Constant Driver Crashes/Black Screen on Win7 64bit (Sapphire HD4870 1GB)

[Sgt.3agle3ye]

Hello Community,

Since i upgraded my system to Win7 Pro 64bit i am recievieng constant driver crashes (screens gets black and driver gets recovered)
It doesnt matter what im doing ...

playing a game -> crash
working with photoshop -> crash
even on desktop it sometimes crashes

i tried everything i can, starting with testing every driver package available for Win7 (Cat 9.3 - 9.10) ... with normal uninstall, with DriverCleaner and even with a full reinstall of Windows its not working

I am using the default BIOS of my Sapphire Radeon HD4870 1GB ... nothing is changed. I just tried around a bit with CCC Overdrive but i deactived it.
Only thing that has changed is the cooling. I removed default fan-cooling and I am now using Scythe's Musashi without any problems in Temperatures.

I can run FurMark as long as you want and nothing is happening ... it just keeps running on normal temperatures.

All Drivers are up to date.

Well im kinda out of ideas ...

My Specs are:

CoolerMaster RealPower 620W
Asus P5Q Pro
Intel C2Q 9550 @ 3GHz
4GB of Kingston HyperX 1066MHz RAM
Sapphire Radeon HD4870 1GB
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium

Hope, someone here can help me.

Greetings,
3agle

EDIT: For advise, on Win7 RC everything was working fine!

[Gr33nGecko]

Heya,..

If you modded the card, we can't help you out there as you may have damaged the card in some way and your warranty is now void.

#7 of the following thread :- http://www.vgaforum.com/showthread.php?t=13173

Refit the original HSF and see if that works, if it does, then the HSF you're using isn't compatible or you fitted it wrongly. If it doesn't, then you may have irreparably damaged the ASIC somehow ..

There is of course the possibility that your W7 install is just glitchy ( if it's a pirate copy then that'll be the reason maybe - and we can't help with that .. if it's a genuine copy then try a reinstall and see what gives - that card does work on W7 as I've installed a few systems with that series card in and have had no issues ).

As you've modded your card, I'm afraid that we can't really help out there ..

GG

[Sgt.3agle3ye]

well,
i understand what you mean about the HSF,
but i got the new HSF since about 1 1/2 year and everything was working fine under Vista.

My Win7 copy is a genuine copy from MSDNAA and I already tried a clean reinstall of the system.
That didnt help as well as all the other things I checked :-/

[Gr33nGecko]

Heya,..

Maybe re-apply some new thermal paste ?
Might be a good idea to test the system DDR to make sure you haven't got a faulty module .. crashing at desktop for nothing may be an indication of a bad memory module.
Maybe drop the overclock and test too ..
Try with a different PSU to eliminate power unit as the cause ..

GG

[Raptor]

check the memory on the computer photoshop crashing and desktop crashing with game crashing telling theres an issue dealing with system memory

[Sgt.3agle3ye]

Haha, just found an article about the "new" VPU-Recover ... didnt know that this is called TDR (Timeout Detection and Recovery) and built into Win7, not in driver anymore ... grml
Anyway i will turn this thingy off and report you my results tomorrow.

Information about TDR can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device...m_timeout.mspx

[Gr33nGecko]

Heya,..

Dude, the following ( and much more ) can cause TDRs .. if you're clocking with a bad DDR stick, you'll see it aswell .. you won't be able to troubleshoot TDR issues without having first made sure 100% and then 100% again, that ALL your hardware is functioning correctly and has been setup correctly .. so messing with the registry to try to eliminate things may just be a bad idea which may mask a flaw somewhere else ..


The following hardware issues are examples that can cause a TDR event:

- Failing overclock on CPU or GPU

- Bad sector in memory resulting in corrupt data being communicated between GPU and the system (either video or system memory)

- Corrupt hard drive/windows install resulting in corruption to the system registry or the page file

- Over heating of GPU or CPU again resulting in corrupt data being communicated.

- GPU failure due to any sort of issue from insufficient power(VERY common) to heat.


The following software issues are examples that can cause a TDR event:

-Incompatible drivers of any sort (either GPU, sound, etc)

-Messy registry

-Known vista issues resounding around multiple displays, aero, dreamscape, and various display drivers.

-Known vista issues that sometimes cause corrupt information to be sent to the video card from system memory (will be addressed completely in SP2, has had various fixes applied since vista's release)

-Bad direct x files

-bad system files

-Bad driver (some drivers will cause an event due to internal bugs, however these are not nearly as common as many think due to all of the previous things causing the same symptom)



.. thanks again to Daedalus685 for compiling the list from multiple threads concerning TDRs and ATIKMDAG.sys issues ..


GG

[Sgt.3agle3ye]

well, with TDR off i get lesser crashes but if a crash occurs i can do a hard reboot in order to get the drivers working again.
Also i found a faulty memory stick after 3 hours memtest running.
But removing it did not the trick :-/
Still getting crashes in Borderlands.
CPU also tested for stability with Intel Burn Test ... everything okay.
Now the only thing that can be damaged is the GFX but before i go to our local store to buy a new one I will test it on a brandnew Vista System to sort that out (or not).

[Gr33nGecko]

Heya,...

Well, a faulty DDR module found is a good start .. although not really a good thing .

Borderlands has been known to be buggy for a few people, so maybe it's a driver issue .. try renaming the .exe to bioshock.exe and see what that does.

Test VGA DDR with Video Memory Stress Test off the majorgeeks.com website ( you might get a hit for it on google if you search for vmt.zip ) ..

Try to test with a different PSU aswell to make sure yours is not a part of the issue.


GG

[Sgt.3agle3ye]

Looks like its a complete Memory incompatibility ...

I just installed 2 2GB Modules OCZ Reaper of a friend and 3 Hours of playing without any crash.

really really odd ...
still wondering about why everything was running fine on Vista ...

Will test further more and keep you informed