Leaving ATI - atikmdag: enough is enough

I really don't see how you all have problems with either the "Atikmdag has stopped responding and has successfully recovered" or the "nvlddmkm has stopped responding and has successfully recovered".

Whenever I have this problem, I simply delete that specific file, in my case nvlddmkm.sys, from the c:/windows/system32/drivers folder and reinstall the drivers. And guess what, it works for me. Call me lucky if you will, but I don't see this as a problem and I've never replaced a card because of this error. If you're really up for the upgrade to your GPU, more power to you. But I wouldn't just toss your current card to the side without at least trying a few fixes.

 

Crappy nforce chipsets....

 

Why not do the proper troubleshooting in the first place so you don't have to waste the store's money in forcing them to sell an item as open box just because you were too lazy to properly troubleshoot a problem? Nevermind that shipping is usually not refunded and for computer components there are typically restocking fees.

 

Of course if he suddenly DOES have gfx cards, mobos power supplies and such around... but its kinda hard to do that if he doesn't....

edit: and believe me I do hardware troubleshooting a lot myself... now for example I have 1.2GHz athlon pc needing my attention with its random post issues.

 

I could have sworn this was a driver only issue. Are the Catalyst drivers not netoriously horrible & do this kind of shiot all the time?

 

lets let the op decide rarther than mere speculation. he posted a question and named a budget so i suggested some nvidia cards within his budget..

no need to bring my spending money or the op's or in fact anyone else into this...

 

I was responding to a number of people asking why i care if he just trashes money for a fix that in all likelyhood won't work.

I want him to make an informed decision about why he's buying a new video card, not doing it out of frustration. For instance, I could be frustrated with my car and why the brakes don't work. Now, I could go replace the pads and whatnot and HOPE that fixes it, or I could check it out and see if that's the problem or if, in fact, it is just leaking brake fluid.

 

thats a very fair comment. but when i first read your posts it seemed like u were posting merely because u have an aversion to nvidia.

or i'm mistaken

 

"Leaving ATI".. Are you having a laugh? You act as if it's a big ****ing walking community and there are sides to it.. Are you a moron?

 

I don't hate Nvidia, the computer I built for my sisters contains an Nvidia card as does the card I got for my girlfriend.

 

Whichever Nvidia card you buy...

...starting with 9800GTX, you will do yourself a favour (if you are a gamer, that is).
And then, one fine day you will do even greater favour to yourself: you'll switch from AMD to Intel. Take it from the fool who knows.

 

You did that cause you know they will never have to deal with silly driver issues right???

Muahahahaha!!!

 

again this error is not an ATI specific problem, it indicates a failure in your system mostly associated with overclocking, motherboard and power supply. Fix that, not the bit that probably works fine.

It just shows up as a stop working error because when you do 3d stuff that is when the power is sucked up and weaknesses in your system show. If you go for a more power hungry GFX regardless of brand it will only get worse. Fix what is wrong, not what windows reports failed first, as all GFX cards stop responding when they don't get fed enough quality power from the motherboard or powersupply.

 

i wonder what card it is an 9800gt so nvidia only good enough for the ladies...ati is a real mans card eh? raw power if it actually takes off.

you're a cheeky one

bet they havent complained about drivers issues...noise...overheating..games crashes hehe..

 

That isn't 100% though. I've got that error from a bad driver install before. On a Mac & a regular PC. I knew for a fact the hardware was good. So what you said is not always the case. You could very well be correct on the other hand.

 

Well, one is an older card I had and one is an 8600GT. Girlfriend absolutely hates the 8600GT though I don't know that she's had any driver issues. But her card has had some overheating problems, I had to reseat the sink. I do recall her having to update drivers to play Fallout 3..so..

 

Considering all the claims of shotty ATI drivers...I've never had the first actual problem that can be directly related to ATI's drivers. nVidia's drivers on the other hand....

Instead you get to deal with flaky GPU's....or did everyone completely ignore the G84/G86 fiasco from last summer? Also have to worry about buying the same card twice because nVidia decides to rename it....again. (8800GT anyone? It's being renamed for the second time to rip people off for more money.) Wonder how many 8800GT owners will buy it with it's new name thinking it's a better card.

WoW....you just listed the exact reasons I ditched my 9600GT...aside from the faulty GPU.

 

If you are a firm believer that ATI is the problem, why does this site exist for the same error....

http://www.nvlddmkm.com/

etc. etc. etc.

Fine you want to try another card in the hope it will fix your problem, why don't you try another card and keep brand out of it, as BRAND has no relevance to this issue. You would be better off swapping mobo or powersupply imo.

 

It is. I'm certainly not replacing the backbone of my computer because ATI cannot write a driver that plays friendly with my chipset, which is most likely not the issue. My card does not over heat either. Idles at 35-39° reaches load after a few hours of TF2, CSS, L4D at about 45-47°. I have a Thermalright heatsink on it. Big thing, six heat pipes and a 92mm fan on top. Thermaltake thermal compound as well.

Case has a 250mm fan on the side, the drive bay has a large fan on it, which I have lined up with my aftermarket cpu heatsink/fan (tall turbine looking think), which is right in line with the rear fan. So it's nothing but a streak of cold air running over the board, vidcard, ram, and cpu then it's pushed out the back and top.

I've humored the possibility that the issue is bad RAM on the card/system but for only a few minutes because I did not have this issue with random, previous versions of the Catalyst drivers.

So, yes, this is strictly a driver issue. One that ATI (or even NVIDIA) is responsible for no matter how right one may think they are.

 

why do u think nvidia stopped making chipsets? b/c they suck after the nforce 2 there done. why do u think nvidia finally agreed to have SLI on intel chipsets? nforce chipsets are known for this. i am not saying thats ur only problem. but if u change ur video card and then get it with the nvidia card then what are u going to do? its not like ur going to come on here and admit it anyway LOL.