# BSODs and Driver Problems



## Jaskanwar Singh (Aug 24, 2011)

Guys these days i am getting a lot of these. 

first these started when i used catalyst 11.7. i updated it to 11.8 yesterday but i got these today again. i had overclocked my card to 850/1300 from 800/1250. i was running a unigine test and found lower fps. i checked msi afterburner and found the card running at 500/1300!!!
a BSOD happened and clocks were reset to 800/1250 automatically. then i thought oc might be a problem. so i ran furmark at stock and again a BSOD happened. 

i had overclocked it a long time back and no problems were there. started 3-4 days back. 

some advice needed what to do?


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## MegaMind (Aug 24, 2011)

Proccy OCed?


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Aug 24, 2011)

^yes to 3.1ghz. But it is in that state froms months. And moreover msg comes that ati driver stopped responding and has successfully recovered. So i think a prob related to card.


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## MegaMind (Aug 24, 2011)

Happens at load or idle.. ?


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## Tenida (Aug 24, 2011)

Temperature at idle/load.
1)at stock clock.
2)when overclocked.


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## asingh (Aug 24, 2011)

Jaskanwar Singh said:


> Guys these days i am getting a lot of these.
> 
> first these started when i used catalyst 11.7. i updated it to 11.8 yesterday but i got these today again. i had overclocked my card to 850/1300 from 800/1250. i was running a unigine test and found lower fps. i checked msi afterburner and found the card running at 500/1300!!!
> a BSOD happened and clocks were reset to 800/1250 automatically. then i thought oc might be a problem. so i ran furmark at stock and again a BSOD happened.
> ...



The way you have been playing with Furmark, highly probable you have ruined your accelerator.

Anyways, if the BSOD is generating any dumps post the last 5 on a shared link, and place the link here, will look into them.

Also, try a fresh GPU driver install, using Driver Sweeper method as per Guru3d.


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Aug 25, 2011)

asingh said:


> The way you have been playing with Furmark, highly probable you have ruined your accelerator.
> 
> Anyways, if the BSOD is generating any dumps post the last 5 on a shared link, and place the link here, will look into them.
> 
> Also, try a fresh GPU driver install, using Driver Sweeper method as per Guru3d.



asingh i installed fresh 11.8 after using sweeper. 
Sorry for such ques but where are dumps generated? 

@tenida
in oc the temp goes around 75 in games and idle 41~. 

@megamind
sometimes on windows startup and sometimes gaming.


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## coderunknown (Aug 25, 2011)

> c:\windows\minidump\



here.


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Aug 25, 2011)

Sam said:


> here.



thanks *sam*.

*asingh* 
i am unable to upload. there are 4 files. when i upload it says i dont have sufficient permission to open it.

and now i am unable to play any game or whatever. just recovered from another hang up. the screen fills with white squares or sometime dashes


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## MegaMind (Aug 25, 2011)

Jas, reseat the power connectors... Get everything to stock settings(CPU n GPU) n give a try...


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Aug 25, 2011)

yes everything is at stock *megamind*. 

i reseated the card only after that game crash. at first i tried booting from IGP after removing card but it stuck at windows logo. but after installing card its booted. didnt try any game now. shall i?


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## MegaMind (Aug 25, 2011)

^^U mean With IGP, PC didnt bootup?


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Aug 25, 2011)

MegaMind said:


> ^^U mean With IGP, PC didnt bootup?



Yes, it stuck at win logo.

And before removing card, card was giving dashes even in safe mode. After reinstalling card, i used net. But didnt try game.


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## MegaMind (Aug 25, 2011)

Try with IGP first, 
1. Remove the GPU,
2. Restore bios to default settings,
3. Boot with IGP, remove ATI drivers
4. Reboot,
5. Install IGP drivers, Try any game with lowest setting for sometime.. 

post back...


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Aug 26, 2011)

*megamind* and others an update. today i played civ5 and it ran without problem. this is my first game on gpu after re-installing yesterday. ran heaven too fine. 

So what you say? i think its working fine.


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## MegaMind (Aug 26, 2011)

^Go-on.. I hope its solved...


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## coderunknown (Aug 26, 2011)

@jassy, don't run any heavy benchmark. your GPU has already taken a good lot of beating. just keep your system safe.

PS: i think you remember somone's GPU got fried here after running furmark in high setting. you are lucky


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Aug 27, 2011)

ok *sammy*. 

guys i spoke too early yesterday. another BSOD yesterday evening and today a crash of civ5.

*asingh *here you go -

082611-34476-01.dmp
082511-29889-01.dmp
082411-55973-01.dmp
082411-28594-01.dmp
082211-29733-01.dmp


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## coderunknown (Aug 27, 2011)

jassy all these errors are cause of just 1 single module: atikmpag.sys
and the error is Timeout Detection and Recovery error (TDR).

did a bit of googling & found these:



> 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
> ...



first & 4th option looks most likely.


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## Cilus (Aug 28, 2011)

Well, I'm a sufferer of this problem and there are two possible reasons for it:-

Corrupted DirectX file
Corrupted GPU Memory

JAs, do a fresh installation of the OS and then install the Gfx driver. Make sure everything is running @ stock speed.
If reinstalling OS doesn't solve the problem then I'm 99.5% sure it is Gfx card hrdware issue, most probably corrupted memory module.
And why the hell you are running future mark tests all the time? Futuremark is a bad piece of software to measure GPU's capability as it creates unrealistic type of workload over the GPU and stress it in such a high level which is nearly impossible in any real life scenario.
That's why all the review sites actually dropped futuremark tests to measure load power consumtion.


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## Tenida (Aug 28, 2011)

^^Does Futuremark software means (*3D mark 06,3D Mark 11,3D mark Vantage and PC mark 7*)??


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## coderunknown (Aug 28, 2011)

Tenida said:


> ^^Does Futuremark software means (*3D mark 06,3D Mark 11,3D mark Vantage and PC mark 7*)??



yes. but don't mix furmark & futuremark.


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Aug 28, 2011)

i formatted, reinstalled win7 but still issue persists. Time for RMA i guess?


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## Tenida (Aug 28, 2011)

^^Maybe you can get the Dual-fan one HD6950 if replaced.


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## MegaMind (Aug 28, 2011)

Jaskanwar Singh said:


> i formatted, reinstalled win7 but still issue persists. Time for RMA i guess?



If possible, pay extra n get 2GB version..


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## coderunknown (Aug 28, 2011)

so what anil told at the start is most probably right. the GPU or the memory chips have got corrupted due to excessive benchmarking.


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Aug 28, 2011)

ok guys. Btw contact smc or aditya directly?


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## Tenida (Aug 28, 2011)

Contact Aditya Infotech, Chandigarh...directly.


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## asingh (Aug 28, 2011)

I looked at the BSOD dumps..and got this...



> VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE (116)
> Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed.
> Arguments:
> Arg1: fffffa80043594e0, Optional pointer to internal TDR recovery context (TDR_RECOVERY_CONTEXT).
> ...



Can you update your Dx flavor to the latest. Just overlay it. Also do a clean sweep, yes again of the CCC.

Let us know.


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Aug 31, 2011)

guys had a pm discussion with *asingh*. updated every driver including chipset, gpu. 
and played civ5 for 1 hour 15 min without problems.

so does every benchmark affects the gpu?


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## coderunknown (Sep 1, 2011)

^^ excess of everything is bad. you benchmarked your GPU a bit too hard. first of all you overclocked it & then stretched it to its limit.

BTW GPU still overclocked or running at stock now?


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Sep 1, 2011)

its running at stock now *sam*.


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## vickybat (Sep 1, 2011)

^^ Are you getting more bsod's? If yes, then RMA seems to be the best option. Cilus faced similar problems and found out that some of his memory modules were corrupt.
Sapphire has some excellent service in kolkata and he got a new 6870 within 3 days. Same must be in your place and 6950 is a high end card and therefore has high priority in the replacement queue.

*P.S-* After you get your new card, don't stress it anymore , whether benchmarking or overclocking. Use it at stock because 6950 is a very powerful card at stock & you don't need to overclock.

When games start becoming heavy, then you can overclock a bit. But i think all new game releases this year will run flawlessly in a 6950 at fullhd. So your gaming needs are completely covered.


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Sep 1, 2011)

thanks *batman*. no more probs (fingers crossed)


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Sep 16, 2011)

as my card is gone for RMA, i was playing civ5 at low-med settings at 1366x768 at non full screen on my IGP.

yesterday it started to lag and i checked GPU-Z. showed this -
*img713.imageshack.us/img713/421/capturegpn.png

memory is running at low speed.

but afterburner showed this -
*img17.imageshack.us/img17/6728/capture2sf.png

and what is GPU-1 and GPU-2 in afterburner?

and no i didnt run any benchmark on my IGP


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## asingh (Sep 17, 2011)

Doubt after burner will realize and IGP properly.


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## Piyush (Sep 17, 2011)

card sent for RMA?!?!
what happened?


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Sep 17, 2011)

baba bsods and crashes during gaming. 

asingh IGP problem gone away but still gpu z shows less memory frequency. so these softwares must be optimized of discreet cards. what say?


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## Piyush (Sep 17, 2011)

Jaskanwar Singh said:


> baba bsods and crashes during gaming.
> 
> asingh IGP problem gone away but still gpu z shows less memory frequency. so these softwares must be optimized of discreet cards. what say?



OK....was reading the thread 
now why did you do OCing and running testing s/w like furmark so frequently?
heck...even those hardware reviewers don't do this stuff that frequently

btw from where did you bought this card?


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Sep 18, 2011)

Piyush said:


> OK....was reading the thread
> now why did you do OCing and running testing s/w like furmark so frequently?
> heck...even those hardware reviewers don't do this stuff that frequently
> 
> btw from where did you bought this card?



no baba. i didnt run furmark like you mentioned. but i did make a mistake to run it whenever i ran it. 

smcinternational.


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Oct 3, 2011)

.GUYS GOT THE CARD 
and u know what, i have got a dual fan sapphire cooler now.   The vram is 1gb. May they changed the cooler. The box also same.

Will post pics soon.


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## vickybat (Oct 3, 2011)

^^ Congrats jas. Now don't push the card too much. Play at stock because 6950 is a pretty powerful card out of the box. 

Enjoy.


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## MegaMind (Oct 3, 2011)

U're lucky Jas...


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Oct 3, 2011)

*img26.imageshack.us/img26/3706/image0181f.jpg

more images - 

ImageShack Album - 8 images

thanks megamind and batman.


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## max_007 (Oct 3, 2011)

Congratulations JS bro  the card looks great..enjoy


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Oct 3, 2011)

thanks max buddy. 

guys i found the product -
*www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1041&pid=0&psn=000101&lid=1&leg=0

its SAPPHIRE HD 6950 1GB GDDR5 *PCIE*
*www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1041&pid=1271&psn=&lid=1&leg=0

*AND IT HAS A DUAL BIOS SWITCH!! *

Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100312-1GDP Radeon HD 6950 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

to be more specific - 
current - SAPPHIRE 100312-1GDP 
Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100312-1GDP Radeon HD 6950 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
newegg mentions a dirt3 box though. 
previous - SAPPHIRE 100312-1GSR
Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100312-1GSR Radeon HD 6950 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

installed pics -
*img20.imageshack.us/img20/4448/027fdf.jpg
ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting
ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

and thanks to everyone who helped


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## topgear (Oct 4, 2011)

^^ congrats - this thing will remain much more cooler and will offer more performance headroom


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Oct 4, 2011)

Thanks TP. The cooler is nice. During deus ex human rev at highest settings with mlaa etc i got a max temp of 72c at default fan profile (at that temp it was 54%).


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## Tech_Wiz (Oct 4, 2011)

No more fooling around with Card for you


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Oct 4, 2011)

^well i will try after long time


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## DARK KNIGHT (Oct 5, 2011)

Now enojoy gaming jassy.


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Oct 5, 2011)

thanks dark night.


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## rajnusker (Nov 11, 2011)

Piyush said:


> OK....was reading the thread
> now why did you do OCing and running testing s/w like furmark so frequently?
> heck...even those hardware reviewers don't do this stuff that frequently
> 
> btw from where did you bought this card?



Only high overclocking would results in such problems.

@Jas what was your stock and overclocked speeds?


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Nov 11, 2011)

stock - 800/1250
oc - 875/1300 (stock volt)


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