atikmdag.sys, Windows 7 x64, ATI Radeon 4850, Crossfire

Anonymous

I am on my 3rd install of Windows 7. Having a really bad time with the video drivers. And from what I have read, others are too. I shut it off for now and will leave it off till better drivers are released. The funny this is, is that the drivers from windows update are just as bad as the drivers from ATI. If you install the video drivers from windows update you are looking at BSOD. You can reboot into safe mode and remove everything ATI however if you continue to try to boot normally you will ruin the OS and you will have to reinstall. Specifically it is atikmdag.sys. This was also an issue with Vista from what I have seen researching this issue. The supposed work around is to just install the driver but even if you download just the driver it wants to install the Catalyst Control Center which atikmdag.sys is a part of. So you are stuck between wanting to install the drivers for your video card or using the generic video driver that is stable and won't crash your system. The annoying thing is is that with the generic driver the video on the monitor is scaled. So you have a black border all the way around the screen. The maximum resolution of my monitor is 1920x1080. The best I can get with the generic driver is 1440x1080.

I would say that it was a hardware conflict somewhere however this is hardware that worked just fine in Windows XP.

Is there a fix for this yet or is it more of a "be patient" thing?

My system is as follows,

Asus P5K-E Motherboard

4 gigs of DDR2 1066 RAM

3 10,000 drives RAID 0

ATI Radeon 4850 cards in Crossfire. Monitor hooked up via HDMI.

Not that any of that matters since it seems everyone across many different configurations is having the very same issue as I am.

Essentially, its a very expensive case full of hardware that is unusable. I know that I am going to asked for information that I haven't included in this post but I am at work at the moment and can't provide it.

Thanks

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Anonymous

Alright everybody.. Same situation for me. Two HD 4850's in crossfire mode.. I updated some drivers and started to get the BSOD with the atikmdag.sys error. I actually came up with a fix for this 4 hours later that doesn't require you to reformat your computer. In my case, here is exactly what I did:

Start computer in safe mode with networking
Download and install Driver Sweeper which can be obtained here
Start the Driver Sweeper program, check the ATI - Display box and click on the Clean button. This will delete ALL ATI drivers from your system.
Reboot computer again, it should start normally now if everything worked right... Now you're gonna remove any CCC program via add/remove programs.
Now all you have to do is find the original driver you had before you tried to upgrade. I would recommend using the disk that came with your video card. You can also go to the ATI website and search for your exact model and download the drivers... Keep in mind, I would stay away from the newest versions of drivers as they all seem pretty buggy...

The current CCC software I am running stable is: Catalyst™ Control Center Version 2010.0406.2133.36843

The current driver I have installed for my HD 4850's in crossfire mode is atikmpag.sys (8.14.1.6113)

This driver with that version of CCC hasn't failed me yet. Try not updating graphics drivers if you don't have to. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

I really hope this helps everybody out... I got mine working again... Oh and for all of you with the black borders issue the post above mine is 100% accurate and will fix the issue.

Also this is the system I am currently running:

SPECS:

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor

ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard

Crucial Ballistix Tracer 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory

XFX HD-485X-ZNFC Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 x2 in crossfire hooked up via HDMI cable

ASUS VE246H Black 24" 2ms(GTG) HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

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Anonymous

I had the black border as well but its actually an easy fix and hopefully it'll work for you. Go to your CCC Panel, then go to Graphics, then to Desktops and Displays, then in the bottom left corner, you will see your monitor or monitors. When your mouse is over the icon an arrow pointing downward will appear that will represent a drop down menu. Click that arrow then click Configure. You should see more then several tabs on this screen. Click the tab called Scaling Options, then slide the bar to Overscan (0%) and click apply then ok. You should be good to go. :)

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41 additional answers

Anonymous

2011-07-04T10:38:58+00:00

You my friend are a life saver.... thanks for the detailed post... worked like a charm for my Alienware M17x... The only difference in my case was that whatever I would do my computer would not start even in safe mode with the ATi cards.. would show the blue screen with the atikmdag.sys issue ... So i booted with the Nvidia graphic card by changing the settings to integrated graphic card from the bios and from there onwards did the same as you have explained....

Thanks...
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Anonymous

2011-06-16T02:56:28+00:00

I have had this issue over multiple systems and operating systems (xp, vista, seven) for over five years now and never found a fix that actually works. Plenty of friendly advice from various people, nothing has ever worked. I assumed it was to do with ati cards, then I heard reports of the same issue for nvidia, although I have not verified that for myself. At this point I'm just going to go ahead and install a different OS, see if that works.
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Anonymous

2011-03-27T05:03:00+00:00

This blue screen error is due to hardware overheatting. The solution, open up your pc or laptop and remove the heat sink (or heat sinks). Clean up the heatsink and the heat transfer compound off the heat sink and the silicon chips that were once touching it (or them). Re-apply new heat transfer compound to the silicon chips, making sure that enough compound will make contact with the heat sink once it is reinstalled (don't make a mess). I recommend a non-silicon base heat transfer compound (the quality of the compound is very important, so don't be cheap). Carefully re-install the heat sink, don't rush (the compound won't dry out, but don't wait for too long either). finally, re-assemble your PC

This procedure should solve your atikmdag.sys blue screen error. I came upon this solution after extensive research, trial and error (to include replacing of the RAM,HDD and full factory reinstallation of the original OS, as well as other Linux based OS, to name a few; All these with no results)

After the heat sink break through, my lapton PC has been runing continuously for 48 hours with no problems.

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