Please forgive the length of this post, but I'm going to include all the relevant details I can. If you want the TLDR summary, feel free to skip to the bottom.
I've been fighting this issue for more than a year now, but if anyone could help me figure it out, I'd be tremendously appreciative.
Last March, I built a new machine for myself. Components are as follows:
-AMD FX-8150 (No OC, Stock HSF)
-ASRock 990FX Extreme3
-XFX Radeon 7950 Black Edition (Stock OC)
-Corsair Vengeance 32 GB (4x8GB) 1600 Running at 1333
-OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W
-Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE
-Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit
-Thermaltake Commander case, bunch of 120mm fans
From the very beginning (within a week of freshly installing the OS), I started running into crashes. I'd get BSODs that read, "Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed." It would then list atikmpag.sys as the cause of the problem. I would also experience random monitor flickering in whatever monitor was plugged into the mini display port (I run dual monitors, with one plugged into DVI and one into mini display).
I went back and forth with XFX in a customer support ticket for about 2 months. I ran Memtest for days on end with no errors. I got a new PSU, thinking I might be having power-related issues (I got a Cooler Master 800w Silent Pro Gold). I formatted my HDD and reinstalled Windows 7 four separate times. Still got the BSODs and monitor flickering after every attempted fix.
It felt very much like a software problem to me (like ATI's drivers were just buggy). After a fresh install of the OS, things might run fine without any BSODs for a few days. Then I'd suddenly get one. Then a few days might pass, and another. They'd gradually increase in frequency until I'd be experiencing 3 an hour, and I'd format and repeat this cycle again.
Eventually, XFX had me RMA the card. They said that they tested the card extensively and found no problems with it, but they sent me a new one anyway. I dropped the new card in and still got the exact same BSODs and monitor flickering. I tried taking out all of my memory except for one stick. Still got the BSODs. I tried a different one stick. Still got the BSODs.
I then wondered how another video card would perform in my system, so I went out to Best Buy and picked up an nVidia GT440. I uninstalled the ATI drivers, dropped the GT440 in, loaded the nVidia drivers and - problem solved. No blue screens. No crashes. No monitor flickering. Everything was fine, except for the fact that the cheap nVidia card was gimpy and the powerhouse card was now functioning as a paperweight.
So I went back and forth with XFX more in my support ticket. They recommended that I try running the 12.6 beta version of the drivers for this card, and one of their CSRs told me on the phone that this version was fixing a bunch of bugs. So I loaded the 12.6 beta drivers, and it actually solved many of my problems. The monitor flickering never happened again. The blue screens stopped. My system was generally stable.
But the problems didn't go away entirely. Everything would run fine for a few weeks after a fresh OS install, but then my PC would randomly lock up in Windows. If I were playing a song, the audio would loop, my cursor wouldn't move, and I'd have to do a hard restart. I tried everything I could think of to fix this, again. I updated my motherboard drivers. I updated my BIOS. I disabled onboard sound through the BIOS. Nothing seemed to help. I'd reinstall Windows, and everything would be OK for a few weeks, but the freezing would start to gradually increase in frequency until I formatted again.
-----------------------------------
So, where am I in the process now?
A few weeks ago, the freezing again hit the point of being totally out of control. The freezing happens almost randomly. I'm pretty sure it's not temperature related, since it almost never happens when I'm under load, and my GPU temperatures are never over 55 or 60C. My CPU is usually in the 40s or 50s when the freezes happen. The freezes seem to never happen when I'm just playing 3d games (like CS:GO or Civ V). They happen pretty often when I'm watching flash videos, listening to music, or running the Mono IDE, Eclipse. There were certain things I could do that seemed like they could make it freeze 90% of the time, like trying to run a build in the Unity editor. Seems like software / drivers, right? I just can't figure it out.
I got fed up, formatted the HDD again, and am now running with the GT440 and the newest nVidia drivers. The system hasn't crashed (or even hiccuped) once since I put the 440 back in there.
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TLDR:
What could cause a system to freeze randomly when I'm using a Radeon 7950 when the same system works perfectly with a GT440? Can ATI just not write drivers for their cards? I really want to use my 7950 and not the gimpy GT440, but if it freezes all the time, the 7950 is useless to me.
I've been fighting this issue for more than a year now, but if anyone could help me figure it out, I'd be tremendously appreciative.
Last March, I built a new machine for myself. Components are as follows:
-AMD FX-8150 (No OC, Stock HSF)
-ASRock 990FX Extreme3
-XFX Radeon 7950 Black Edition (Stock OC)
-Corsair Vengeance 32 GB (4x8GB) 1600 Running at 1333
-OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W
-Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE
-Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit
-Thermaltake Commander case, bunch of 120mm fans
From the very beginning (within a week of freshly installing the OS), I started running into crashes. I'd get BSODs that read, "Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed." It would then list atikmpag.sys as the cause of the problem. I would also experience random monitor flickering in whatever monitor was plugged into the mini display port (I run dual monitors, with one plugged into DVI and one into mini display).
I went back and forth with XFX in a customer support ticket for about 2 months. I ran Memtest for days on end with no errors. I got a new PSU, thinking I might be having power-related issues (I got a Cooler Master 800w Silent Pro Gold). I formatted my HDD and reinstalled Windows 7 four separate times. Still got the BSODs and monitor flickering after every attempted fix.
It felt very much like a software problem to me (like ATI's drivers were just buggy). After a fresh install of the OS, things might run fine without any BSODs for a few days. Then I'd suddenly get one. Then a few days might pass, and another. They'd gradually increase in frequency until I'd be experiencing 3 an hour, and I'd format and repeat this cycle again.
Eventually, XFX had me RMA the card. They said that they tested the card extensively and found no problems with it, but they sent me a new one anyway. I dropped the new card in and still got the exact same BSODs and monitor flickering. I tried taking out all of my memory except for one stick. Still got the BSODs. I tried a different one stick. Still got the BSODs.
I then wondered how another video card would perform in my system, so I went out to Best Buy and picked up an nVidia GT440. I uninstalled the ATI drivers, dropped the GT440 in, loaded the nVidia drivers and - problem solved. No blue screens. No crashes. No monitor flickering. Everything was fine, except for the fact that the cheap nVidia card was gimpy and the powerhouse card was now functioning as a paperweight.
So I went back and forth with XFX more in my support ticket. They recommended that I try running the 12.6 beta version of the drivers for this card, and one of their CSRs told me on the phone that this version was fixing a bunch of bugs. So I loaded the 12.6 beta drivers, and it actually solved many of my problems. The monitor flickering never happened again. The blue screens stopped. My system was generally stable.
But the problems didn't go away entirely. Everything would run fine for a few weeks after a fresh OS install, but then my PC would randomly lock up in Windows. If I were playing a song, the audio would loop, my cursor wouldn't move, and I'd have to do a hard restart. I tried everything I could think of to fix this, again. I updated my motherboard drivers. I updated my BIOS. I disabled onboard sound through the BIOS. Nothing seemed to help. I'd reinstall Windows, and everything would be OK for a few weeks, but the freezing would start to gradually increase in frequency until I formatted again.
-----------------------------------
So, where am I in the process now?
A few weeks ago, the freezing again hit the point of being totally out of control. The freezing happens almost randomly. I'm pretty sure it's not temperature related, since it almost never happens when I'm under load, and my GPU temperatures are never over 55 or 60C. My CPU is usually in the 40s or 50s when the freezes happen. The freezes seem to never happen when I'm just playing 3d games (like CS:GO or Civ V). They happen pretty often when I'm watching flash videos, listening to music, or running the Mono IDE, Eclipse. There were certain things I could do that seemed like they could make it freeze 90% of the time, like trying to run a build in the Unity editor. Seems like software / drivers, right? I just can't figure it out.
I got fed up, formatted the HDD again, and am now running with the GT440 and the newest nVidia drivers. The system hasn't crashed (or even hiccuped) once since I put the 440 back in there.
-----------------------------------------------
TLDR:
What could cause a system to freeze randomly when I'm using a Radeon 7950 when the same system works perfectly with a GT440? Can ATI just not write drivers for their cards? I really want to use my 7950 and not the gimpy GT440, but if it freezes all the time, the 7950 is useless to me.