This FAQ will attempt to help many people with their ATIKMDAG errors and ideally educate them on what they are and are not caused by. Firstly I feel I must explain TDR.

 

However, Before you post or read this FAQ hoping for help0 ask yorself the following questions:

-Do I run a version of windows vista or Win 7?

-Do I see a message pop up or appear in my error log that states "such and such display driver has stopped responding and was recovered"?

-Do these crashes seem to appear with no dirrect cause (i.e. i do something differently every time they happen)

If you answered Yes to ALL of these three questions continue on, if you answered No then you probalby have another issue that more than likely revolves around hardware. If you are unsue then by all means read on.

 

Q: What is TDR?

A: TDR (Timeout Detection and Recovery) is a windows vista and windows 7 feature. Its purpose is to detect when the GPU stops responding, disable it and reinitialize it without the need to exit windows or reboot.

Q: What does TDR have to do with atikmdag?

A: A TDR event is reported to the end user by a notification bubble. This bubble will indicate "The display driver [insert name here] has stopped responding as was recovered." The driver name for all ATI systems is atikmdag, for NVIDIA users the same error will be reported but with the driver name nvlddmkm.sys. Atikmdag will also appear in the event viewer log under the warning associated with the TDR event.

Q: What causes TDR to trigger an event?

A: This is a very complicated question. The events can be due to almost anything in your system hardware or software. This has caused much confusion, as the same error is a symptom for everything from bad memory to a software fault.

The following hardware issues are examples that can cause a TDR event:

- Failing overclock on CPU or GPU

- Bad sector in memory resulting in corrupt data being communicated between GPU and the system (either video or system memory)

- Corrupt hard drive/windows install resulting in corruption to the system registry or the page file

- Over heating of GPU or CPU again resulting in corrupt data being communicated.

- GPU failure due to any sort of issue from insufficient power(VERY common) to heat.

The following software issues are examples that can cause a TDR event:

-Incompatible drivers of any sort (either GPU, sound, etc)

-Messy registry

-Known vista issues resounding around multiple displays, aero, dreamscape, and various display drivers.

-Known vista issues that sometimes cause corrupt information to be sent to the video card from system memory (will be addressed completely in SP2, has had various fixes applied since vista's release)

-Bad direct x files

-bad system files

-Bad driver (some drivers will cause an event due to internal bugs, however these are not nearly as common as many think due to all of the previous things causing the same symptom)

Q: How do I fix my TDR events?

A: This entirely depends on what is causing the event. As one can see there are almost limitless causes. First you must determine if the issue is hardware or software related, which can be quite a headache.

Some fixes work for some users, some do not. The following links will contain fixes that may or may not work for you.

http://www.driverheaven.net/vista-radeon-display-drivers/133188-vista-7-3-display-driver-atikmdag-stopped-responding-error.html

http://www.repairyourpcnow.com/resources/atikmdag-has-stopped-responding.php

These links provide information on registry edits, hot fixes, and other tricks to attempt to resolve the software TDR events. Software events generally will occur when the system is idle and will be very random. Hardware events may also occur at idle but some will only occur at load.

If you find you must figure out if your TDR is hardware related the following tips can help you troubleshoot.

-          Ensure nothing is overheating; refer to the documentation and the web for what is an acceptable temperature for the GPU or the CPU.

-          Ensure your power supply meets the minimum requirements of your system with some headroom. An overclocked crossfire setup will require at least 700W of good quality (good brand) power.

-          Run Memtest (windows Vista has an integrated test on the CD to test memory, or download memtest86+)

-          The sure fire way to check for hardware issues is to stress components under a different environment. Either in a friends PC or under windows XP. If something is wrong with the hardware, xp will crash to a BSOD where you previously had a TDR event.

Q: Why shouldn’t I just buy NVIDIA instead to solve my problem?

A: I am not in the business of recommending brands. It must be understood though that TDR events are common under any graphics adapter in vista. There are some events that are honestly caused by drivers, and perhaps a new GPU will fix that, but many many many more are not, and you will find your money wasted very quickly if you do not check to find the root cause of the issue.

Q: Do new drivers cause TDR events?

A: Yes, they can bring about new bugs that trigger TDR, this is common in all graphics manufacturers drivers, and bugs appear from time to time. New drivers that utilise more system resources also tend to bring to the forefront issues that you may not have noticed before with other software or hardware. Some drivers also do not play nice with each other; this was common with old creative drivers and the 7 series CCC drivers causing many TDR events.

 

That is all for now, some general tips to try to reduce your TDR events, should they not be related to your hardware are:

-          Clean your registry with something like Norton’s 360 (not free) or ccleaner (free).

-          When updating drivers do so only when the new drivers offer something you wish to utilize. If you are using a device that is more than a year or two older than the drivers chances are you will find the newest drivers cause more problems than they solve. Stick with what works

-          Ensure everything in your system (chipset, sound, windows updates, etc) are up to date. This may seem like it is the opposite of the previous post but for almost every component drivers are made for the particular device.. whereas a GPU driver release may cover 50 devices in one shot.

-          Disable aero if you do not need or want it

-          Only use one monitor when applicable. That is to say if you are playing a game and don’t need the second monitor on, create a profile to disable it while full screen programs are running and the other monitor is not being used.

 Some links to vista hotfixes that may help (Special thanks to danjread for the links):

 

• KB933590 Hotfix (display flickers and become corrupted on a Windows Vista-based computer that is connected to more than one monitor)
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933590
• KB935878 Hotfix (resolves enhanced video renderer (EVR) sends the EC_DISPLAY_CHANGED event when you play a video stream in Windows Vista)
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935878
• KB938194 Hotfix (Vista reliability update)
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938194
• KBKB940105 Hotfix (resolves potential Graphics Virtual Address problems that may occur when running Windows Vista)
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105
• KB940199 Hotfix (resolves an issue where an error message is displayed when installing a new hardware device on a system running Windows Vista)
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940199
• KB945149 Hotfix (improves the graphics performance for multiple Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) scenarios on a system running Windows Vista)
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945149
• KB948473 Hotfix (resolves WHQL test does not finish successfully on a Windows Vista-based computer that has multiple display adapters in an LDA configuration)
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948473
• KB952709 Hotfix (Vista performance and reliability update)
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952709
• KB953026 Hotfix (resolves an issue where Dxgkrnl.sys may crash your windows-based operating system)
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953026
• Hotfix KB953186 (resolves certain system and application crashes on computers that have multi-core processors)
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953186
• Hotfix KB955302 (Vista performance & reliability update)
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955302 
• Hotfix KB956756 (A graphics card is not removed from the display settings on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista SP1 if you unplug the card while the computer is asleep or in hibernation)
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956756
• Hotfix KB957463 (fix computer that has an integrated graphics adapter and a discrete graphics adapter)
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957463
• Full DirectX:
      http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=886ACB56-C91A-4A8E-8BB8-9F20F1244A8E&displaylang=en

   

   

  Feel free to ask questions, add more links or information and so on.

  Please do not spout ignorant jargon in this post. I would like it to remain clean. If you honestly want help then more power to you, but if you are here to denounce how the problem is so bad and to buy this brand over this brand then I care not to help you out as you clearly do not understand the issue at hand.

   

  -Cheers

   EDIT: There are a lot of people posting about a BSOD linked to ATIKMDAG.sys. Please note that a BSOD error with that driver file mentioned does NOT mean it is at all linked to the TDR events if it occurs without any TDR loggings before or during the lockup.

   

   

   

 

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CPU: Q9550 at 3.6ghz (FSB 425mhz) | MB: P5E3 Premium | Ram: 4*2Gb Corsair DDR3 @1417mhz (FSB:DRAM = 3:5) | GPU: 2 HD4890 1Gb (925core/1025mem) in Crossfire | PSU: OCZ ELiteXtreme 800W | Sound: Creative Titanium Fatal1ty Pro | 2*120gb OCZ Vertex SSD Raid0 Primary | 2*500GB Raid0 storage| BD-RW | DVD-RW | Case/Cooling: CM HAF + V8 | OS: Vista Ultimate 64 | CCC 9.4

Edited: 06/30/2009 at 12:58 PM by Daedalus685

thanks, its nice to read an explantation thats in plain speak, i am not a pc guru so thanks.

i have had to return my pc to the people i bought it from twice now( i havent had it back yet) all due to this problem, i checked temperatures when i could ( ccc stopped opening) and after a few bsod from this i tried to update the drivers and it failed, after that the device manager kept turning the 1x gpu off, so i couldnt use the card at all!!!

i only posted to ask do you know what device managers "error 43"and "error 14" are? they were the last thing i got to read before even that stopped working, i belive its ahrdware causing my problems, as since my oc started being built the people i bought it from ( computerplanet) blew up 3 psu's , 1 x 4870 x2 before i even got it, since then they have replaced 1x hdd and 1x 4870 x2, and now they are going to have to replace another 4870 x2? it all seems odd to me? but hey im not a whizz,

ill buy a mac instead(kidding!!!)

any help would be appreciated and thanks for the explanation the one on amds website is sh*te

Error 14 is a required restart before the particular device will function.

Error 43 is windows has be notified by the driver the device is at fault.

 

The first is fine and means the system has changed, normal thing to happen. Error 43 indicates the drivers are corrupt or something is actually wrong with the device (not connected propperly, insufficient power, actually broken etc..)

 

The people you pay to build your computer shoudl know these things.. I can tell you after all those problems I wouldnt trust them with my PC.. but I wish you the best of luck.

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CPU: Q9550 at 3.6ghz (FSB 425mhz) | MB: P5E3 Premium | Ram: 4*2Gb Corsair DDR3 @1417mhz (FSB:DRAM = 3:5) | GPU: 2 HD4890 1Gb (925core/1025mem) in Crossfire | PSU: OCZ ELiteXtreme 800W | Sound: Creative Titanium Fatal1ty Pro | 2*120gb OCZ Vertex SSD Raid0 Primary | 2*500GB Raid0 storage| BD-RW | DVD-RW | Case/Cooling: CM HAF + V8 | OS: Vista Ultimate 64 | CCC 9.4

Dude the system has blown up 2 4870x2 & a HDD yeah something is very wrong. Most likely they are using cheap power supply or under rated power supply & if they are doing that then the MB is most likely on the cheaper side as well. I work at a computer store & build gaming PC's every day & we have never had those problems ever that is truely sad on their part. when I build a system with a 4870x2 in it I use at least a 700Watt power supply & something with a good brand name.

When I bought my first system, I went through Cyberpower. The computer seemed fine when I got it. But as I got to know the Beast, it became a monster. After deciding to replace the PSU, Case and MOBO, I noticed that Cyberpower did not even use a grounding plate on the motherboard they installed. The water cooler i was using, didnt have long enough bolts to allow the plate to be installed, so they just left it off!!

I would never trust ANYONE else with my computer unless I know who they are first. You just never know if you dont build it yourself. And building it yourself isnt as simple as buying the parts and plugging them in.

Major props to Daedalus for this post, many people are never aware simply because they trust the builder. (Sounds familiar on another level)

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AMD Phenom @ 2.4ghz; Thermaltake V1 Air Cooler; 4GB Ballistix Tracer; 3870HD XFired; M3A32-MVP Deluxe; SB-Xfi Fatal1ty; Antec 900 Case; Antec True-Power 650

First of all, thanks for this topic. It'd be nice if there were one solution for this problem, but for now it's at least nice knowing that there's not one solution. In a perverse way that makes it better than what I have been seeing before (like a thread on some other forum that said if you see that error once to return your card -- I don't want to be without a card for weeks if that's not the problem!)

I have had this problem since I built my computerm but it hadn't, until recently, really given me much trouble. (Unfortunately I also hadn't, until recently been using this computer as a primary computer, so I don't know if it wasn't happening or if I didn't notice!) My question is this: is there a difference between the screen going black and the computer crashing? In other words, sometimes my computer recovers from the driver error, and other times the computer completely crashes and reboots (no blue screen though). Is there a difference between these two events, or are they both a symptom of the TDR triggering?

Thanks in advance

-------------------------

Biostar TA770 | AMD 5000+ @ 3.00Ghz w/ AC MX-2 & Xigmatek HDT-D1264 | OCZ 2x2GB DDR2 800 | Powercolor HD3850 512MB | Antec BP550 Plus 550W | Excelstor  80 GB / WD 400 GB (7200 RPM, SATAII) | CD: HP DVD±R w/ Light Scribe (IDE) | Vista 64 Home Premium

THere can be a idfference between the screen going black and "crashing"

 

For example: In crysis if TDR triggers teh program will not be able to reinitialize after the driver is recovered. This will appear as a black screen, windows is however still running and if you are patient you can manage to close teh non responsive program and continue with your session.

Now, if the screen goes black and there is absolutely no response and no blue screen it could be the program again being unable to respond to the TDR but in a more severe way. It would in this case be hard to tell what went wrong unless when you reboot you can see a log in teh event viewer.

Also, it is hard to tell if the display adapter crashes if windows is still runningunless you can make it make some sort of sound.

TDR can cause blue screens, it can cause crashes but the crashes are 99% of the time due to a program bugging out because it cant handle the TRD.

I hope tha thelps.

 

-------------------------

CPU: Q9550 at 3.6ghz (FSB 425mhz) | MB: P5E3 Premium | Ram: 4*2Gb Corsair DDR3 @1417mhz (FSB:DRAM = 3:5) | GPU: 2 HD4890 1Gb (925core/1025mem) in Crossfire | PSU: OCZ ELiteXtreme 800W | Sound: Creative Titanium Fatal1ty Pro | 2*120gb OCZ Vertex SSD Raid0 Primary | 2*500GB Raid0 storage| BD-RW | DVD-RW | Case/Cooling: CM HAF + V8 | OS: Vista Ultimate 64 | CCC 9.4

That does help, actually, thanks again. That doesn't give me the answer, but I'm a little closer

Like I said before, I didn't notice the crashing until recently, so I'm trying to systematically narrow down the programs I'm using to see if it's one of those.

PS: I see all the new links above! A couple of those seem promising...

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Biostar TA770 | AMD 5000+ @ 3.00Ghz w/ AC MX-2 & Xigmatek HDT-D1264 | OCZ 2x2GB DDR2 800 | Powercolor HD3850 512MB | Antec BP550 Plus 550W | Excelstor  80 GB / WD 400 GB (7200 RPM, SATAII) | CD: HP DVD±R w/ Light Scribe (IDE) | Vista 64 Home Premium

I dont recommend anybody do this but it has solved all ATIK errors I had, I installed Vista sp2 and everything seems to fine now.  Almost 3 full days with no errors.

Thanks for that.

I know my hardware is perfect as it runs on xp 100% without fail. I spent way to much time trying to get the drivers working under vista 64 & 32 and also server 2008.

All complete failures, the best i could achiieve was 45 mins of stable run time, even with all the patches and disabling the ati event  service.

Every install was a fresh format and install. So i fail to see how a registry clean would help me. I only ever use one monitor, 19" at that... 

The drivers from ati need a rewrite, or seperation from older series devices, as unified drivers do not always work, and HP has proven this with their unified printer driver design, in general they work but quite often enough the drivers will fail or have slight incompatibilities and the one component will cause another to fail.

I would suspect approx 80% of people complaining are actually having software issues, but then again it never hurts to check hardware.

Please don't ask for help without detailed system specs.. Forum 101 there..

Vaal, you don't even say when the error happens. Is it at desktop, is it during gameplay?

The vast vast majority of desktop TDR's are software...  mostly due to vista incompatibilities here or there.

Obviosuly if you have a fresh install of windows you dont need to clean your registry.. NONE of the tips are cures.. there are too many things that trigger TDR to post a "cure," registry cleaning helps a lot of people, including myself, who dont format every day.. What works for some does not for others because of how many differnet TDR triggers there are.

If you insist on posting here to discredit ati please stop.. If you actually want me to help you I need a lot more information about when the TDR is being triggered, your exact system specs and so on.

Yes, you are correct that most of the TDR events are not related to hardware directly, it is far more complicated than that most of the time. But those that are cuased by something as silly as a bad stick of RAM cannot be debugged using usual software techniques, thus the importance of ensuring you have no hardware issues. I understand they are frustrating but you ahve to realise how many things cause the TDR, hense the point of the FAQ.. Without a LOT of detail with reguard to your setup I can't hope to help you beyond what I already posted in the OP, I'm sorry those didnt help you but they help thousands of people who obviously have something else cauing their TDR events.

 

AS to SP2, I know of at least 50 bug in vista that can cause TDR to go awry. I know most if not all of these are being adddressed in SP2. SP2 should cure lamost all TDR events not caused directly by driver incompatibilities or errors and hardware.. Bear in mind it is still a beta

Please realise that a TDR event which mentions ATIKMDAG is NOT the same issue as the BSOD that occurs on 8.12 with some crossfire setups.

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CPU: Q9550 at 3.6ghz (FSB 425mhz) | MB: P5E3 Premium | Ram: 4*2Gb Corsair DDR3 @1417mhz (FSB:DRAM = 3:5) | GPU: 2 HD4890 1Gb (925core/1025mem) in Crossfire | PSU: OCZ ELiteXtreme 800W | Sound: Creative Titanium Fatal1ty Pro | 2*120gb OCZ Vertex SSD Raid0 Primary | 2*500GB Raid0 storage| BD-RW | DVD-RW | Case/Cooling: CM HAF + V8 | OS: Vista Ultimate 64 | CCC 9.4

Hi Guys, I had this ATIKMDAG.SYS problem for a while now.
As all people here, with the same problem, I went to google and searched.
All I found, was a total bull***t.

People were saying:
"... you have to uninstall/install this Vista update"
"... you have to uninstall/install old/new drivers"
"... you have to Disable AERO in vista"

And all sorts of useless things like that!

My story:
I was using 2 screens for ages, and was playing all games with no problem, but since ATI Catalyst Drivers 8.9 (or 8.10) I started to have this ATIKMDAG.SYS error only on OpenGL powered applications.

So for example Enemy Territory Quake Wars is not even playable anymore as it crashes at start with this ATIKMDAG.SYS thing. I paid for this game, was playing it until Drivers of version 8.9 or 8.10.
I am a programmer and I use OpenGL for my app. Development. And as my apps are not yet as complex as games like ETQW, I do get this error sometimes when Compiling->Running my apps.

I have my CPU and GPU over clocked since I got them, I have 2 Screens, and I am able to play any games (DirectX) for hours non stop and I never have any BSOD in Vista or DirectX games.
So everything is just perfect except OpenGL apps.

So why would ONLY OpenGL based apps have this ATIKMDAG.SYS error ?
Any ideas ?


-------------------------
MB: Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6
CPU: Phenom 9950 Black Box - 3.1 Ghz
Cooler: ASUS Silent Knight
Video: 2x MSI 3870 x2 (Each Core O.C. to 878/955 Mhz)
RAM: 4 GB OCZ Reaper PC-8500 (1066)
HDD: 74 GB WD Raptor (10.000 rpm) (16 mb Cash)
HDD: 2x 500 GB Segate (7.200 rpm) (32 mb Cash)
PSU: CoolerMaster - 1000W
Case: CoolerMaster Cosmos
Sound: X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty
DVD: 2x DVD Writers
OS(s): Vista Ultimate SP1 (64Bit)

those "useless things" you speak of actually work in some cases depending on what is causing the error, the vast majority of the origional TDR problems were with Aero and turnign it off helped many many people. In fact, the entire point of this post, other than to help people, is to let people earn that there is no one error, thousands of things can cause it which is why the internet is full of what you call "useless" tips. They are useless for what is causing your TDR issues but entirely solve it for others becuase the issues were caused by a totally different problem, jsut with the same symptom.

If only openGL is triggering your TDR events you probalby have a driver incompatability somewhere. Does it occur in all CCC releases? are other drivers (i.e. sound) up to date?

 

Some ati drivers have notoriously poor OpenGL support. If you have one that works, stick with it.

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CPU: Q9550 at 3.6ghz (FSB 425mhz) | MB: P5E3 Premium | Ram: 4*2Gb Corsair DDR3 @1417mhz (FSB:DRAM = 3:5) | GPU: 2 HD4890 1Gb (925core/1025mem) in Crossfire | PSU: OCZ ELiteXtreme 800W | Sound: Creative Titanium Fatal1ty Pro | 2*120gb OCZ Vertex SSD Raid0 Primary | 2*500GB Raid0 storage| BD-RW | DVD-RW | Case/Cooling: CM HAF + V8 | OS: Vista Ultimate 64 | CCC 9.4

guys i finaly found my fix if you have an asus mobo try setting your dram frequency to match your ram speed and check your ram manufacter for the apropriate dram voltage and set the acording to recomendations

please read your mobo manual to see how to do this

Sigh....

I hope everyone here knows how to set up RAM before they complain about problems

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CPU: Q9550 at 3.6ghz (FSB 425mhz) | MB: P5E3 Premium | Ram: 4*2Gb Corsair DDR3 @1417mhz (FSB:DRAM = 3:5) | GPU: 2 HD4890 1Gb (925core/1025mem) in Crossfire | PSU: OCZ ELiteXtreme 800W | Sound: Creative Titanium Fatal1ty Pro | 2*120gb OCZ Vertex SSD Raid0 Primary | 2*500GB Raid0 storage| BD-RW | DVD-RW | Case/Cooling: CM HAF + V8 | OS: Vista Ultimate 64 | CCC 9.4

thats why i said read the motherboard manual

One additional thing for Intel P35/P45 motherboard owners to investigate is their Matrix Storage Manager driver if they use the ICH6/7/8/9/10R storage controller in RAID or AHCI mode. On a hunch I installed a slightly older version (8.5.0.1032) and it seems the GPU driver crashes have ceased - even when overclocking in a dual-monitor setup. Other nagging system issues have disappeared and my system is actually more responsive as well.

 

I suspect the most recent Intel MSM driver may have been causing other devices on the PCI-E bus to hang - which led to my VPU recovery errors and various issues with my PCI-E sound card.

 

I know this won't apply to everyone, but for those with similar setups it's something to check out. If you can't find the 8.5.0.1032 driver try Gigabyte's support site and choose a P35/P45 board to find the driver. It's interesting that they have chosen to not post the most recent Intel driver. Perhaps their engineers noticed a problem with it.

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Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, CPU: Intel C2D e8400, GFX Card: Powercolor Radeon HD4870, RAM: 4GB Mushkin DDR2-800, OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 32-Bit

Edited: 12/23/2008 at 06:30 AM by SpacedOut

I'm getting a TDR blue screen every time windows boots. I just received a new computer with the following specs:

My system specs are as follows:

intel-i7 940

MSI x58 platinum crossfire mobo

12GB RAM

HIS Radeon HD4870 X2

Vista Ultimate x64

680W PSU

Acer P244w 24" Monitor (HDMI support)

 

At first glance of this forum, I thought it might've been a power supply issue because 680W seems low (now that I read all of these threads about the 4870x2), but I know that the 4870x2 can run with a 600W, and I'm not overclocking it.

 

I spoke with my PC distributor, and they seem to think that it's a hardware issue and are sending me a new card. The new card isn't coming in until 12/30, though, so I thought I would play around to see if maybe there is a software solution to the problem until then.

 

Currently, I can boot into safe mode, and if I disable my GPUs from there, I can boot into windows. I have booted into windows with my GPUs enabled about twice, but after 30 seconds or so the screen freezes, requiring a hard boot. After the hard boot, I get the same TDR blue screen.

 

I've tried rolling back drivers from 8.12 -> 8.6 (to uninstall drivers i use the ATI uninstallation function, boot into safe mode, driver sweep, boot, install new drivers, final boot), none of which have worked. I've tried reseating the video card and disabling all other PCI cards I have inserted, both of which have failed.

 

I'll be running a memtest when I get home this evening to ensure that my RAM is ok. I've looked at and tried most of the other things on this thread. Do you have any other information?

*edit* I ran the memtest and passed 100%. I did notice however that my IOH temp was listed at 67 degrees C in the bios. My system temp and CPU temp were normal, though. Should I be concerned about this temp?

Thanks a lot for this thread, it has been quite helpful.

Aaron

 

*edit* I believe I understand the cause of my blue screen.  I tried to set my display resolution at 1900x1200 the few times windows booted normally.  After disabling aero, windows booted normally again, and I was finally able to open my CCC, which did not list 1900x1200 has a viable resolution, but rather listed 1900x1080.  My resolution is now set at 1900x1080 and I know longer get the bsod.  I do now get, however, a black screen after about a minute or so of windows loading.  The screen goes black, but I  do not have a "no signal lost" on my monitor.  I'm using ccc 8.12, and I think I'm going to try 8.11.

 

Edited: 12/23/2008 at 09:17 PM by aarongrav

I've these kind of problems. Seems related to Vista Aero features. Without Aero no problem occur at all. But this is an huge problem beacause in an htpc oriented Vista install evr renderer work fine only with Aero active.

Imho the disable Aero tips can't be an good choice.

Waiting and hoping for Vista SP2 or a new ati driver fix it.

I've been having TDR issues since I bought my HD 4850 about 2 months ago.

I have a bit different problem than the other ppl posting here and only on Windows Vista/Windows 7, XP works flawlessly. No problem with gaming, everything works fine. No problem with the desktop or Aero, they also work without problems.

My issue is with video files, especially HD resolution files. When playing them random TDR BSoD crashes occure pointing out atikmdag.sys (the kernel module in the display driver) as the faulty component. Sometimes right after the playback has been started, sometimes after 5-30 minutes but it crashes eventually. Successful recovery is extremely rare but happens.

Video editing is a nightmare, even seekeing in the files (slider dragging with the mouse, HD res files!) in Virtualdub causes my mouse cursor to become extra large sometimes with semi transparent box around it, then comes the known BSoD.

I've been investigating this bug for a while now and here are my results:

No faulty hardware is present in my system as I've tested every component and also Windows XP is not affected at all.

None of the above (in the first post) mentioned registry tweaks, windows updates, RAM replacement etc. helped for me but now I know the source of the problem. First I tried installing XP drivers insted of Vista drivers for testing and it worked, video files fixed, Aero, DX10 lost. Unacceptable.

As I'm using a dual-core CPU, I tried switching one core off completely. That can be achieved via msconfig. It worked, everything has become stable, I was able to watch and edit my files with Vista drivers and Aero and no crash occured at all. But I lost one CPU core, this is also unacceptable.

Worth mentioning, that the problem is caused by the video preview windows themselves, and only if they use DirectX. Switching the output to OpenGL in VirtualDub or in players that support it (like VLC) alo works, but ever tried playing a 1920x1080 resolution h264 video on OpenGL? Very choppy, useless, good for testing purposes only unless you have an extreme CPU.

All in all: the video rendering via DirectX has some multithreading issues that need to be fixed at driver level. I hope that the upcoming 9.1 driver will contain that fix as I reported the bug to ATI about 10 times in the last few weeks.

 

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CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 810 | RAM: Kingmax 4GB DDR2 800 | MoBo: MSI K9A2 CF | GPU: Sapphire HD 4850 512MB | PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad | OS: W7 Pro x64 RTM