Radeon 4850; Still unstable.

Bbq

King of Charts
Joined
Feb 21, 2006
Messages
12,271
Yea, it's just terrible. It crashes for no reason at all, with the 'atikmdag.sys has recovered successfully' multiple times, crashing between, and then it just turns to either a black screen, or a black screen with vertical grey lines. Won't respond to anything, have to powercycle it. Happens randomly. Happened three times today; once while playing a game, successfully recovered. Second time, it just hung and had to be powercycled, while web surfing. Third time, it was untouched. I wasn't even near it, and it just crashed.

Have tried:
Reinstalling Windows (vista x64)
Catalyst 8.6 + hotfix drivers
Catalyst 8.6 drivers
Hotfix drivers
Catalyst 8.7 beta
Removing half the ram
Disabling UAC
Disabling Catalyst AI
Unplugging my second monitor
Stock speeds on CPU and ram
Swapping power supplies
Disabling Aero on Vista

Every single time it's atikmdag.sys. Never anything else.

This is getting pretty unbearable. At this point I wish I just went with a 9800gtx instead.

Specs:
Intel E4300
4x1gb pc6400
4 hard drives of various sizes
Silverstone ST50EF+
2x monitors (Acer 22", Viewsonic 17")

And of course, the Visiontek HD4850.
 
Try an RMA?

I had an X1900XT 512mb that newegg refunded me for when I had it a couple years back that did the exact same thing.
 
If possible, try the card in another computer.. Also if you have a copy of XP lying around, try installing it instead. While there's nothing wrong with Vista, trying another OS will eliminate one more possibility.
It is quite possible that the card is faulty, though.
 
Reinstalling Windows (vista x64)

I hate starting to sound like a broken record. But there is your problem. Install XP and you wont have the issue, the issue with the drivers stopping on Nvidia and ATI is a Vista problem.
 
I hate starting to sound like a broken record. But there is your problem. Install XP and you wont have the issue, the issue with the drivers stopping on Nvidia and ATI is a Vista problem.

ATI's Vista problems are extremely few since 7.8. And the majority are BSODs in x64 with a 2900 series that has been resolved partially.

This sounds like a faulty card.
 
I'm running Vista and a 4850 and I've got zero problems, rock solid reliability. Still, it makes sense to try XP as part of the troubleshooting, even if one doesn't plan to run it as the primary OS.
 
ATI's Vista problems are extremely few since 7.8. And the majority are BSODs in x64 with a 2900 series that has been resolved partially.

This sounds like a faulty card.

:rolleyes: The Vista sux issue affects ATI and Nvidia drivers. All the stop errors for the GPU drivers are just Vista problems. Running XP you will not have the same problem. So for anyone with a driver stop error NV or ATI - run XP, problem solved.
 
:rolleyes: The Vista sux issue affects ATI and Nvidia drivers. All the stop errors for the GPU drivers are just Vista problems. Running XP you will not have the same problem. So for anyone with a driver stop error NV or ATI - run XP, problem solved.

I've been running Vista ever since my Radeon dropped in, and ironically XP has more VPU recovers instead (5 If I remember, compared to nil on Vista).

And that's a bad implication either way. Just because nVidia has had driver stops for 6/7 months doesn't mean ATI had.
 
Did you try switching RAM slots? Not just removing half.

And make sure you have you update Vista completely
 
Its not Vista. I am running Xp and I have pretty much the same problems as you on my 4850. Computer screen will sometimes just go black. I get random reboots but not all the time. And I get the same Ati error as you. I tried all 3 different driver sets, 8.6, 8.6 Hotfix and 8.7 beta all three do it. All my system drivers are up to date. I'm wondering if it has to do with heat. I didn't do the fan fix yet because I'm just waiting for the new artic cooling vga cooler to come out any day now. I just installed Vista 64 bit to see how that does. But if I were a guess man I would say heat has something to do with it. I'll keep you guys informed..
 
How hot is the card getting? Mine went into the 100s and crashed too. I replaced the cooler with a GFXChilla and its in the 30s rock solid.
 
:rolleyes: The Vista sux issue affects ATI and Nvidia drivers. All the stop errors for the GPU drivers are just Vista problems. Running XP you will not have the same problem. So for anyone with a driver stop error NV or ATI - run XP, problem solved.

The thing is, there are a huge number of Vista users with Nvidia and ATI cards who don't have any problems. I haven't even seen what this driver stop error looks like, because it has never appeared with my 4850, nor with my old 8800GT. Actually, I think I saw it once with the 8800GT, in Oblivion..when I was still running XP ;) If you have this error and switching to XP removes it, you haven't really "solved" the problem, just worked around it (at the cost of using an older, discontinued OS with no DX10 support).
 
The thing is, there are a huge number of Vista users with Nvidia and ATI cards who don't have any problems. I haven't even seen what this driver stop error looks like, because it has never appeared with my 4850, nor with my old 8800GT. Actually, I think I saw it once with the 8800GT, in Oblivion..when I was still running XP ;) If you have this error and switching to XP removes it, you haven't really "solved" the problem, just worked around it (at the cost of using an older, discontinued OS with no DX10 support).

It has only ever happened to me while using Vista. Sorry, but I dont feel like troubleshooting a bloated piece of shit OS when I can just use XP and everything is 300x faster. No sense trying to fix what is too broken.
 
It has only ever happened to me while using Vista. Sorry, but I dont feel like troubleshooting a bloated piece of shit OS when I can just use XP and everything is 300x faster. No sense trying to fix what is too broken.

so then by your logic if its happened to you then it must be happening to everyone else running vista and that vista is to blame for the stop errors and not your hardware or perhaps lack of ability to configure said hardware. paint with broad brush much?
 
Just RMA the card. This Vista sucks thing is old and tired I simply don't have much respect for anyone who brings is up. Unless I some sort of rocket scientist, I've put together a dozen Vista systems, from a 6 year old P4 with 756MB to this sig rig and just haven't had issues, no more so than with XP.

Vista not perfect. And nothing else is either.
 
Just RMA the card. This Vista sucks thing is old and tired I simply don't have much respect for anyone who brings is up. Unless I some sort of rocket scientist, I've put together a dozen Vista systems, from a 6 year old P4 with 756MB to this sig rig and just haven't had issues, no more so than with XP.

Vista not perfect. And nothing else is either.

Lol yeah..perhaps the next suggestion will be to use a Mac instead
 
One other thing (to be honest I don't know if it really made a difference) but i had an issue with the beta drivers you already tried. I have UAC turned off too but I had trouble getting CCC working...then I ran the installer as an administrator and the drivers worked perfectly.

Don't know if that solved my issue or the re-install just fixed it but worth a try the next time or if you end up reinstalling the drivers.
 
I've seen this stop error before on Vista, only started happening when my buddy switched over to Vista. But the problem was actually the card. We tried it on multiple systems and everytime it would give nv something .dll stopped working and has recovered.

RMA'ed the card and never had the problem again. I guess it was just vista being sensitive to errors on the card and struggling to fix it, where XP could care less if you got an error?

it was a 7900GSO.
 
It has only ever happened to me while using Vista. Sorry, but I dont feel like troubleshooting a bloated piece of shit OS when I can just use XP and everything is 300x faster. No sense trying to fix what is too broken.

All that is broken is your perception, the major issues with Vista were resolved with SP1.
 
If possible, try the card in another computer.. Also if you have a copy of XP lying around, try installing it instead. While there's nothing wrong with Vista, trying another OS will eliminate one more possibility.
It is quite possible that the card is faulty, though.

I don't have another pci-e computer handy, nor do I have a spare copy of xp :\
I'll try getting them both soon.

How hot is it running?

63c full load, 60c idle.

:rolleyes: The Vista sux issue affects ATI and Nvidia drivers. All the stop errors for the GPU drivers are just Vista problems. Running XP you will not have the same problem. So for anyone with a driver stop error NV or ATI - run XP, problem solved.

And if the problems aren't vistas fault? I've had way more problems with xp + ati or nvidia. Unlike vista, when xp crashes, it takes everything down with it. There's just no way to 'recover from a serious error' in my experience. It's a bit iffy with vista but it works some of the time.

Did you try switching RAM slots? Not just removing half.
And make sure you have you update Vista completely

Yes, and yes.

How hot is the card getting? Mine went into the 100s and crashed too. I replaced the cooler with a GFXChilla and its in the 30s rock solid.

60/63c.
 
All that is broken is your perception, the major issues with Vista were resolved with SP1.

yea, sure Bill (Gates)...:rolleyes: SP1 didnt fix shit. Your perceptions is broken if you think SP1 fixed all major issues.
 
yea, sure Bill (Gates)...:rolleyes: SP1 didnt fix shit. Your perceptions is broken if you think SP1 fixed all major issues.
Enlighten us please, what are these "major issues?"

"Vista is slower in games" is a false statement. There was a discrepancy at launch but not anymore.

"Vista is hugely bloated" is a flawed argument, people tend to base it on RAM consumption when idle and ignore the fact that as soon as an application needs that memory Vista quickly and efficiently gives it up because it's better at managing memory than XP. When you don't have anything else running why shouldn't the OS use the memory if it can? You paid for that RAM and you don't want your system to take advantage of it? That seems to be the position of a lot of Vista haters.

"Vista crashes constantly" is a false statement. I've been running it since launch and the only crashes I ever got with it were in the first 6 months running with my 8800GTX before nVidia got their act together with the drivers, not MSFT's fault.

 
yea, sure Bill (Gates)...:rolleyes: SP1 didnt fix shit. Your perceptions is broken if you think SP1 fixed all major issues.

Look, can we refrain from inditing Vista when somebody can't get their rig to work when most of don't have issues and just help the guy with the problem in hand.

Calling Vista crap doesn't help anyone. If a person chooses to with XP or something else that's fine. For whatever reason my Vista rigs work better than my XP rigs so you can't convince me or anyone else with day in and out of personal trouble free Vista computing for over a year that Vista is the problem any more than I'm going to convince you that Vista is the best desktop OS ever (I think it is, you never will think that).

Can't we just all get along!;)
 
yea, sure Bill (Gates)...:rolleyes: SP1 didnt fix shit. Your perceptions is broken if you think SP1 fixed all major issues.

Wow, I fell totally refuted, :rolleyes: Give me some concrete examples or crawl back under your rock.
 
I hate starting to sound like a broken record. But there is your problem. Install XP and you wont have the issue, the issue with the drivers stopping on Nvidia and ATI is a Vista problem.

please take offence because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about....

be running vista ultimate x64 since launch and the only problems I have had were related to a faulty sound card driver that has issues with a system with more than 4GB ram.

Vista is great and has been more stable to me than Windows XP pro was on the same hardware.
 
OP what power supply do you have? I didn't see any listed but then again I may be blind :p
 
This is not the discussion I want. Please, just go to the operating system and leave it there.

In the meantime: Is there a way to stress test a video card like memtest86+ that can tell you if it's defective or not?
 
Yeah run 3dmark 06 or Vantage that will stress your card pretty good...or if you have crysis run the benchmark test that will stress it..
 
I'm betting on a defective card. I'm running mine at 700 core/1150 memory with an S1 under Vista 64 with 8.6 drivers and haven't had so much as a hiccup.
 
or a black screen with vertical grey lines. Won't respond to anything, have to powercycle it. Happens randomly.
Grey lines should be an indication that its a hardware not a os or driver problem. Rma the card.
 
Maybe you need new PSU?? Do you tried swap to another unit?? If its not PSU then RMA the card.
 
Yea, tried it with the OCZ StealthXstream 500; It's not a spectacular psu, but it shouldn't have any problems with the 4850.
 
Working with a guy earlier today with an unstable 4870 and updating motherboard bios fixed his problems. Have you checked to see if there is an update that might address your problem.
 
Working with a guy earlier today with an unstable 4870 and updating motherboard bios fixed his problems. Have you checked to see if there is an update that might address your problem.

Was just about to post this than saw your post ;)

Yep I was the guy wrangler was working with. Not sure if my case will help you at all but it is worth a shot. I own the GB-p43 board and a lot of people who have this board have run into the same problem; and not just with the 4800s but with nvidea cards as well (someone with a 9800 had the same problem). GB had a bios update which I dled and flashed and I have been running stable ever since, was just playing cod4 at 100FPS at 1920x1200. This card owns!
 
I agree with the furmark comment. Run furmark for an hour or two. If it does its normal random crash then its probably not the card. If furmark can routinely make it crash on demand, then RMA that bad boy.

*Note* Furmark CAN crash mine at my current overclock, but only after it goes over 90*C. My card never gets over 70 cycling 3dmark06 or gaming though, Furmark is just a beast and manages to fully use these cards more than anything else!
 
I've had issues with display drivers in Vista when not running the installation as an admin while UAC was enabled (right click, run as admin). Saw someone else mention this, but might've gone unnoticed.
 
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