I've read alot of work arounds for this issue and have spent literally a week trying
to find the real problem and 200 bucks. To some extent AMD is correct in saying its a chipset problem. They have in the knowledge base about this problem it is an incompatible chipset. Well what was odd to all of us is that it only happened we all installed 8.11.
And the other odd behavior was some friends of ours online also had the same motherboards and Vista x64 whom didn't get the BSOD.

Well I started with an IP35-PRO motherboard when this crap all began and now own a p5e (lol...I do have a little cash to burn but didn't want to for this). Neither board mattered the BSOD persisted so P35 and X38 chipset didn't matter. I tried individual file installs and so forth. Manual install, Vista fresh installs and countless hours and days and money to become an ATI tester at my own expense.
To finally learn that it may have never been ATI's fault in the first place but an Intel driver problem instead. Hence why some with same system specs have been posting "IT MUST BE YOU". No its not, its intel. C'mon ATI why on earth would you have not put in Catalyst notes you must have Intel's latest chipset driver installed or at least what version you tested the driver with!! not the one provided on your motherboard CD or manufacturers website for this to work!

Thats right. Only when I installed Intel newest inf did it work flawlessly.
I was able to duplicate it by restoring my ghost image with no ATI drivers installed, then install the motherboard manufacturers downloaded intel inf file from the website and I got BSOD after 8.11 installation with the bridge on.

I then installed my ghost image again with the newer intel drivers from intel.com AND had download netfx 3.5 and the latest direct X version (November 2008). Viola! No BSOD. Albeit the biggest player in all this was the intel chipset driver I stated I put in .net 3.5 and direct X nov 2008 update because I did that also. Albeit I dont beleive that had anything to do with it. I do know it stopped when I chose to use the intel driver from intel.com . Try that....it worked for me and im on 8.11 crossfired 4850's.

Im just pissed now that I spent 200 dollars to troubleshoot for ATI.
When they could have noted the catalyst install what chipset drivers the catalyst driver is TESTED with. Obviously its the chipset driver causing it so in some sense ATI and AMD is correct on the knowledge base on AMD.COM saying its the chipset. But saying you have an incompatible one is incorrect. You need to restate that driver may be out of date! Not your driver but the chipset driver.

Download link for latest intel chipset driver (yes the date changed on my X38 driver data to 2008 year from 2007 after install in device manager):
http://downloadcenter.intel.co...rOSs=150&submit=Go%21

Download .net 3.5 (yes even for Vista X64 users):
http://www.microsoft.com/downl...7D32A6&displaylang=en

Download DirectX Nov 2008 update:
http://www.microsoft.com/downl...cd92a3&displaylang=en

GOOD LUCK IT WORKED FOR ME!!!!!!
200 DOLLARS LATER and 1 WEEK OF HELL.
I'm not returning the p5e over this. Its a good board anyway.

My system specs:
IP35 PRO now changed to Asus P5E (its much nicer anyway)
6 gigs RAM GSKILL clocked 1009
Vista X64 EDITION all patches, net 3.5 and direct x nov 2008 update and latest intel chipset driver installed. (If you dont install the inf file I gave above it wont work. BSOD on an earlier chipset driver- trust me!!!)
RAID 1 (2 Seagate 500 gig drives)
Intel Q9450 CPU @ 3.5 Gigahertz
Soundblaster XFI Titanium
Crossfired 4850's (yay now working on 8.11)

I am aboutto test this on my 4870 to see if it makes crossfire work for them in 8.11.

 

At any rate, thank you, as I realised that the auto setup of the chipset drivers I had used before actually did nothing and I just finished manually pointing every device to the newsest drivers. So cheers for that. I will report back ina few minutes if my crossfire works in 8.11 or not.

 

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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

Saddly this does nothing to fix the issue users of the 4870 crossfire setup are having. Good luck to the rest of you 4850 users though!

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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

And for those who have AMD chipsets who are getting the same problem?

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Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H BIOS rev. F6, AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE, 8GB G.Skill PC6400 CL4, HIS HD4890 1GB, 2 x Seagate 160GB HDD in RAID 0, LG CH08LS10 BD ROM Combi Drive, Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP2, Corsair TX850W PSU, OCZ Gladiator Max Cooler, Dell S2309W 1920 x 1080 @ 60Hz

i used the inf updater from intel (the link you gave) (i go no reboot nor nothing to do, it looks like it only unzip a bunch of file somewhere)

but i forgot to check the dates of the drivers before

so now they are either 01/30/2008 or 02/20/2008

can you confirm it is the date you have too 

Download link for latest intel chipset driver (yes the date changed on my X38 driver data to 2008 year from 2007 after install in device manager):
http://downloadcenter.intel.co...rOSs=150&submit=Go%21

Download .net 3.5 (yes even for Vista X64 users):
http://www.microsoft.com/downl...7D32A6&displaylang=en

Download DirectX Nov 2008 update:
http://www.microsoft.com/downl...cd92a3&displaylang=en

I don't have an intel board and I have an NVidia chipset, so I don't think its going to work for me.

I don't have an intel chipset so this must not be my fix.

i did the exact thing, with asus p5e deluxe X48 and i have still BSODs even on 8.9.

edit : 4850 crossfire with 2 CF connectors installed.

I tried this but it didnt fix the problem

stil getting BSOD with 8.11 & 8.12 rc3

(2 4850's with 1 bridge on a p5e motherboard)

 

 

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system: antec 300 | antec truepower trio 650W | intel Q9550 @ 3.5 ghz | Asus P5E x38 (rampage bios 0902) | 4x 1GB kingston hyperX @ 990 mhz 4-4-4-12 | Asus EAH4850 512MB CF (stock) |  2*320GB samsung spinpoint Raid0 | Windows 7 ultimate 64bit

try disabling the 'ati event utility' service in safe mode.

If you have my problem engaging/disengaging crossfire with CCC will cause instant BSOD with the event utility enabled.

8.11 drivers vista x64.

This fixed my BSOD repeat at the logn screen after installing 8.11

The event utility tries to engage xfire immediately when enabled. You need to restart after changing xfire without the utility.

(use both bridges)

it works! (with 8.12)

had to reboot 2 times in order to enable crossfire

thx man

 

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system: antec 300 | antec truepower trio 650W | intel Q9550 @ 3.5 ghz | Asus P5E x38 (rampage bios 0902) | 4x 1GB kingston hyperX @ 990 mhz 4-4-4-12 | Asus EAH4850 512MB CF (stock) |  2*320GB samsung spinpoint Raid0 | Windows 7 ultimate 64bit

Yes, this worked for me also, thanks again Relic, I'm glad to see someone knows what they are talking about.

Tried all these on my x58 setup with 2 4850s.  No go.  I just don't get the option for enabling crossfire.

Hi What is the exact make of your card please ,and I mean the company you bought it from ,like ASUS EAH... or what ever ,Because I have no probs now with mine I fixed everything.Let me know and I will see if what I did can help.

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Multiple solutions for the same problem. Sorry for some folks it's still not working on :-/ It's hit or miss from what I've seen.
I can tell you I've installed 8.12 also but it didn't work without some grief but they've improved alot.

I didn't have to reinstall, update chipset, delete ATI directory, registry settings , or update anything else mentioned for that matter with 8.12. 8.11 was havoc and no matter what I had to go through that process. So does that mean all thesse other fixes are wrong? No. for whatever reason, some fixes are working for some where as others are not. But we know its bad driver installation issues.

Try each one until it works. 8.12 does seem to behave different on the install but it's still not completely fixed. At least I don't have to resintall windows now to get them to install.

But for 8.12 I had to download those packages individually from AMD (driver and the CCC serperate) and then extracted the driver package and cancelled the setup.
After I did that I manually installed the 8.12's from device manager rebooted and it worked fine. No disabling anything, uninstalling, deleting anything.
just a manual install to avoid the crash at bootup. running the all in one setup didn't work and gave me the atikmdag BSOD again.

All I know is my happy level is pretty low with QA and AMD right now and I may very well pick Nvidia for my next card after being a great customer for the past 4 years. For the past 5 months since the 8.8 drivers its been hell since with driver installs on this xfire setup. It simply isn't acceptable to have all this time and money wasted. Time is money.
And if this doesn't shape up soon with the QA my next buy may be the N word. A faster more feature product is a good thing. A working fast product is a GREAT thing.

I want something that works without so much pain and without loss of days on end trying to make it work. Reinstalling windows, deleting this and that is simply poor written drivers not the user. I'm going to rant I like AMD/ATI but this is enough they need to know it's pissing people off and other products may be in the future sighting over bad QA.

Well im going to eat my words. Yes upset over the drive AMD just fix it please!

No after reading about Nvidia and these manufacturing flaws which sounds serious. I'd have to eat the words about a great fast product. I'd rather deal with the driver issues.

Sorry for the statement now.

I also own an Intel X38 chipset. Ironically it was the last thing ATI phone support suggested, almost assumptively, and yet, "hang on a minute! I didn't actually install the chipset drivers, I let Vista do it for me!" So far so good, I will post back if it turns out not to have solved the issue.
(Using two HD4870X2s)

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Q9550 @ 3.65Ghz, Gigabyte X48-DS4, 2x HD4870X2 [Quad Crossfire X], 2x2GB Corsair XMS2 Dominator PC8500C5, WD360GD, HD753LJ, Zalman ZM850-HP, Coolermaster HAF932.

Solved the BSODs at desktop, but does not solve them in game.

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Q9550 @ 3.65Ghz, Gigabyte X48-DS4, 2x HD4870X2 [Quad Crossfire X], 2x2GB Corsair XMS2 Dominator PC8500C5, WD360GD, HD753LJ, Zalman ZM850-HP, Coolermaster HAF932.