BSOD on Dell laptop from ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670 - atikmdag.sys ?

I have a 4 year old Dell Studio XPS, running Windows 7 Professional.

I ran DM Log Collector several times before anything appeared on the desktop. This was not a zipped file, just a folder called 'SFdebugFiles'. I've zipped and attached that - hope it's the right one!

Other information:

I have not changed hardware, nor intentionally updated software that I could blame.

Recently it started blue-screening, with the error "Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed". The last one said STOP: 0x00000116, and all mention atikmpag.sys.

Odd characters appear across the screen during boot-up. After boot, the screen is normal.

I can able to boot into Safe Mode. Then, uninstalling the driver for my ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670 allows me to boot normally, with VGA graphics.

I have tried reinstalling the drivers from the Dell site, and those from the AMD site, but both cause the same BSOD.

I have tried cleaning with the AMD Utility, DDU, and Revo, but suspect there are files hanging around. Reinstalling after cleaning puts me back in the loop.

Thanks.

Hey there! You just have an dump from 2013. But you said you could boot using VGA graphics and it's an 0x116 code.

The problem is caused by your graphics driver. Run Display Driver Uninstaller(DDU)
Make sure you tick the Uninstall C:/AMD and C:/NIVIDA folders while you are in DDU when you are done running DDU install your graphics driver again. This is the guide for DDU: Drivers - Clean Left over Files after Uninstalling

Remember to remove Catalyst and only install the graphics driver.

Run Furmark when you have the AMD driver installed. Video Card - Stress Test with Furmark

Hi Laith,

Thanks for this. When I looked in Windows, all I could see was a memory.dmp from 2013. I can't see why it's not making new dumps, but I'll do some checking. It seems to have the right settings at first glance.

I'll report back in a few days, as I'm off site for a bit.

Cheers

If you haven't enabled dump then enable them.
Also snap a picture of when the BSOD occurs. Dump Files - Configure Windows to Create on BSOD

Just reporting back, in case it helps someone else.

After much wasted time it turned out the fault was hardware related. The video card is stuffed.

So it's new computer time.

Thanks for the advice. I'll be back!

Well, it was obvious that the GPU was the culprit. I just wanted to confirm it.