“Driver failed to respond, but has recovered” ATIKMDAG.SYS dual screen

As far as i know you can tell it which one is to be the primary display by clicking or dragging in the CCC.

Mactronix

So you definatly have the Monitor you want to use as the Main(Primary) Monitor connected to the correct output on the card, they are numbered if you didnt know ?
Personally if it was me i would be looking at the drivers, Im guessing you have the latest ones ? If you have old ones or the ones that came with the card on a disc then update them to the newer ones. If you are running the latest drivers then sometimes it can be worth installing a previous set.
I would also look up the Monitors and specifically if there are any reported compatability problems with Vista.
Another option would be to only install the display drivers and not the Catalyst controls, I have done this in the past when getting stupid driver issues and it worked well. Ati Tray Tools which is a free download will work alongside the display drivers and give you access to all the advanced options that were in the CCC, and more.

Mactronix

ATI drivers are real bad these days with monitors as my HD4550 just switch from full screen to a 4:3 by it self.

After seven months I'm guessing they might have gone over to Nvidia cards and better drivers, hey presto problem solved.

Maybe it's because the Ati drivers are still installed when the better Nvidia card is put in.

No they wont because the problem isnt related to the driver, its a microsoft problem. How could 9.6 fix the problem if it occurs in nvidia based systems also???

I have the same problem as described in the posts above.

Currently running (late 2007 build):

2 x 22in Samsung SyncMaster 225BW LCD (Extended Desktop mode)
1 x ATI Radeon 2900 XT HD
4 x 1Gb Crucial Ballistix DDR2
1 x Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz
1 x ASUS P5K Deluxe Mobo
Vista HE 32-bit

This build worked perfect from fall of 2007-2008. Reformatted Mid-2008 and then again in March 2009 to keep system in clean operational condition.

In the last 6 months, I have been getting repeated “Driver failed to respond, but has recovered” errors whenever starting an application (besides Windows) that draws on the GPU for resources (iTunes, games etc). Following cold-boot, this will occur usually within the first 1-5 minutes of the system being up; it includes the fan on the GPU revving high and then slowing back down. As it was it was more of an inconvenience, because it would happen once, and then would be fine for the rest of the system's up time (even when sleeping/waking).

In the last week however I have started to get severe graphics corruption on both monitors with no warning; and this causes the system to repeatedly reinitialize the driver files that appear to be failing; it continues this until both monitors go black/BSoD/or lock up and auto restart.

The BSoD report always points to ATIKMDAG.SYS as the issue.

I can run the system perfectly fine in Safe mode on both monitors (cloned); which to me would indicate that the card, on the hardware side is OKAY.

I have removed any trace of ATI drivers in an attempt to resolve this issue; allowing Windows to run the bare minimum to figure out how to work two monitors (it of course got some ATI driver through Windows update to facilitate this).

I have tried the latest drivers from ATI as well with no success.

Yesterday, as a test I disabled Folding@Home and RocketDock from starting with Windows and the system ran fine in normal mode all day. But then with both of those programs still disabled today, the video went south on me again. Am at a loss on what to do...any help is appreciated. Thanks.