Graphics cards for Vista 64

[mikewl]

Hey all,

A few months ago I upgraded my old X800XT to one of the 3870 cards, the old card ran perfect on Vista 64 as far as stability, however the new one I have seems to be affected by the 'Atikmdag has stopped responding' issue. details of this issue can be found here: http://www.repairyourpcnow.com/resou...responding.php I've tried everything on the site and it does not fix it for me.

Everyday I will get the error message show up, booting me from games and then saying it has recovered, this happens 3 or so times a day if my pc is on all day.

About once or twice a day it will keep flickering and then blue screen and reboot my machine.

I have given up trying to find a fix as there doesn't seem to be any that work 100%, so instead im wondering if anyone else has managed to get a fairly new graphics card to work on Vista 64 without this issue.

I dont mind if its ATI or Nvidia, just as long as its good enough performance for new games and is stable for long windows use.

Thanks

Mike

[Hohum]

The symptoms point more to a hardware problem than a software problem - is anything overheating?

Edit: Looked at that link, there's some bizarre suggestions there... turn off UAC? That will solve nothing at all.

[mikewl]

The symptoms point more to a hardware problem than a software problem - is anything overheating?

Edit: Looked at that link, there's some bizarre suggestions there... turn off UAC? That will solve nothing at all.

I don't think its an overheating issue, I dual screen and have had the graphics card temp on one screen while gaming and the temp seems fine.

I really dont think anyone knows the cause but its got me wanting to replace it but I just dont want to get a new card and find its got the same problem.

Its a shame as the card runs games nicely and was a decent price.

[Hohum]

What spec PSU do you have?

[mikewl]

What spec PSU do you have?

Im not sure of the make but its a 700 Watt PSU, should be enough power I think.

[Hohum]

If you can find out the make/model that'd help, as a cheapo PSU could be the cause of your problem. Don't really want to go changing the graphics card, only to find the issue remains... that would be a disaster.

[dataDave]

lol.... I'm getting almost the same problems with XP mate, I'm thinking of upgrading to Vista just to see if it fixes anything I get memory reference/cache errors when playing games which BsoD me out.

If that still doesn't work I will completey swap out the GFX card (8800GT 512mb), if nothing changes I will fully replace the memory (currently 2gb Corsair XMS3-1333 DDR3).

...if nothing changes after that I need to replace the motherboard. If that fails then windows is pure ****e and I give up.

[mikewl]

If you can find out the make/model that'd help, as a cheapo PSU could be the cause of your problem. Don't really want to go changing the graphics card, only to find the issue remains... that would be a disaster.

Did some looking around on the inside on the pc and its a Thermaltake 750W PSU, it was bought from Novatech.

Also looked into the graphics card temps, it seems to idle in Vista at about 45 Degrees and on max load it goes up to 79 degrees, when auto tuning the card in overdrive, I dont think its the issue though as most the time it crashes its when its idle or just during a dvd.

[Hohum]

That brand isn't too bad, so not sure. I guess you could try:

• Removing the card and reseating it, and remove/reconnect the power cable connected to it
• Check the voltage readings in the BIOS, see if any are off by a noticeable amount
• Try turning overdrive off

That's all I can think of for the moment, apart from grabbing the latest graphics driver of course.

[3x3cut10n3r]

I too have been affect by this foul affliction and have only ever found one way to fix it, but I doubt you?ll like it. Format and start again.

I can tell you that the every time I had the problem, it was the software, so physically fiddling with the card won?t make much difference I doubt.

Never really found out what triggered it but has happened to me at least 5 or 6 times, to 3-4 cards over the years, no matter what I tried, using restore points or installing the latest drivers, it kept happening.

The only way I ever got it fixed was to format my machine, sorted it straight away. Kind of a sledgehammer to a nail approach but it is the only way that I have found that sorts it as I don?t have so much free time as to be forever chasing ghosts.

Also, I'm running a 3870 on Vista 64 and it works perfectly.

[mikewl]

I too have been affect by this foul affliction and have only ever found one way to fix it, but I doubt you’ll like it. Format and start again.

I can tell you that the every time I had the problem, it was the software, so physically fiddling with the card won’t make much difference I doubt.

Never really found out what triggered it but has happened to me at least 5 or 6 times, to 3-4 cards over the years, no matter what I tried, using restore points or installing the latest drivers, it kept happening.

The only way I ever got it fixed was to format my machine, sorted it straight away. Kind of a sledgehammer to a nail approach but it is the only way that I have found that sorts it as I don’t have so much free time as to be forever chasing ghosts.

Also, I'm running a 3870 on Vista 64 and it works perfectly.

Damn, was hoping I wouldnt have to do that.

Do you know if Vista will give me issues authenticating my license, seeing as im not changing any hardware I would have thought it would be ok.

I've heard when you format the harddrive it gets assigned a new id or something which can make Vista think its new hardware.

[3x3cut10n3r]

Do you know if Vista will give me issues authenticating my license, seeing as im not changing any hardware I would have thought it would be ok.

I've heard when you format the harddrive it gets assigned a new id or something which can make Vista think its new hardware.

Nah, it'll be fine. Vista is much less sensitive to hardware changes compared to XP was, the only way I ever triggered mine was when I changed a RAID 0 array for my OS disk.

Even if you do trigger it, it doesn't matter in the slightest. When you activate it will give you a 'Install ID' or something and all you need to do is call the number given and type in the code to a machine and it will give you the code you need.

It used to be a person you spoke to but now it is a machine, type in the code and answer the questions it ask's (1,1,1) if I remember. Easy, has never failed for me.