Help with BSOD on Radeon HD 6950

[antowas]

Hello everyone,

I built a PC that has a Gigabyte 6950 2gb and have just recently been having issues with it. Sometimes I get a checkered pattern and everything freezes, shortly before the display driver crashes and restarts. Other times, the screen goes black and I get a BSOD. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated as I would hate to RMA the card if nothing is wrong with it. The BSOD mentions atikmpag.sys

Operations attempted thus far:
-Uninstalled drivers, rebooted to safe mode, ran Driver Cleaner, reboot and installed latest drivers
-Removed card from case and used compressed air to clear it thoroughly of dust

Let me know what additional data I should provide and I will do my best as this issue is driving me crazy.

System specs:
Videocard: Radeon HD 6950 2gb
Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H
Memory: 8 Gb DDR3
Soundcard: Onboard
PSU: Thermaltake 650w

 

[larkspur]

I realize you cleaned the dust out of the card, but what are your temps? Need an idle temp and a load temp (play a heavy game or run a 3d benchmark). You can use GPU-z to measure your cards temp if you don't already have a utility.

Does the card crash only in games or anytime?

 

[kajabla]

CPU temps too. Run Prime95.

 

[antowas]

I do not have the PC with me at the moment but I will get that data tomorrow for you. I appreciate your willingness to help. I do notice that, not always but most often, it happens when I am playing a 3D game (Minecraft or Star Wars the Old Republic currently). Once the system blue screens and reboots, it will pretty much crash at any time, so I usually shutdown and unplug the computer for a minute or so. After I boot it back up I can play any of these games without incident usually for 2 or 3 hours.

 

[antowas]

It's not a thermal issue with the card. I had overdrive off and the temperatures got up to 75c. I turned the fan up to 70% and it dropped to 48c. 5 minutes later, the driver crashed (desktop froze, checkered pattern over everything, black screen then back to the desktop with the message that the driver had stopped responding but had recovered.). I will run Prime 95 tonight.

 

[antowas]

Ran 3dMark11 last night on the highest test. Cranked the fan on the card to 100% for the duration and when it was over, the card was 38c. Failed to render the first section of the test because the display driver crashed. Ran the medium test and with no issue, no change in card temperature.

Idle temp for the CPU is about 44c. Ran Prime95 for 8 hours and the temperature was 65c. No crashes. At this point, I have no idea what it could be apart from the drivers are crappy or I am getting a corrupt version of them (even though I have downloaded them 3 separate times). Any ideas?