HD3780 Issue HELP!!!!

[TheMailMan78]

A good friend of mind keeps getting this issue when he's using his Mediacenter or just at random sometimes. The error he keeps getting is as follows:

Display driver atikmdag stopped responding and has recovered

Iv also attached a jpg he found with the same issue.
We have rebuilt his OS a few times and ran RAM tests with no issue. The bios is up to date and so are all the drivers. However the issue keeps coming back. Does anybody know how to fix this?

His specs are as follows:
939: X2 4200+
1.5 gigs PC3200 DDR
HD3780 512
64bit Vista Home Prem.
8.2 Drivers

 

[Cold Storm]

have you guys even reinstalled the driver??? also you might want to try and installing a different version of ATI's driver...

 

[TheMailMan78]

Not only the driver but the whole OS. However hes using a 3870 so I am afraid of going to far back.

 

[Cold Storm]

mine did the same thing... i believe going to 7.10 is the best bet... i went all the way to 7.4... I'll see if I can find a friend to help...

 

[TheMailMan78]

mine did the same thing... i believe going to 7.10 is the best bet... i went all the way to 7.4... I'll see if I can find a friend to help...

I just talk to my buddy and he went all the way back to 7.8 with the same issue. Any help you can give is welcome!

 

[Cold Storm]

download CCleaner and uninstall with that.. it will clean out all of the drivers that was ever in there... So then install 8.1...

 

[TheMailMan78]

Will do! Ill keep ya posted.

 

[Dr. Spankenstein]

No specific fixes for it as of yet, but it seems that if you can keep the card cool the instances are drastically reduced.

I was having issues with this early on, but I've done so much to my card since then. Flashed the BIOS (for OC potential), pencil mod, and finally voltmod.

There has also been speculation that ATi's "PowerPlay" function could be keeping the card from getting the volts it needs when a BIG draw comes along (like Media Center). I have also been rather incredulous regarding their decision to not have the fans spin up until the temp passes 90C. So you might find some relief in you use RivaTuner to set your fan speeds higher to start OR create a Profile that will change them according to varying temps.

If I remember exacty what I did to remedy this, I'll post the steps.

Hope this helps.

p.s. Make sure heat isn't an issue.

 

[Cold Storm]

No specific fixes for it as of yet, but it seems that if you can keep the card cool the instances are drastically reduced.

I was having issues with this early on, but I've done so much to my card since then. Flashed the BIOS (for OC potential), pencil mod, and finally voltmod.

There has also been speculation that ATi's "PowerPlay" function could be keeping the card from getting the volts it needs when a BIG draw comes along (like Media Center). I have also been rather incredulous regarding their decision to not have the fans spin up until the temp passes 90C. So you might find some relief in you use RivaTuner to set your fan speeds higher to start OR create a Profile that will change them according to varying temps.

If I remember exacty what I did to remedy this, I'll post the steps.

Hope this helps.

p.s. Make sure heat isn't an issue.

yeah your right. that might be the issue that he is having. make sure the fan is at 100% running at all times and you might not have the problem. mine was a old card that was getting those errors, but it was through vista getting that error. did a mod to make the fan go at 100% and it worked sweet..

 

[Random Murderer]

roll back to the disk drivers. that's what helped me out when i was having problems.

also, sneekypeet was having issues yesterday(he lost 200 points in 3dm06) and he rolled back to his disk drivers and that fixed the problem.

 

[Dr. Spankenstein]

Do you mean the drivers that come packaged with the cards?

 

[Cold Storm]

Yeah, he means the drivers that came with the card.

 

[sneekypeet]

Thats funny thats what mine did as well...and i never found a fix....funny thing is the card then went thro VPU recoveries and then I RMA'd it.

@ RM it was a 2000 point difference and I wasnt having the Error he is....that only happened with my first HD3870!

 

[Dr. Spankenstein]

Same thing for me. Once your driver gets reset in Vista, it's all down-hill from there (especially if you have an OC on your card and a fan control app running). Your fan app quits, you VPU recover tries, but since your card is uber-hot, it just keeps resetting until it reboots.

Just keep it cool however you gotta...

 

[trog100]

sound like faulty hardware to me.. i can produce an error like that simply by overclocking my card too much.. it means the hardware aint stable..

if it does it at stock speeds it kinda suggest its faulty.. it should work as it comes.. simple as that..

rolling back the drivers wont help.. its a new card..

just make sure his media center divice has the power to drive a card like that..

i think an inadequate psu could be the problem..

trog

 

[sneekypeet]

....if it does it at stock speeds it kinda suggest its faulty..

trog

+1
that is a very good point that was left out of mine as well. My issues were also occuring at stock clocks!

 

[TheMailMan78]

Sorry it took so long to post back. I have two kids

Anyway we rolled back the drivers and uninstalled using CCleaner. Same issue. I didnt think these would work due to us already reinstalling the OS clean twice. I also wanted to let yall know his PSU is an Enermax 535 "SLI Ready". He should have plenty of power to push this thing. He had a X1900 GT before and it ran great. Of course he was using XP at the time. This is driving me nuts!

 

[Cold Storm]

Then the only other thing that could be the problem is hardware it self. Sneeky had a bad card that did the same as you. The only other thing I can suggest is RMA... DOA hardware...
BTW, yeah you did a clean os boot, but that doesn't mean that there was anything that was still on the hdd after that.. you where changing drivers, and a lot of times files from one driver don't seem to delete it self unless you have some type of other "cleaner"

 

[TheMailMan78]

Thank you for the help guys. I have a few other things Im going to try and if I find something Ill post it here.

As for the clean OS there was nothing left. I always format the HD and then reinstall. I dont think anything would be left after a format. Am I wrong?

 

[Cold Storm]

I'm not saying that there wasn't on the Clean OS... I probably stated it wrong since I just woke up.... I'm stating since your not going through driver installs and uninstalls with not having the os cleaned since then... Thats what I am refering to. Sorry if that messed anything up... But I hope you the best of luck man and hope his card gets fixed soon!

 

[trog100]

Sorry it took so long to post back. I have two kids

Anyway we rolled back the drivers and uninstalled using CCleaner. Same issue. I didnt think these would work due to us already reinstalling the OS clean twice. I also wanted to let yall know his PSU is an Enermax 535 "SLI Ready". He should have plenty of power to push this thing. He had a X1900 GT before and it ran great. Of course he was using XP at the time. This is driving me nuts!

we have a "denial" thing at work here.. now we have the psu out of the way its 99% likely to be faulty hardware..

new or not when overclocked symptoms are occurring at stock speeds it mostly points to one thing.. faulty hardware..

i diagnose car faults on the net sometimes.. telling someone their head gasket is shot dont get readily accepted.. telling em they need a new rad cap gets grabbed and applied with glee.. after that comes anything and everything before the real culprit is fixed..

trog

ps.. these 8xxx series cards because of the high core and memory speeds can be not quite stable over a wide speed range.. .. i think its as much to do with cross chatter on the PC boards due to the high frequencies with some of em as other more normal things.. the higher clocked 3870 x 2 has a ten layer PCB board in an attempt to stop this.. i recon some of the cheaper (or faster) variants might have problems with stability.. the vpu recover cutting in is sign of this..