atikmdag error on 4 day old Studio 15 - has this happened to you?

Hi guys

As some of you know, I had my new Studio 15 delivered on Friday. It's already throwing up error messages every few hours, such as below:



The screen will freeze, pixellate, turn black and then turn back to normal. I don't play games or anything, but this is getting on my nerves. I'm running the HD 3450. I've emailed Dell technical support to see what they have to say about it. If no joy, it's going back under the Distance Selling Regulations.

AFAIK, this is a common error message under Vista, for ATI and nVidia cards alike, and this problem has been ongoing since 2006, with no definitive fix as of yet. Successful remedies for some people include only installing the drivers (no Catalyst Control Centre) and running 1 stick of RAM. I've tried the former and have no intention of trying the latter! (I have 2 x 1GB). I've also formatted and reinstalled Vista and all drivers.

What I need to know is whether other Studio owners have had the same problem. I love the laptop and would like to get it swapped for another one, as long as the replacement does not have the same problem!.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to the responses!

 

Try downloading newer drivers from amd.com. If that doesnt work you could try using 3rd party drivers from omegadrivers.net.

 

I second that. But I might go to the trouble of trying to completely anihallate the current drivers after the download. I forget the name of it but there is a program that is used to make sure you get a "clean slate" before trying a new / different driver version. I would just make sure that I had downloaded and official AMD set and an official Omega set before wiping the current driver.

 

That program is Driver Cleaner. You should run it before installing new drivers.

 

Well I did try the latest ATI drivers from Dell's website (7.x something), but these are pretty old.

So I used the Mobility Modder which lets you use desktop graphics drivers (much more up to date as OEMs don't like laptop users getting their graphics drivers direct from ATI and instead insist on providing them themselves) instead of laptop graphics drivers (i.e. in my case, for the Radeon HD3450 (non Mobility) ) and updated my drivers to the latest desktop version, which are in the 8.x region.

So far, no crashes. Just a heads up for any of you guys who encounter this problem. Feel free to PM me if you need more clarity.

 

EDIT

just crashed twice in the last 20 mins. Looks like it's going back to Dell then since no one else seems to be having these issues.

 

Did you follow either of our suggestions?

 

Sorry, I forgot to mention that! Yes I did try all your suggestions so thanks guys; I ran the Driver Cleaner before running the Mobility Modder (both programs written by the same people).

I also flashed my BIOS to the latest version as suggested by Dell UK. I also ran the diagnostic boot tests; the hardware passed all of these tests fine. It must be a software issue but I am not prepared to faff around with this, might as well just send it back and get a different lapop from a different manufacturer, perhaps this time with an nVidia card....

 

So you installed the lastest ATI catalyst driver for the 3400 series version 8.7. Go in your Device Manager and uninstall the video card driver from there first.

Apparently it is a hardware problem with the video card. I would be on the phone with Dell asking for a replacement. If they tell you to ship it to them and they'll fix it say "no, I've only had this for 2 weeks and don't want to lose my laptop for another week". It works, I've done this with another laptop.

 

Why would I be uninstalling the video card driver? Sorry, I don't quite get what you mean. I did uninstall the driver through the Device Manager first, then I ran Driver Cleaner, and then I installed the 8.7 drivers...

I really like this laptop and am tempted to just ask Dell for a new one. Failing that, a refund and I'll pick up a new one in the September sales before university.

 

Hi all

I seem to be getting this issue also with my brand new Dell Studio.

I have installed a 64 bit version of Vista Ultimate and keep getting this error when I use an external monitor via the HDMI port.

I have tried all suggestions mentioned in this thread but to no avail.

OP: What did tell you in regards to the issue?

pgraju

 

Hi there

I couldn't fix the problem - Dell suggested reinstalling the latest drivers and running diagnostics in the BIOS. Neither worked, the diagnostics all went through fine!

I sent the laptop back to Dell and received my refund 3 days after they'd received it back. Good service but AFAIK there is no quick fix for this problem and I certainly wasn't going to waste my energy trying to fix it. I'd send it back if I were you.