are some things you can do.

1. Check the motherboard manual to make sure you have the RAM sticks in the right slots.
2. Try changing the RAM sticks around eg. boot with one stick at a time to ensure your motherboard doesn't have any incompatibility problems with each RAM. Plus swap the RAM sticks around on the board. Try different slots on the board.
3. check what the motherboard BIOS displays on your monitor during the POST process. This will tell you if the motherboard is detecting it correctly.
4. Run Memtest on each RAM module to ensure none are faulty.
5. If you have Dual Channel memory enabled in BIOS, change to single channel.

cheers

sparkies

Hi,

thanks to everyone, especially Ruud Ketelaars who wrote the mobility modder. I now appear to have a system that runs smoothly without any TDR, BSOD, lockups etc.

My system is a ASUS F3Sa-008G laptop with T7700, 4GB, Mobiliy Radeon 2600 HD, dual screen, Vista/32, Aero on.
Cheers,
Sparkies

E-D@N

Actually the latest DNA'a 8.11 are working even greater then VisionTek drivers...

also... i've took the new 8.12 for a spin.. at first it was a big mess, nothing worked, TDRs and crashes all over the place...

i didn't gave up,,, uninstalled them, did an advanced driver cleaning... and then reinstalled them again... and now they are working better...

(BTW... have u guys ever tried advanced cleaning method before installing new drivers? something like driver sweeper? u can also use the DNA's batch file to remove the drivers with the reg and all..)

anyway, i'm getting back to DNA's drivers now - i don't know why, but my PC is more stable with them...

Good luck guys!

evilid

This Palit version is the worst of all.
You can see 8 RAMs just beneath the golden cooler.
They are naked.
Also, you can see the 8 small black chips on the left side of the card which are VRMs.
They are naked too.

OldBuzzard

You said that you removed your vid card and are now using the onboard video.

Onboard video uses part of your system RAM. You can look in the BIOS to see, and adjust, just how much RAM is dedicated to the onboard video.

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

rychas

8.12 still crash my system, with no dual monitor and no Aero.

It mostly occurs while using OpenGL applications. I'm desperate

SV110MHH

Even though I STILL don't believe this is an overheating issue (most of my TDRs in EVE Online come from when I am messing with the right click menus.)

Which 4850 do you suggest?

evilid

I always recommend His IceQ version.
HIS HD 4850 IceQ 4 512MB GDDR3 PCIe < HD 4800 Series < Desktop Graphics < Products | HIS Graphic Cards
It has a huge copper base plate that covers RAMs and GPU.
As far as I know, nothing beats His IceQ in terms of cooling.

The price isn't bad either.
Newegg.com - HIS Hightech H485QT512P Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported IceQ4 Turbo Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

If you're going to keep the origlnal cooler, this is the best IMHO.

However, as I said, if you get a lemon where the cooler doesn't make proper contacts with the components, you are out of luck.
You will get instability.

Zaltys

Found the trigger for my TDRs - Dual monitors. Take the 2nd monitor off and I can enable Aero and be completely TDR free. My two monitors are dissimilar - 1) 1680x1050 2) 1024x768. Same refresh rate though.

I find this interesting when considered in regard to this blog post (Putting perspective on the “30% of Vista crashes caused by nVIDIA” reports | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com) I found from a guy at Ziff Davis, where he claims to provide debugging information to some people at Microsoft, and they tell him to use same size monitors and it was a "vertical sync issue":

"Note: In case you’re wondering, here’s how we fixed the problematic systems … after talking to a few people at Microsoft (and handing them some debug information) we came to the conclusion that the problem came down to a vertical sync issue. Both systems ran dual screens and these screens were of a different size and running at different screen resolutions and so I took a stab at solving the problem by fitting identical monitors on the systems. It worked! Problem solved."

He mentions in an earlier post (Serious ATI bug makes Vista virtually unusable for some | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com) that his systems use ATI graphics cards, despite the title of his second post.

I note also quite a few people in this thread have found that matching their two monitors (resolution & refresh rate) exactly fixed the issue for them.

According to that blog post, atleast "a few people at Microsoft" know that a dissimilar dual monitor setup can trigger TDRs. I can't find it documented anywhere from Microsoft/ATI that I can't use dissimilar monitors. It almost makes me suspect that Microsoft is aware of the issue, but has judged it too rare a setup / too hard to fix. Anybody know anything about this particular "vertical sync issue" he mentions?

Also, anybody know what the "enhancement" quoted below in Vista SP2 Beta actually is?? Sounds like marketing b/s for lots of bug fixes to me.

From (Notable Changes in Windows Server 2008 SP2 Beta and Windows Vista SP2 Beta):
"Adds new capabilities to Direct X Graphic display reliability. The graphics experience has been greatly improved for users, such as gamers, running applications that require a lot of graphics processing."

The_Azor

Hey, I dnt know wht I did, but my TDR´s and BSOD´s are completely gone. and I mean COMPLETELY. I had problems for over 3 months with my sapphire HD4850. I had installed cat 8.11 before and didnt fix anything, but then I rolled back to 8.10 because it was more stable, even if it didn´t fix the problem. The thing is, I grew weary of all the fixes so I rolled any system changes I did and installed 8.11 again to show my part retailer what was happening so I could get a RMA. the thing is, after doing thet and actually trying to poke the PC into a TDR, I COULD NOT !!! COMPLETELY ERROR FREE !!! this is unbelievable, and leaves me with no answer at all as to what could have been the change that got rid of the errors.....completely clueless.

I have one theory so far. Many people said the TDRs were generated by a bad relationship between display drivers and vista. maybe M$ fixed something through windws update (which I re-enabled when i rolled back all changes) and now the TDRs dont happen when 8.11 because it was a vista problem...is this possible?

eisfeld

As I had this problem for a long time I thought I have to share my experience with this error with you. Well, it first came up after I upgraded my card from a x1950 to a hd4870. I also upgraded from XP to Vista before and my x1950 had no problems. When I installed the hd4870 the error occured frequently (mostly about 5-10 seconds in games). So I switched back to XP and guess what, same error here.

I tried all the fixes, bought a new mainboard and a new cpu but the error was still there. After my PSU got tested by a tech (everything ok) I decided to ask in a german tech forum, and a guy requested a system log generated by the freeware program SiSoftwareSandra Lite. I downloaded the program and ran various benchmark tests (all which have to do with Memory, CPU and Graphics Adapter). I restarted my computer afterwards and reset my bios settings to default (had done this before and it did not stop the error). When I decided to test various games one last time the error was gone, completely!

Now I'm running my system for about 3 weeks without a single error. Well, till today... I decided to upgrade to Vista once again to experience dx10 effects. And the error is back. I once again ran the benchmark tests with SiSoftware Sandra Lite and I have reset my Bios settings and the error is gone again.

I just don't know how fully stressing out my hardware (via the benchmark tests) and resetting bios settings afterwards can resolve such a problem, but it worked again. Furthermore, I don't know if resetting the bios settings is necessary. Maybe someone can try it and see if it works on other systems as well.

my configuration:
AMD Athlon X2 6000+
3 GB Corsair MX2 800 mhz Ram
Sapphire Radeon HD4870
Sapphire Pure 780 G Mainboard

cheers eisfeld

Vimto87

Firstly, just for information, i think that out of everyone who posts here i probably know the least about this problem.
Just scanned through the 47 pages, trying to get to grips with the problem (learned a lot of stuff btw).

I have this problem but only and exclusively when i plug in my second monitor (sony bravia 32') to extend my desktop from my (22' stock Dell monitor).

So unlike most other people its not essential, but very annoying. Does the consensus suggest that it is a problem with overheating? And if so how to a solve it?

This thread is the first google response. So i think an administrative summary would be very nice.

grog

I think we have a mixed bag of issues here.

TDR or Not TDR
Some reports are not TDR specific.

For this to be the TDR specific issue it must either show the dialog message:



Or the event viewer will have the following warning:
Timeout Detection and Recovery of GPUs through WDDM

All other issues are not TDR specific.

Dual Monitors
It does appear that using multiple monitors can cause a TDR to occur for some. In my testing I found that having two displays does have an effect on the system.

With a second display connected using HDMI I was not able to reach the same overclock level on my 4850 as I can with only one display connected.

Granted I had to overclock to cause a TDR issue but this test does show the impact dual displays have on TDR. Maybe if I had an older CRT laying around the results would have been more sensitive.

Heat - Air-Flow
Overclocking is easy way to see a TDR message. If you overclock your card to far then you will see it.

One issue with the 4850 series is the inability to see the VRM and memory temperatures. We can use CCC or GPU-Z to see the GPU temperatures but the VRM diode does not exist on the 4850. Oh.. the 4870 does have the VRM diode so we can see the VRM values on that card.

Still the issue of heat is more of air-flow.
My ASUS 4850 for example uses a Glaciator FanSink which does not have heatsinks on the VRM or memory. Instead air is passed over the VRM area. This works very well and keeps the VRM temperatures in check.

Newegg.com - ASUS EAH4850 TOP/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

In cases where a good heatsink is used on the VRM and memory air flow must still be maintained. Many 3rdParty cooling solutions do not include VRM and memory protection in the form of headsinks. Still, as long as good air-flow is achived across the VRM and memory the card should be fine at stock settings.

I have seen a few pictures of 4800 series cards mounted in cases where you could see no path for air flow at all.

A good case with good air-flow is required for stable operation.

Power-Supply
Another cause of TDR's can be lack of good clean power.

Laptops
I don't know how many have noticed. A great number of TDR reports are from those using laptops. So the Mobiliy Radeon 2600 appears to have the same issue as the 4850 and 4870's. In many of these cases we are still seeing dual monitors being used, just with a laptop!

User Data
Most who are posting issues have very little data in their sigs or the posts on their system.

Increasing the TdrDealy has been addressed in this thread but I have no idea if this method has helped anyone or if those who have problems have tried it or not.


Timeout Detection and Recovery of GPUs through WDDM

__________________
Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW 24" LCD
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ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe/WiFi BIOS 1406, AMD Phenom 9600 Agena 2.3GHz, G.SKILL 8GB(4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 (PC2 6400)
ASUS EAH4850 TOP/HTDI/512M PCI Express 2.0
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro Sound Card, 1TB Hard Disk storage
Thermaltake Tai-Chi VB5001SNA Black/ Silver Computer Case with liquid cooling
AeroCool GateWatch-SV Silver GateWatch with LCD display, PC Power & Cooling 510 SLI-PFC 510W
APC Back-UPS XS 1000 UPS, 1000 VA, 600 Watts
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VM's (Fedora, RHEL4..etc)
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Vimto87

ok