Windows 7 - Black screen crash

hey guys .. i've been facing this strange crashing problem ever since i upgraded to windows 7 (clean install btw). randomly, whenever i view photos in windows live photo gallery or view videos in media player classic home cinema (x86) my screen goes black and all fans in my system hit full speed and if any audio was being played before the crash, it continues to play for a few seconds and then loops. i've had such crashes whenever either or both of these programs were in use. i'm unable to reproduce this problem successfully. it happens completely randomly.

i've run multiple passes of 3dmark vantage, OCCT (3 hours each with the small data set) & crysis benchmarks to verify system stability and surprisingly i haven't had a single crash while running them!! what's going on? i'm completely stumped. i've attached the dump files generated by the two most recent crashes.

i had not encountered a single crash of this type while on windows vista. video card drivers are the latest - catalyst 9.12, motherboard drivers are the latest as per the asus drivers page & intel inf files have also been updated to the latest one (from the software sub-forum), using Windows 7 codecs btw if it makes any difference.



file 1 (wer888):
"Description
A problem with your video hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 16393

Files that help describe the problem
WD-20100102-2218.dmp
sysdata.xml
WERInternalMetadata.xml

Extra information about the problem
BCCode: 117
BCP1: FFFFFA8005C804E0
BCP2: FFFFF88004A14EF0
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_1_7600
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 256_1"


file 2 (wer90e9):
"Description
A problem with your video hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

Files that help describe the problem
WD-20100101-2110.dmp
sysdata.xml
WERInternalMetadata.xml

BCCode: 117
BCP1: FFFFFA800720D4E0
BCP2: FFFFF88004B0BEF0
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_1_7600
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 256_1"

any errors in "event viewer" or "performance information and tools\advanced tools" ?

in event viewer -> windows logs -> system this is the most recent error:

<jan 2, 2010 10:19 pm>
"The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000007e (0xffffffffc0000094, 0xfffff88004d70695, 0xfffff88003d0efc8, 0xfffff88003d0e820). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 010210-28329-01."

i went to performance information, advanced tools and i didn't find any information related to crashes (or atleast didn't understand it!) .. anything in particular i should look out for?

well for sure you have a display driver error where windows 7 is attempting to recover the display driver after it crashes, the bugcheck error is 0x00000117, the last time I saw this I concluded the gfx card was bad but strangely enough couldn't cause the crash in an xp with sp3 environment

the drivers involved shown in your dumpfiles are dxgkrnl.sys and atikmdag.sys but they do show as current and up to date

maybe this is a windows 7 radeon hd4870 drivers issue ?

are there any conflicts in device manager ?

no buddy .. no conflicts in the device manager. for what it's worth i underclock my gpu when i'm not playing a video game. i clock it @ 300/500. helps keep the temperature down big time! also, just now i downgraded my intel inf files to ver 9.1.1.1014 (listed on asus's site so i reverted to these). hopefully it helps fix it as when i installed it using the -overall switch everything was reinstalled- usb devices went off momentarily and my screen blacked out, card hit full speed and everything normalized again. fingers crossed!!

what i don't understand is why only windows live photo gallery & MPC-HC are affected. nothing happens while using firefox or IE or even WMP?! very odd!

oh man .. it just happened again guys, any ideas?

could you upload the mindump file for us ?

i can't find the dump file but i've not had a crash for about 24 hours. i had opened up my case, swapped one of the pci-e power connectors for the sake of it, check all the wiring (all were tight thankfully) reinstalled catalyst 9.12 and amd stream 2. honestly i believe it's a powerplay issue as my card is a sapphire and an early batch at that (that's why its s 512mb version lol). a bios update had been released to resolve some stability issues and i had flashed to it. however i've never experienced this problem under xp or vista. if i experience another crash i'll upload the dump file asap!