BSOD playing various steam games.

[Bax7er]

Hello
Recently I have been receiving a periodic BSOD on my computer. During game play, the window will become clear and minimise. The game will not recover and the event log shows the following error : "Display driver amdkmdap stopped responding and has successfully recovered." The computer continues to function until a game starts. For some games it BSODs on launch, others it happens once it loads a level. I have tried a clean install and driver updates. This does not happen every time, and in some games (such as CS:GO) disabling multi core rendering seems to avoid this issue. Hopefully someone can give me a hand with this.
Thanks in advance.
Bax7er

 

[essenbe]

Hello Bax7er, and welcome to the Forums. I will try to help you if I can. All of your dump files are the same except the first one. The first one says

BugCheck 1E, {ffffffffc0000005, fffff8800aedd410, 0, 0}
*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for vsdatant.sys
[COLOR=red]*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for vsdatant.sys[/COLOR]
Probably caused by : vsdatant.sys ( vsdatant+14a49 )
Followup: MachineOwner

That is your ZoneAlarm Anti Virus.

The rest of them are all

[COLOR=red]VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE (116)[/COLOR]
Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed.
Arguments:
Arg1: fffffa800b7933c0, Optional pointer to internal TDR recovery context (TDR_RECOVERY_CONTEXT).
Arg2: fffff88004a0b848, The pointer into responsible device driver module (e.g. owner tag).
Arg3: 0000000000000000, Optional error code (NTSTATUS) of the last failed operation.
Arg4: 0000000000000002, Optional internal context dependent data.
Debugging Details:

That is a TDR failure (Time Delay and Response) it basically means your drivers crashed and did not recover in time. This is the driver you are using.

atikmpag
start             end                 module name
fffff880`04a00000 fffff880`04a96000   atikmpag T (no symbols)           
    Loaded symbol image file: atikmpag.sys
    Image path: \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\atikmpag.sys
    Image name: atikmpag.sys
    Timestamp:        [COLOR=red]Thu Nov 20 20:08:54 2014[/COLOR] (546E9EB6)
    CheckSum:         00093077
    ImageSize:        00096000
    Translations:     0000.04b0 0000.04e4 0409.04b0 0409.04e4

As you can see, it needs updating. I am going to give you some suggestions of how to get a clean install of the driver and not use a lot of the stuff they include with them which can conflict with other drivers.

I am going to give you some links that will help you get a good clean install and not have any drivers you don't need that will conflict with other drivers. Download a WHQL driver from http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/329659-latest-amd-catalyst-video-driver-windows-7-a.html . Once you have them downloaded, uninstall you current driver from control panel. next clean up any left over drivers from following this tutorial http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/83814-drivers-clean-left-over-files-after-uninstalling.html and select only ATI Display Drivers. After you have done that and rebooted, install the new driver, only select custom install and install only what you have to. Very few people need most of what they include. You do not need the audio/HDMI drivers as you already have that in your Motherboard drivers. Unless there is some reason you need them, the only thing you really need is the Display Driver.

As far as the ZoneAlarm, if it were me I would uninstall it using these instructions Free Antivirus + Firewall Uninstall help. and replace it with Microsoft Security Essentials (Microsoft Security Essentials - Microsoft Windows)

Please do those things and see if they are of any help.

I would also monitor my CPU and GPU temps at all times, especially during gaming.

I also noticed an excessive number of Windows Errors with Bulls and Cows.exe. I would check and see if there are any solutions to it and maybe reinstall the program. Otherwise it really needs to go if it can't be fixed.

 

[Bax7er]

Thanks for the response. Not too sure why its using old drivers, I clean installed the machine early 2015 and used AMD driver auto-detect. I'll try the steps advised and let you know how it goes.

Ignore the errors to do with Bulls and Cows.exe, its a c++ program I was working on for coursework.

 

[essenbe]

OK. All of your Motherboard drivers should be downloaded from your Motherboard's web site. Software finding drivers for you is not recommended by most anyone here. No problem about the Bulls and Cows.

 

[Bax7er]

Hello again.
Just took the steps you recommended with the video card drivers. Device manager is still listing the Driver date as November 2014. The driver version is showing as 14.501.1003.0, the same as the latest version available from AMD.
I've kept an eye on the temperatures. CPU seems to hold steady at around the high 40s and GPU in the 70s. I did load up the Cryengine sdk to put it under extremely heavy load. GPU capped off at the low 80s with 100% utilisation and fans running flat out. I left it under load for a while without a BSOD. Due to the intermittent nature of the BSOD during gaming it'll take some time before I can say if its still happening or not.

 

[essenbe]

OK, thanks. Just let us know how it does.

 

[Bax7er]

Ok, so i've been looking at temperatures. GPU always seem between acceptable limits, its my CPU that seems to be getting hot. Hits about 67 degress just before I blue screen. Would it be wise to upgrade from my stock heatsink and try and keep the load off the cpu?

 

[essenbe]

In my personal opinion, absolutely. I have a box full of stock heatsinks that have never been used. Almost any 3RD party heatsink will be much better than what you have. Unless you do heavy, serious overclocking, one of the best on the market Prics/performance is about 24 GBP. COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 2011/1366/1155 and AMD FM1/FM2/AM3+ - Newegg.com

Just one word of warning. Check the dimensions to make sure it will fit in your case and over your ram. The dimensions are 116X51X159 mm.

If your CPU is getting hot enough to shut your computer down, I suggest you not use it until you find a way to keep it cooler. No matter what cooler you have, it is important that if you have places in your case to put intake fans, do it. Blowing cooler air inside you case, can help a lot. No matter what cooler you get, it will use the air inside your case to cool the CPU. If that is hot air, it cannot do it's job. The cooler you can keep the inside of your case, the better off you will be. Make sure your current cooler is secure on the CPU. You should not be able to move it by hand with very moderate pressure. If your cooler is secure, open the side of the case and find a house fan and point it directly inside your case and see if that helps. I suspect it will help a lot.

If you are overclocking right now, set it back to defaults now.