4 or 5 Bsods with the title IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and atikmdag.sys

all i can remember is that the atikmdag.sys ones were first. i updated my amd drivers and things seemed okay. this started after dusting my pc. i removed my graphics card to dust it.
after the atikmdag.sys bsods started the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. symptoms would show before. all of a sudden the screen would blink off and some quick color distortions. then the minimize, restore down and close buttons of firefox would increase in size. not these sets of buttons for any folder that was open. at the same time the hard drive or one of them would become very busy. which lags the whole system. i tried chasing after what program might be taking over the hd but i couldn't find anything or when i thought i did. and shut down the program. nothing changed. i checked in resource manager and it would never be the same thing at the highest reads. usually i see a file movement or upload i am doing in the resource manager for disk. i decided to leave the pc alone durring this and wait it out. i woke up to a bsod. i decided to try sfc /scannow. i woke up to a bsod the same day i instigated the sfc /scanow. i had this creep up on me twice in the last 2 days. i had to reboot and things were back to normal. i'm sure i'll need to repeat this process again. unless i go and come back to another bsod. thanks all i can think of for now. thanks for any help!

Hey there! Snap a picture of the BSOD when it occurs.

alright i will but i dont know if i will get one. i did experience something when i woke up and tired to use the computer this morning. i also had 1 more bsods this morning which i have a picture of. i also have another picture of what i saw a different morning when i awoke. i included 4 pictures of tbe bsod because i wasn't sure which settings or what would give a readable picture. DSCN1352 is the one where i woke up to this. it's not a bsod but looks like something... i had a website up that had an alarm to wake me up. i can make out the colors of the site in this... whatever it is or happened in that crash or whatever. then sometime went by without the "wake up to a crash or bsod". i also didnt experience some symptoms for a few days but then it came back. i then noticed as the symptoms started windows reported that the display driver shutdown and it restarted it. which then the symptoms went away. i thought this was a minicure or something. when i felt the symptoms of this issue creep up on me. i would disable and re enable the display driver. this only worked once unfortunately. the other times it did nothing! there's one more symptom that i can't remember just now that could be helpful but i can't think of it. ill update you all when i do though. the last pictures, as stated, show the bsod from this morning. this evening i also experienced something new. windows explorer kept crashing. it did so 5 times at least. not one after the other. it was somewhat random but in a short period of time. before all of this taskill.exe has been giving errors or not working. reported to me by windows. sorry i dont have a pic of that but next time. that's all i have for now. thank you for your time!

i am patient but no peep? i cannot be helped?

I'm so sorry for not responding, i have been VERY busy lately but anyways, if you can, can you RMA your graphics card? Because from the pictures and the error messages you are getting i'm certain that the graphics driver is dead.

thank you for responding. i would of replied sooner but i've been dealing with some other irl stuff. i am understand and do understand. so many post and not enough knowledgeable guys like yourself. i just wanted to make sure i wasn't forgotten or to deep in it to save, y'know?. thing seemed to have cooled down for now. heh! anyway i messaged amd support and applied or went to their site. it seems out of warranty by now. or whatever the guy said. i would look up the date for you but i'm having the symptoms i described earlier.
is the driver dead or the actual card dead? i guess it's not truly dead since i can still see the screen or rather i see images that help to type this up. is there any other way to make sure it's this? some scan or check i can do? when these symptoms happen. i forgot to mention one. physical memory jumps to 92 91 or 93%. even if i close resources hogs it wont fall at all until the symptoms pass or i reboot. nto sure if that's helpful now ;/
what do you think? thanks again for all the help :)

I meant that the card is dead. Also that's sad that your warranty is out

OH DAMN! well this is bleh. how does that even happen? is that normal for gfx cards to die a few years out of warranty?

Yes it is.