Random BSOD atikmdag on Dell M6600 - ATI Firepro M6100 GPU

[dreamdemon101]

Hello,

Any help greatly appreciated... this is driving me up the wall and I've run out forums to read and things to try! Others seem to have had luck with driver reinstall... I've searched for this atikmdag BSOD error, fully (i presume) wiped the ATI drivers several times and replaced with various versions. I need to use certain workstation graphics drivers for compatibility with Solidworks CAD package.

Known fault with Dell M6600/ATI Firepro M6100 is that the ATI drivers/software install the wrong version (the M6100 is derived from a standard graphics card I believe and this is what gets installed). At present in Device Manager the correct Display Driver is shown. I haven't gone more than 2 days without a BSOD for several months... Please could you review the .zip as BSOD instructions requested?

I do get other random BSODs but assumed they were linked to ATI but may be whole bunch of things wrong, hence the call for help...!

A15 BIOS running, reflashed to make sure. Cleared all temp folders I could find, prefetch, disabled pagefile to flush, short of full Windows reinstall (impossible due to amount of work related, single-use license software on this machine) I'm rather stuck and it's impacting my work when it crashes and corrupts Solidworks models...!

Kind Regards,

dreamdemon101

 

[Golden]

By disabling the pagefile, you have prevented the required BSOD .dmp files being written to the disk.

Do the following:

1. Configure Windows to create minidumps:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/174459-dump-files-configure-windows-create-bsod.html

2. Set the paging file on C: to be the same size as the physically installed RAM:
Virtual Memory Paging File - Change

3. Set the Windows Error Reporting service to MANUAL:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2495-services-start-disable.html

Now Run Driver Verifier as follows:

Run Driver Verifier for 24 hours or the occurrence of the next crash, whichever is earlier.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/101379-driver-verifier-enable-disable.html

Driver Verifier will cause your computer to run very sluggishly - this is normal. What it is trying to do is force your system to BSOD and isolate the offending driver/s. When it does, reboot, disable driver verifier, reboot as normal and upload the new dmp file/s here.

I recommend creating a system restore point before turning on driver verifier:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/697-system-restore-point-create.html

If your system fails to boot to desktop once driver verifier is enabled, turn it off by booting into Safe Mode:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/69585-safe-mode.html

 

[dreamdemon101]

Thank you for the prompt response!

I didn't realise the pagefile removal prevented the dumpfile creation.
I've been through each of your points.
1) I've set it up for minidump
2) Pagefile is set to 16384MB
3) Windows Error Reporting was already set to manual, I started it as well.

Driver verifier run as described in guide.

Within 10seconds of starting I get NIPALK.sys BSOD. 3 restarts. 3 NIPALK BSODs. I used to get these from time to time when running National Instruments LabVIEW. I'll attach the BSOD files for this. Hasn't happened for months, haven't used LabVIEW for sometime.

I'm going to turn off all the National Instruments components in the Verifier.exe program and continue stress-testing.

Again, thank you for your help.

Kind Regards,

dreamdemon101

 

[Golden]

*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck C4, {f6, 1e0, fffffa8012460060, fffff88001f83401}

*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for nipalk.sys
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for nipalk.sys
Probably caused by : [B][COLOR="red"]nipalk.sys[/COLOR][/B] ( nipalk+93401 )

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

2: kd> lmvm nipalk
start             end                 module name
fffff880`01ef0000 fffff880`01fdf000   nipalk   T (no symbols)           
    Loaded symbol image file: nipalk.sys
    Image path: nipalk.sys
    Image name: nipalk.sys
    Timestamp:        Wed [B][COLOR="red"]Jun 06[/COLOR][/B] 19:15:20 [COLOR="Red"][B]2012[/B][/COLOR] (4FCF26B0)
    CheckSum:         000E713A
    ImageSize:        000EF000
    Translations:     0000.04b0 0000.04e4 0409.04b0 0409.04e4

Good call on nipalk...as you can see its quite an old driver. See if there is an updated driver here:
NI Measurement Studio - National Instruments

 

[dreamdemon101]

Thank you for the feedback!

I've tried running various NI LabVIEW updates... (~3GB!) and I hope that nipalk was updated... I don't actually have Measurement Studio installed... so I assume the nipalk.sys is bundled in with something else... or part of Visual Basic... I'm going to try repairing or reinstalling Visual Basic Studio 2005... fingers crossed...!

Typically.... I haven't had an atikmdag BSOD since first posting... until now!
Attached is the DM Log Collector output...
If you could have a look and see if anything stands out please.

Thanks again,

dreamdemon101

 

[Golden]

No .dmp files present.

Be careful with CCleaner - it will automatically delete .dmp files if left to its own devices. I recommend disabling it until the BSOD's are solved.

CCleaner Monitoring	"c:\program files\ccleaner\ccleaner64.exe" /monitor	MobileCAD-PC\MobileCAD	HKU\S-1-5-21-1308137804-2115975898-792665795-1000\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

 

[dreamdemon101]

Interesting... Does CCleaner automatically clear .dmp files? I rebooted after the BSOD and dont remember running CCleaner before the DM Log Collector...

I've had another BSOD with atikmdag a couple of minutes ago. Rebooted. Did not run CCleaner. Started DM Log Collector.

Let me know if .dmp present and if not I'll uninstall CCleaner and wait for next BSOD.

Thanks,

dreamdemon101

 

[Golden]

Nope, no .dmp file.

View attachment 352989

 

[dreamdemon101]

I'm a bit lost. I've only had a couple of atikmdag BSODs over the last few days. Running the stress test doesn't generate them, they do appear to be very random! CCleaner is gone. Everytime one happens I run the DM log collector and there is no .dmp file. I've been over the procedure and seem to have everything enabled to record it.

I'm going to try putting Windows Reporting Service on automatic and have started it now.

Sorry for the delay in posting but I didn't have anything to actually post with no .dmp file..!

Kind Regards,

dreamdemon101

 

[Golden]

The best I can suggest without .dmp files is to ensure the video driver is updated.

 

[dreamdemon101]

Hello Golden,

Thank you for the support without the dump file. I've tried as many different ways as I can think of and have researched the problem but unfortunately this infernal machine wont generate a dumpfile! I've tried updating the graphics drivers but still get BSODs. Will just have to live with it until I get the chance to do a fresh install.

Thanks again,

Kind Regards,

dreamdemon101

 

[Golden]

Can you run the following .bat, then find the file dump.txt in your \Temp folder and upload it here please?

 

[dreamdemon101]

Hello, I've attached the dump.txt. Thanks for looking at this...

 

[dreamdemon101]

Finally have a dump file, first one in months. Spent the last couple of months muddling along with random crashes (has been better the last couple of weeks but crashes aren't consistent) fiddling with settings, drivers, following forum fixes, using Microsoft FixIt for various things. Eventually reset the pagefile (deleted it and forced rebuild). Its currently set to 4GB just to test it out. This seems to have cleared up the dmp file creation issue. I'm sure there are a myriad other things wrong but if it's not too much trouble could you check the attached dm-collector zip and see if anything glaringly obvious pops out. Much appreciated.