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Problems with ATI HD4870 and Vista

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by zidaya

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Hi, i am looking for help with my annoying problem.
I recently bought new computer:
MSI P45 Neo2
Intel E8600 @3,3GHz
4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066 OCZ Reaper Series
Sapphire HD4870 512MB DDR5, PCI-E
PSU Chieftec GPS-550AB-A

Installed Vista Home Premium, everything was ok until i installed driver for VGA. After that my computer manages to start in 1 from 20-30 boots. Otherwise i get restart right after Microsoft Corporation loading screen, sometimes with bluescreen - atikmdag.sys. I can boot to safe mode everytime. After removing VGA driver in safe mode, computer boots normally. I enabled boot logging and got these results in ntbtlog.txt:
Without VGA driver - every driver loaded
With VGA driver -
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\crcdisk.sys
Did not load driver @hal.inf,%acpiapic.devicedesc%;Platforma x86 standardu ACPI
Did not load driver @cpu.inf,%intelppm.devicedesc%;Procesor Intel
Did not load driver @cpu.inf,%intelppm.devicedesc%;Procesor Intel
Did not load driver ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series

and so on.

I have latest drivers and bios. I tried another memory module (1x1GB DDR2 800), another PSU (650W) - same symptoms.
In case my computer starts normally, i can do everything except playing games, where it ocassionally freezes -> 20-30 reboots.
Temperatures are about 45?C CPU and 60-70?C VGA.
Is there any solution? Or should i look forward for new BIOS, driver, Vista update?
Thanks in advance for any ideas

5 replies

by thechas

You did not state if you had installed or updated the drivers for the chip-set on the motherboard.

If you have not done so, download the latest drivers for your motherboard and install them.

Also check at MSI for BIOS updates. I would not install a BIOS update unless the release notes look like the update corrects a problem you are having.

If you do decide to Flash the BIOS, follow all the instructions carefully.

After you get the motherboard drivers up to date, then download the latest ATI driver from the AMD web site.

Finally, I presume you are running the 32 bit version of Vista. If so, you may find better and more stable system performance with just 2 GB of RAM.

With the 32 bit version, the upper 750 MB to 1.5 GB of the 4 GB of RAM address space is used for system resources and housekeeping. Part of which is the video card. If for any reason, something gets written to the RAM area used for the video card it can cause conflicts.

Chas

by zidaya

Hi, thank you for your quick response.

I have up-to-date chipset drivers installed (ver. 9.0.0.1009 from MSI website), BIOS ver. 3.1 is latest too (update CPU microcode). I tried Catalyst drivers 8.6 from Sapphire CD and Catalyst 8.8 both from AMD and from Sapphire website. Used Driver sweeper before installing other version

I am using 32bit version of Vista, but it doesn't matter what amount of memory i have installed. Behaviour is the same with 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 1 stick, 2 sticks, single channel or dual channel.

I found many people with atikmdag.sys problem via Google, but nobody had same symptoms as me. I never got message stating ATIKMDAG has stopped responding but was successfully recovered. Yet i tried many of proposals mentioned there, but nothing worked for me.

Once my system normally boots, i can run 3DMark06 without problem - no restart, no freeze.

by Former member

The only answer that i can come up with is to do with your processor.
Take out your processor and heatsink and fan. If you are too scared to do this take it to a shop. If you are ok with this then you need to take out your processor and very carefully wipe it clean (make sure you are grounded at all times), when clean do the same with the bottom of the heatsink, when all is done apply a small (very small) amount of thermal paste and spread it evenly over it. when all is done replace back together onto the motherboard and test it out.
Hope all goes well.

Please post back if you have any more problems or questions.

by zidaya

I got new BIOS 3.2 Beta 5 from MSI on Monday.
This BIOS solved problems with rebooting. Problem with games persist but is not so often. Sometimes am I able to play for 3-4 hours until my computer crashes (before new BIOS 5-10 minutes). So I think all my problems are BIOS related (I hope so)

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