New catalyst drivers 11.3, random crashes?

**Brau Koenig** · April 16, 2011, 08:02 PM

Hello,
I was using the AMD's previous version of catalyst video drivers 11.2 and I only had an occaisional crash to the desktop, due to some bad RAM. I had RMA'd the RAM, thank you very much GSkill, and it memory tested fine. !)I did not have an very many crashes. But now with the new version 11.3 installed my PC is powering down (shutting off) without any warning. It happens after an hour or so once in a battle loading phase and another while fighting a large battle with full stacks. Is anyone else having similar problems?

Updated Solution after specs:
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
BIOS: BIOS Date: 09/07/10 22:05:26 Ver: 08.00.15
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8190MB RAM
Page File: 2699MB used, 8488MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
MB: ASUS Crosshair Formula 3
NB: 790FX
SB: SB700

Thanks for the tip Irishron. I installed the same version chipset drivers 11.4 as video drivers, both the "South Bridge" and "AHCI for Windows 7". But that was not enough. I also had to disable within the BIOS the setting "ACPI 2.0 Support" even though all the other ACPI settings and table are enabled. Strange but it works. I did not have to enable the Adv Clock Calib. settings either. The system still down clocks the CPU and GPU when not playing games, so I am happy with my minimal power usage when not needed.
Conclusion: When uninstalling and cleaning of old drivers, make sure to update all drivers that were by chance deleted. If there are still problems with crashing, check your BIOS settings and reset them to the default settings. I hope this helps others with similar random power-down / crashing problems.

**Raimeken** · April 16, 2011, 08:09 PM

if you're having these problems might as well rollback for now, though I was absolutely certain 11.4 was out already, or at least beta

**Chopy** · April 17, 2011, 02:52 AM

yep there is 11.4 preview and it gives decent boost in performance , at least for me.

**karamazovmm** · April 17, 2011, 11:29 AM

go for the 11.4 preview, I had to switch back to the 11.2 since with the 11.3 I had some graphic issues

**Brau Koenig** · April 17, 2011, 11:31 PM

Thanks for the info on 11.4. I will try it once it's out of Beta. I had installed the 11.3 update via steam, my first using it for that. I don' think everything was installed correctly, or perhaps something was left over from an earlier release that only caused problems with 11.3 installed. Thinking something was messed up. I went nuclear on the driver. I followed the handy directions from Rage3D: 1st uninstall, 2nd clean, 3rd reinstall.

Having problems with a driver installation? Why don't you try this first... Just to add to the general conversation, since I think it has merit: it's funny how relevant all those "do a proper uninstall" threads we have since the dawn of time really are... i've had hard resets lately on one of my PCs whenever I played games. For no particular reason. Nothing in the Windows 7 event viewer, no sign of any error, nothing. I had 10.4 still on. So I upgrade to 10.6, same thing. Yesterday, I dig up DriverCleaner (excellent program, go here to get it, well worth the money: http://www.drivercleaner.net/), uninstalled everything via the Catalyst Installer, immediately followed by a DC pass cleaning up everything ATI-related, and then, after I rebooted, installed 10.7. Fixed it right up.

Do a proper uninstall once in a while. Does wonders

Original thread: http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthre...3935544http://

I removed the AMD video card, ran Driver Cleaner.NET and then installed the full 11.3 catalyst driver, the most recent CAP (Catalyst Application Profile), and the 11.3 AMD northbridge chipset driver. That worked for me. No problems using 11.3 last night. Now off to play...

**Brau Koenig** · April 19, 2011, 09:29 PM

Maybe I misspoke. I was able to play one night without crashing but then last night it happened again. I had another crash (power-off) during a battle. I can find nothing in event manager other than the message of a reboot occurred after an unclean shutdown. I will try the 11.4 preview. Hopefully it will give better results. If not I will go back to 11.2.

**karamazovmm** · April 19, 2011, 10:51 PM

how are your temps?

**TestudoAubreii** · April 20, 2011, 08:50 AM

Hey everyone,

Instead of making a new thread, I thought I would jump in on this one. I was wondering if the 11.3 drivers had anything to do with this weird flickering that is going on when the load screen appears. I have like little pixel boxes that flash all over the screen when the game is loading. I have noticed this in Shogun 2 and GTA V. I just bought and installed a brand new ASUS HD 6950, so I don't think that it is the card, so I was wondering about the drivers. Has anyone had this problem? I write problem, but I have not really noticed it when I am playing in game.

Thanks in advance for the input.

Testudo

**Brau Koenig** · April 22, 2011, 01:49 AM

Regarding temps. My system is watercooled, both CPU and GPU. I don't think thats the problem, since it doesn't seem to get much higher than 38 C. I'll bump up the speed of the pump, maybe there's an air pocket in there. I tried the preview 11.4 drivers, but had no better luck. Perhaps the 11.2 were better for the old 5870 cards. My problems started when I let steam install the 11.3 drivers. Now I can't get rid of them from the steam menu. Should I let steam install them again. Does anyone else have good things to say about it? I read mostly horror stories of video problems after steam installs. But AMD/ATI has been using Steam since October 2010, it seems hard to believe they would be still be working out the kinks.

TestudoAubreii I haven't seen that on either version. Though the text of any webpage when using the firefox browser was much more difficult to read if Morphological Anti-Aliasing was enabled. That's the only error I encountered with 11.3 outside of the random crashes. I didn't notice the same problem with 11.2.

**Brau Koenig** · April 28, 2011, 02:11 AM

Unfortunately I have had no luck in keeping the game running for more than an hour or two. I uninstalled my old 11.2 drivers, cleaned all ATI software with 'drivercleaner.net' and then installed the 11.4 drivers and the older CAP file 11.3 v 5, but I still had a two crashes after an hour or so of play. I returned to the forum for more ideas and help. I found two things I could try.
1st check the cached steam files http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=446415. It found "3 files failed to validate and will be reacquired." They were small and downloaded in seconds.
2nd this thread suggested a memory leak or poor memory management http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=447349. My card a ATI HD 5870 was not listed in the boot.pack file, at least in the beginning of it. I only viewed it with a text editor 'textpad'. I also had a similar error message in the gfx.log.txt, and it was last changed before the last crash:

Downgrading, Over budget by 162 MB
Downgraded Shadows to 3
Downgraded Texture Quality to 2

I didn't add or make any changes to the boot.pack file since I am not sure of what I am doing.

I'll throw in my DXdaig logs in case anyone see's something in there. I don't know my way around them.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Also I have ADM Fusion and Overdrive installed, but haven't overclocked the PC since it's not stable at stock speeds right now. I was using the Fusion setting "Max performance-online" when it last crashed. Thus the reduced power settings above in the DXdiag. Does AHCI or ACPI power settings in BIOS affect the game? Does anyone have any idea on what I should check next? Lastly I do get the effect/bug when in a large battle that the opposite sides troops are light-grey greyscale in color, while my troops are in color. I think it was the battle before the crash, but not sure. I think I even auto-resolved a battle before the last crash during the battle loading screen. Thank you, any help would be appreciated!

**irishron** · April 28, 2011, 07:56 AM

Have you tried updating the motherboard chiset drivers?

**Brau Koenig** · April 30, 2011, 12:41 AM

Thanks for the tip Irishron. I nstalled the same version chipset drivers 11.4 as video drivers, both the "South Bridge" and "AHCI for Windows 7". But that was not enough. I also had to disable within the BIOS the setting "ACPI 2.0 Support" even though all the other ACPI settings and table are enabled. Strange but it works. I did not have to enable the Adv Clock Calib. settings either. The system still down clocks the CPU and GPU when not playing games, so I am happy with my minimal power usage when not needed.
Conclusion: When uninstalling and cleaning of old drivers, make sure to update all drivers that were by chance deleted. If there are still problems, check your BIOS power saving settings. I hope this helps others with similar power-down issues.