BSoD when screen saver trying to start

[rting]

Did you start having problems when you updated to the 12.x drivers? This has been common on a number of systems of late. My system has more hiccups with the 12.x drivers, though I have yet to get a crash from them. My system did freeze/hang and start again a lot immediately after installing those drivers, but a restart resolved that problem.

Have you tried rolling back to the 11.x drivers?

You know, I am going to do this today ... although if it was indeed the video card, etc., one of the local retail outlet is having a sale so I may be able to get a new video card today ...

By the way: It may interest you to know that we get a lot of nVidia crashes related to nvlddmkm.sys because that is the nVidia video driver. You got a lot related to the atikmpag.sys or atikmdag.sys since those are the ATI video drivers. I find it amusing how many people say they want to switch to ATI because their nVidia card is causing problems and vice versa.

WTF!

Your crashes are most likely due to a bad card (you said before both cards were fine, but did you confirm this for sure?), a conflict with crossfire, a driver conflict, a bad motherboard, or a RAM issue. Do you have any issues if you run each of the graphics cards by itself? I know you were doing this before you replaced the RAM, but it may be a good test now that you have no RAM errors.


It is also worth noting that while the RAM may be fine, you are mixing 333 MHz RAM and 400 MHz RAM. That can also cause conflicts. Have you tried running with only the set of 333 MHz RAM or only the set of 400 MHz RAM?

Yes on testing individual video cards.

Tested with all mixed memory and dual cards WITHOUT crossfire and all seems fine with Furmark. Then crossfired it with Catalyst with the new 12.4 driver and crashed immeidately upon engaging Furmark. (Apparently finger crossing did not help blah blah blah ...) ... then afterwards disengaged crossfire and tested with Furmark AND also played Battlefield 3 for about 1 hour (no full screen, low resolution) without crashing and computer was left idle until this morning and did not crash or hang.

Will try the memories too ...

 

[writhziden]

Didn't mean to make light of your situation, and sorry if that angered you. I just thought you should know that nVidia people getting crashes say they want to switch to ATI and ATI people getting crashes say they want to switch to nVidia. Before you go switching manufacturers, it is important to have all the information. I cannot find the thread right now, but I know a few weeks ago, an nVidia customer swore off nVidia on here to switch to AMD cards only.


Again, sorry my comment caused anger/frustration; that was not the intent.

Let us know how the testing goes with the RAM and the driver changes.

 

[rting]

Didn't mean to make light of your situation, and sorry if that angered you. I just thought you should know that nVidia people getting crashes say they want to switch to ATI and ATI people getting crashes say they want to switch to nVidia. Before you go switching manufacturers, it is important to have all the information. I cannot find the thread right now, but I know a few weeks ago, an nVidia customer swore off nVidia on here to switch to AMD cards only.


Again, sorry my comment caused anger/frustration; that was not the intent.

Let us know how the testing goes with the RAM and the driver changes.

Oh no need to apologizes really. The frustration comes from the fact that you cannot rely on one or the other manufacturer. I mean, if my work was that un-reliable in terms of all this testing and re-testing, it would have saved more time if I just throw money at it (assuming you can throw money at it). Which is not really a solution per se.

That said, I removed the supposedly HyperX variety DDR2-333 and using the DDR2-400 without any issues so far with version 12.4 driver. This time, I was also told that if I can bump up the voltage a little - which I have NOT tried yet - I may be able to get it to stablize with the two sets of memory. To me, bumping up the voltage is not something too technical to understand but it is like pumping your car's tires air pressure to slightly below specified pressure to get a better ride - will cost you mileage and handling issues. So not about to try that without more research.

May just have to live with this system and to match these older DDR2 memory is another $70-$75 plus tax ... and system is probably due to be replaced soon ... probably does not make sense either.

So now, just sitting on my hands and just doing more research and/or may be use an older driver.

 

[writhziden]

Your frustration is understandable. It is not so much that each manufacturer is bad but that with millions of systems for each manufacturer, the probability becomes high that some bad hardware will be delivered to users. Plus, it is difficult to know how many nVidia/ATI crashes are actually due to the graphics card and not some hardware conflict that causes false positives with those cards, i.e. a bad/incompatible RAM module.

See how things go for a while with the 400 brand before doing any tweaking. Make sure things are indeed stable first.

 

[rting]

The only issue so far is that after crossfire, the Furmark score is a dismal 270 ... I also noticed that:
1. Battlefield 3 is actually slower with 4GB of DRAM. Or is it because of the driver ... version 12.4 ...
2. Both my laptops are faster (Asus N73Jq w/Nvidia GeForce GT425M; Lenovo T420s w/Nvidia NVS4200M) too in Battlefield 3.
3. Only tweaking I may do is use older versions of the AMD drivers. Will not mess with the voltage of the DRAM as yet.

If you read or hear related new development of the AMD driver, please give me a heads up. All the above points are just speculations.


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[writhziden]

What was your FurMark score previously?

I wouldn't expect the RAM to slow down the game too much; 8 GB does provide a bit more of a performance boost than 4, but I would think it to be around 5-10% for gaming. That may depend on the game, though.

Have you tried 12.3 to see if that gives a better FurMark score? You may also consider trying 11.9; I have basically the same graphics card you do (not in crossfire), and mine worked great with 11.9 and works very well with 12.3 minus the occasional ~1 second hangs. Most games I can play at highest settings with 60-90 fps. I may benchmark it later to see what FurMark score I get.


Alright, at my maximum resolution of 1680x1050, my score with one ATI Radeon HD 4850 is 617; temperatures reached 85 C. What resolution did you run at?

 

[rting]

What was your FurMark score previously?

I wouldn't expect the RAM to slow down the game too much; 8 GB does provide a bit more of a performance boost than 4, but I would think it to be around 5-10% for gaming. That may depend on the game, though.

Have you tried 12.3 to see if that gives a better FurMark score? You may also consider trying 11.9; I have basically the same graphics card you do (not in crossfire), and mine worked great with 11.9 and works very well with 12.3 minus the occasional ~1 second hangs. Most games I can play at highest settings with 60-90 fps. I may benchmark it later to see what FurMark score I get.


Alright, at my maximum resolution of 1680x1050, my score with one ATI Radeon HD 4850 is 617; temperatures reached 85 C. What resolution did you run at?

Previously, the Furmark Scores were 500+ but if you look on their list, the HD 4850 should run at 500+.

I have not tried 12.3 yet but there was a brief point when I was first introduced to Furmark when I can get 800+ when crossfired.

That said, when I had the driver 11.5 version, Battlefield 3 actually came out and say I need minimum driver version 11.7. So I have all the versions from 11.7 and beyond. Will see how it goes.

Additionally, I am just a little frustrated as when I looked at may laptop's graphics cards, there were 2 updates of the same card in a span of a couple of months. (Both NVidia's) Frankly, it is a bit annoying that if you do not have the technical background to keep up with the updates, you can kiss your driver good bye a few times in a year?!? And that sometimes it is more stable to use older drivers?!? The only reason I was able to deduce and solve some of the issues along the way is simply because of my technical background.

 

[writhziden]

Here is what I have to say about driver updates: Driver updates are not always necessary and some updates can actually decrease system stability rather than increase it, so it is usually better not to update unless a device or its driver is causing problems with the system. I do not believe driver updating should be part of the routine maintenance for systems. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[rting]

Well, the situation is not looking good for the end user. It means one have to have excellent technical knowledge in order to be able to breeze through the decision and the update process. Until my recent BSD, I thought I had excellent technical background with a graduate degree in electrical engineering ...


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[rting]

Ok, here are some major - or more like *stupid* development:

1. I found out that I need both Crossfire cables! For some stupid reason, I have been using only 1. So during Furmark, I could never see both GPU going to 99% ... it is always one going to 99% and the other remained near zero. Talk about dumb -
2. Every time I re-install and uninstall Catalyst (to try a different version) - and its respective AMD Radeon HD 4xxx driver - Windows somehow reverts it back to Catalyst/driver version 11.5 for some reason automatically? But just the driver and without Catalyst.
3. As such, I tried loading version 11.5 (with Catalyst) and it seems to give me good Furmark scores. The GPU clock and its memory clocks were set to slowest (not default) currently for all current use/tests.
4. Also, with version 11.5, Battlefield 3 is running smoother. Battlefield 3 would launch and a small window would popup reminding you to load version 11.7. I click OK on that window and it disappears and continues to load Battlefield 3.

In the end, I may have one video card or both slightly damaged but still working in Crossfire mode.

All this is just with 4GBytes of DRAM. So, hopefully, no more surprises.

May try:
1. Loading version 11.7 ... when 11.5 does not give me BSoD in the next couple of days.
2. Loading the 4GBytes of DDR2-333 memory I have sitting on the side now.
3. Most likely I will try version 11.5 / 11.7 at its default clock and memory speeds and not the lowest speed.

 

[writhziden]

If you need to avoid having Windows load the 11.5 drivers, http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/82137-drivers-turn-off-automatic-driver-installation.html

For now, those sound like very good troubleshooting steps.

 

[rting]

Tried different slots on my mobo but too dumb to hit the "auto-tune" function.

Crashed from version Catalyst 12.4 and unable to go back to default settings for the video cards (so that it won't crash from the auto tune settings).

Ended up going to Device Manage to uninstall the driver. Windows somehow automatically re-install a driver from somewhere despite that I turned it off (per the previous post).

The good thing is Windows does not crash / hang (not yet) anymore but somehow the drivers from ATI reverts back to the April 19, 2011 driver - version 8.850.0.0 (I examined Device Manager after the successful reboot without crash).

Go figure.

Update:
My normal main screen is of 1920x1080 resolution ... not 800x600 as per the image file attachment. Now I am at normal resolution.

 

[writhziden]

Strange that they install automatically. Did you delete the driver software for the device when you uninstalled the driver? Or did you uninstall through Uninstall a program?

 

[rting]

Well, I think it is going install regardless of what I left on the hard drive. It seems to constantly go to version 11.5.

In the end, here is what I did.
1. Manually disconnect internet after putting the version 12.4 package on my desktop. (In fact, all versions from 11.5 through 12.4 is on my desktop ... it looks like an AMD wallpaper if you ask me. LOL.)
2. Went to Device Manager and hit uninstall there. Also checked the box of "deleting the driver". I did not use the uninstall function from the installation package.
3. After uninstall and power is off, removed the Crossfire bridges.
4. Rebooted the machine afterwards.
5. After rebooting, loaded version 12.4 - prior to loading, the screens are of horrible resolution obviously.
6. Checked GPU Shark info - Catalyst version is somehow blank now. Catalyst release version is 8.961-120405a-137813C-ATI. Catalyst release date is April 5, 2012. I thought the release date was April 25, 2012 for version 12.4.
7. In Catalyst's Over Drive menu, set the GPU clock to lowest (500MHz) and Memory clock at lowest (750MHz) for both cards. At this point still no Crossfire cable.
8. Turned off the machine and reconnect the Crossfire bridges. Turn it back on.
9. Verified all the above remained the same. Also, I can get out or get in to Crossfire mode in Catalyst too. I used to not able to do that because one or both card can cause the PC to crash.
10. Furmark test w/o Crossfire engaged (but with the physical bridges) at standard settings and 1024x576 resolution - score is 1151 for one graphics card per the above driver version.
11. Furmark test w/ Crossfire engaged at standard settings and 1024x576 resolution - second GPU not showing activity during test. First GPU is functioning and gave the same score.

So ... will swap the position of the cards to see if the same thing happened with Crossfire and just 1 GPU activity during Crossfire. At least now I think I have latest version installed by performing the above steps.

 

[writhziden]

Good to see. Let us know how the system behaves, too. Has it been more stable?

 

[rting]

Good to see. Let us know how the system behaves, too. Has it been more stable?

It is more stable but I have not swap the positions of the cards yet. My issues I thought - after all the changes and discoveries - are:
1. There could be some hardware damage due to the fact that there were only 1 crossfire bridge over most of their life time. However, I was unable to determine which card was the damage - or both. One runs a couple of degrees hotter but faster and the other one is slower but not as hot.
2. As a result, it seems that I was not able to install and uninstall from the usual package of Catalyst (since this is a new Windows 7 loaded recently). Have to use Windows uninstall in Device Manager.
3. May be the DDR2-333 and DDR2-400 difference would add to the problem - although the faster memories were found to be bad? Despite being slowed to DDR2-333 frequencies.
4. May be it would work better at lowest clock frequencies settings for the GPU and graphics memory. I have switched between enabling Crossfire and dis-engaged Crossfire - through Catalyst - and it seems okay. With Catalyst version and proper latest driver 12.4.

I almost went out and bought 2 more video cards but decided not to.

Will see how this goes with an old system. You bet I will check the Crossfire/SLI and be more careful with memory modules when it is time to build a new system.

Thank you - I hope this is my last post for a long time ... but I would not mark it as solved.

 

[writhziden]

That's fine. Whenever you are confident the problem is solved, you may mark the thread solved. Until then, best of luck, and we'll be subscribed to the thread and know when you post again.

 

[rting]

Unfortunately, you are not seeing the end of me yet!

Swap the cards and sure enough it crashed.

Testing to see if one or both cards are bad. I am thinking 1 card because it was running fine with the "Card A closer to the CPU than Card B" configuration. Once the positions are swapped, it crashes when Catalyst try to load.

More later.

 

[writhziden]

It may be the card closer to the CPU gets hotter. Was the card closest the CPU the same card you mentioned that gets hotter than the other?

 

[rting]

It may be the card closer to the CPU gets hotter. Was the card closest the CPU the same card you mentioned that gets hotter than the other?

No in fact it is the other card. That is the (always) hotter card is card A. This one will not crash the PC it will work with Catalyst testing of custom clock settings. The other one - card B - which runs cooler will crash the PC minutes after boot up when installed alone on the mobo.

When both are installed, if I get the card A into the first slot of the mobo - closet to the CPU - and card B in the next PCI-e 2.0 slot, the PC runs stable. If I reverse the position, the PC runs not so stable and can crash if I go auto-tune in Catalyst.

Also, all the above is base on Catalyst version 12.4 - the latest one.