ATIKMDAG.sys problems and TDR FAQ

[Spyral-Admin]

This FAQ will attempt to help many people with their ATIKMDAG errors and ideally educate them on what they are and are not caused by. Firstly I feel I must explain TDR.

Q: What is TDR?

A: TDR (Timeout Detection and Recovery) is a windows vista feature. Its purpose is to detect when the GPU stops responding, disable it and reinitialize it without the need to exit windows or reboot.

Q: What does TDR have to do with atikmdag?

A: A TDR event is reported to the end user by a notification bubble. This bubble will indicate "The display driver [insert name here] has stopped responding as was recovered." The driver name for all ATI systems is atikmdag, for NVIDIA users the same error will be reported but with the driver name nvlddmkm.sys. Atikmdag will also appear in the event viewer log under the warning associated with the TDR event.

Q: What causes TDR to trigger an event?

A: This is a very complicated question. The events can be due to almost anything in your system hardware or software. This has caused much confusion, as the same error is a symptom for everything from bad memory to a software fault.

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

- Over heating of GPU or CPU again resulting in corrupt data being communicated.

- GPU failure due to any sort of issue from insufficient power(VERY common) to heat.

The following software issues are examples that can cause a TDR event:

-Incompatible drivers of any sort (either GPU, sound, etc)

-Messy registry

-Known vista issues resounding around multiple displays, aero, dreamscape, and various display drivers.

-Known vista issues that sometimes cause corrupt information to be sent to the video card from system memory (will be addressed completely in SP2, has had various fixes applied since vista's release)

-Bad direct x files

-bad system files

-Bad driver (some drivers will cause an event due to internal bugs, however these are not nearly as common as many think due to all of the previous things causing the same symptom)

Q: How do I fix my TDR events?

A: This entirely depends on what is causing the event. As one can see there are almost limitless causes. First you must determine if the issue is hardware or software related, which can be quite a headache.

Some fixes work for some users, some do not. The following links will contain fixes that may or may not work for you.

http://www.driverheaven.net/vista-radeon-display-drivers/133188-vista-7-3-display-driver-atikmdag-stopped-responding-error.html

http://www.repairyourpcnow.com/resources/atikmdag-has-stopped-responding.php

These links provide information on registry edits, hot fixes, and other tricks to attempt to resolve the software TDR events. Software events generally will occur when the system is idle and will be very random. Hardware events may also occur at idle but some will only occur at load.

If you find you must figure out if your TDR is hardware related the following tips can help you troubleshoot.

-          Ensure nothing is overheating; refer to the documentation and the web for what is an acceptable temperature for the GPU or the CPU.

-          Ensure your power supply meets the minimum requirements of your system with some headroom. An overclocked crossfire setup will require at least 700W of good quality (good brand) power.

-          Run Memtest (windows Vista has an integrated test on the CD to test memory, or download memtest86+)

-          The sure fire way to check for hardware issues is to stress components under a different environment. Either in a friends PC or under windows XP. If something is wrong with the hardware, xp will crash to a BSOD where you previously had a TDR event.

Q: Why shouldn’t I just buy NVIDIA instead to solve my problem?

A: I am not in the business of recommending brands. It must be understood though that TDR events are common under any graphics adapter in vista. There are some events that are honestly caused by drivers, and perhaps a new GPU will fix that, but many many many more are not, and you will find your money wasted very quickly if you do not check to find the root cause of the issue.

Q: Do new drivers cause TDR events?

A: Yes, they can bring about new bugs that trigger TDR, this is common in all graphics manufacturers drivers, and bugs appear from time to time. New drivers that utilise more system resources also tend to bring to the forefront issues that you may not have noticed before with other software or hardware. Some drivers also do not play nice with each other; this was common with old creative drivers and the 7 series CCC drivers causing many TDR events.

 

That is all for now, some general tips to try to reduce your TDR events, should they not be related to your hardware are:

-          Clean your registry with something like Norton’s 360 (not free) or ccleaner (free).

-          When updating drivers do so only when the new drivers offer something you wish to utilize. If you are using a device that is more than a year or two older than the drivers chances are you will find the newest drivers cause more problems than they solve. Stick with what works

-          Ensure everything in your system (chipset, sound, windows updates, etc) are up to date. This may seem like it is the opposite of the previous post but for almost every component drivers are made for the particular device.. whereas a GPU driver release may cover 50 devices in one shot.

-          Disable aero if you do not need or want it

-          Only use one monitor when applicable. That is to say if you are playing a game and don’t need the second monitor on, create a profile to disable it while full screen programs are running and the other monitor is not being used.



The Info above has been supplied by: Daedalus685