Atikmdag crash. Is there a fix?

i think i may sorted out the problem on my rig. i have two monitors (1680x1050, 1280x1024) and usually watch live tv on the smaller monitor while working on the larger one. i persistently got a crash with outlook and vista media center open simultaneously (not immediately, but inevitably just before finishing a very long email).

i tried:
changing drivers
updating motherboard bios
updating the bios of my hd4850
adjusting fan speed on the vid card
the registry entry trick
the msconfig trick

none of these worked. on a whim (or out of desperation), i installed the 8.10 driver without catalyst control center. so far, no crashes. perhaps there is an issue with the catalyst AI? in any case, i'm hoping this holds up over the long haul...

EDIT: false alarm. just crashed again. :thumbdown

 

Fail. The issue is caused by software. There's no other answer. Neither Microsoft or ATI are owning up.

 

I had the problem once too. Found out it was overheating.

 

I get the same error with 8.11 8.12 drivers and i,m on WinXp 32 bit sp2 . So its not just a Vista issue

Everything is fine with 8.10 drivers

 

Heads up for people who have crashing in 2d / aero enabled / dual monitors

I traced my problem and the reason is that when powerplay manages the powerstates low-medium-high, when using aero it tends to switch low-med really fast causing the atikmdag.sys to stop working and causing the notorious screen off/on loop to BSOD

The fix
I used rbe to mod my bios powerplay values to be static all the time in every powerstate including upping voltages just a bit, problem is now officially gone. My card is the powercolor 4850 one. It seems that some cards do have quite a problem when low-med powerstates/voltages change quickly.

Ati really needs to fix this, I'll do a ticket soon enough when I gather more information about it.

It's possible to use the %appdata%/ati xml config fix too perhaps?

 

I think you're on to something, MetalFox. It normally happens to me whenever I start, or stop, playing a DXVA-enabled video or browsing the Internet with a Flash video playing (Flash 10 is GPU-accelerated.) I figured the 2D-3D switch was initiating the error.

It only seems to happen, however, if I'm using Aero, dual monitors, AND overclocking. If I run at the default 750/900 it doesn't occur. I can overclock without problems if I disable the second monitor. I do remember a KB article from last few months at ATI's support site that they are aware of an issue regarding overclocking in a dual-monitor configuration. Hopefully that means it can eventually be fixed in the driver package.

For now I think I'll try your suggestion and edit a bios for my 4870 to see if it helps.

 

I also had this problem, then I found out that I'm used 1 year old "Intel INF Driver" (was the newest one on the asus download site), when I installed the new one, it hasn't crashed since.

 

I have the newest chipset driver and it stil happened before the "fix".

 

Overclocking with RivaTuner disables PowerPlay on my card, making it run 3D clocks/voltages all the time. I tried that a few months ago and it didn't do anything. I haven't had a single message since I disabled my 2nd screen though, but it's a real shame I'm not able to use it. Roll on Windows 7!

 

Tried that too and I had the same results, though after bios modification all is good. The problem wasn't present in 8.11 for me for some reason. When I installed 8.12 it came back so I just modded the bios.

:edit - tiredom:

 

I've had it since I switched from NVIDIA to this X2 in august, so I've tried every set since 8.8 or so. I suppose trying some bios modifications wouldn't hurt though. I just don't understand the link between PowerPlay and dual monitors. And seeing as people with NVIDIA cards experience the same issue with dual screens (only with an NVIDIA related error), I'm thinking it's more of a Vista issue than anything else.

 

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/191334/rbeedit.jpg

There are the modifications I did for my card. Left one is the stock bios and the right is the modded one.

I dont really care about lower voltages etc. Running accelero + turbo module 44c at max load in furmark so putting the max voltage from the table 1.158 works for me no difference in temps with accelero. Overclocked to 730/993 by the way.

And it used to crash when overclocking via overdrive, even though I did 1mhz to core or memory, now it's fixed. Are you sure that overclocking via rivatuner disables all of the powerplay's things? Because fixing the clocks to defaults in every state seemed to fix all the wonkyness for me.

 

It overrides clock and voltage control, apart from that I don't know, but that's what Unwinder said. Overclocking via CCC is fine for me, too. It may sound like your card perhaps had some other issues that were resolved by this bios modification? My card is watercooled, so I don't really care too much about PowerPlay and power saving either. This system isn't running 24/7 anyway, I have a laptop for that.

Edit: I seem to remember reading about the PowerPlay features being buggy on the earlier 4850/4870's?

 

Is there possible to disable powerplay in a other way than flash the bios? Can't find it in the rivatuner?

 

Just enable overclocking in RivaTuner (but remember to enable ClockControlCloning in Poweruser -> RivaTuner\Overclocking\Global first to make sure both GPU's overclock) and set the clocks manually. If you do that the card will run 3D clocks/voltages in both 2D and 3D.

 

I had a lot of BSOD with the newest drivers (8.12) and Ati Tray Tools. I found out that the 8.12 drivers solved the powerplay boot bug (not booting @ 507/500) and I had a profile designed for that in ATT. I erased that "default" profile and voila, the BSOD's are gone now.

I tried using Rivatuner for OC, but didnt like it since you can't return to the default voltages when you come from 3D to 2D. So I use ATT for that (you can define the voltages).

Happy camper now.

 

Does ATT actually overclock both cores now? It's been ages since I tried it, but when I did it only clocked one core on my card.

 

Yes, works for both cores and also in 64bit

 

I went the Rivatuner route rather than a bios flash and I have been running overclocked with both monitors enabled for a day now without an error. If I overclock in CCC it normally happens a few times per day.

I hope ATI's driver team looks into MetalFox's bug report because he seems to have done a good job of narrowing down the dual monitor/Aero/overclock issue.