ATI ATIKMDAG Error

[winste]

Hello

First post. This is a great site.

I just got a new PC.

Dell
Q6600 Quad core
Rosewill 500w psu
4 gb Ram
Stock dell mobo
Current card is a 7900 GT
Vista 32 bit

I'm looking to upgrade the graphics card and to spend around $150.

It looks like I can get a 4850 for that after MIR. But I read the ATI forums and it looks like the ATI cards have a problem with Vista and alot of people are getting this ATI ATIKMDAG Error.

Causes me to consider getting either a 8800 GTS or 9800 GTX+ instead and sacrificing a few FPS for stability.

Anybody here getting that error message?

 

[dagger]

It's driver crash. Happens as the card becomes unstable, like when it overheats, overclocked too much, or power fluctuates. The same thing can happen to Nvidia cards, just under a different error name, since the core driver file is different. Nothing wrong with 4850.

As for 9800gtx+, it performs the same as 4850, see benchmarks. So you're not sacrificing fps.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4670/26.html
Although keep in mind, it's just as likely/unlikely to get driver crash as 4850.

 

[pault11]

Or it happens when ATI can't get their act together. I have a one-year old quad-core system. Quality components, very simple, very stable, good power supply, no excess heat (GPU 37 degrees C), no over-clocking, running Vista 32-bit. The motherboard is an Asus P5K-V. I do not play games. I recently upgraded to a dual-monitor system, which required more than the integrated graphics, so I got the Radeon Sapphire HD4670, another simple mid-level solution that would provide two DVI outputs at any normal resolution. (Somewhat reluctantly, remembering other ATI cards in systems and years past.) I installed the latest stable driver (8.12). Now I am experiencing _daily_ crashes with the atikmdag display driver message. This is highly frustrating. ATI support says to check hardware issues, and attempts to put the blame on any and everything else in the system. For many enthusiasts who tinker with their systems this will result in them thinking "Hmm, I must have done something wrong here." I don't buy it. In my system the only change was the ATI card, so it is the problem. Looks like the tradition of shoddy engineering, incompetent programming and poor customer service is alive and well at ATI/AMD today.

 

[Guest]

*** ed up error.. only ATI is to blame, ur little story there is a load of crap. i got tried my 4850 on 4 operating systems, and yet same thing on every one of them,, windows 7 64 bit. windows xp 32 bit. vista 32 bit and vista 64 bit, and each time having a clean install. so i had no Nvidia Drivers . so dnt give me that ***, or anyone else. u know nothing,

 

[Guest]

*** ed up error.. only ATI is to blame, ur little story there is a load of crap. i got tried my 4850 on 4 operating systems, and yet same thing on every one of them,, windows 7 64 bit. windows xp 32 bit. vista 32 bit and vista 64 bit, and each time having a clean install. so i had no Nvidia Drivers . so dnt give me that ***, or anyone else. u know nothing,

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

What psu do you have? Whats the amperage on the 12 volt rails? Whats your load temps on cpu/gpu? Have you checked your system ram with mem test 1 stick at a time? Have you cleaned your case? Point is, it may be 4 OS' but its still the same mobo, bios, ram etc, need to check all of this first or also