ATI Mobility FireGL V5250 BSOD in Windows 7 64bit on Z61p

[bruceorwho]

Having many BSOD and 'windows reported and error' ...

Have tried Lenovo 64 driver 8.361 per system update, tried 8.561 per Vista 64 / Win 7 on Lenovo Support and now trying ATI Beta 10.1 CCC pack.

All crash and burn ...

Either try any of the Catalyst Control Centre 3D setting - trip down to DOA machine

or work for a while and periodically when doing non 3D things such as trying to watch a DVD or web browsing ...

Windows BSOD with dump ... 'Windows has recovered from and error ...'

Has anyone found a solution to this? IBM pointed me to two Lenovo web pages about support for Windows 7 - basicaly the Z series ThinkPads are not listed ????

Any help would be welcome.

[Marin85]

No problems here whatsoever. Have you been able to trace the BSODs back to the graphics driver or is it just an assumption of yours? The video driver via windows update actually works quite fine, so there must be something else going on on your laptop. What kind of Windows 7 are you using (Lenovo image, retail, modified, pirated...)?

In the beginning with Windows 7 I had some random BSODs, and it turned out to be wireless driver for the Atheros card, so I changed the driver. Unfortunately, I don´t remember whether I changed from the driver from windows update to the one provided on Lenovo website or vice versa.

[bruceorwho]

Marin Hi,

Windows 7 90 day trial genuine advantage approved and activated.

-The Blue screens I get have atimdiag.sys (somthing something) as the cause
-Windows Action centre reports "Your ATI driver .... do you wish to search for a solution" ... same suspect driver - no solution through action centre
-The black screen or 'tripped' machine (ie. all dead including power on button) occurs when attempting 3D Graphics

Recreating the problem is easy:-
a) Run Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox -> Diagnostics -> test device -> graphics ... the first three tests run fine - as soon as it begins with the fourth test "Fixed Transformation and Lighting Test" ... the whole macine trips to bacl screen and dead buttons (removing battery and power resets the on/off switch)
b) Run ATI's Catalyst Control Centre -> try any of the 3D settings ... they all show a before and after 3D graphic ... before you get to selecting anything - trips to black screeen
c) Trying to show a DVD through Windows Media centre or ThinkVantage WinDVD - ... plays fine for a few minutes ... then diagonal top left of screen continues playing movie and bottom right diagonal (diagonal split from bottom left to top right) starts blanking out and displaying artifacts ... then player aborts with Windows error "You are violating media access copyright rights ..." - huh? Only with DVD not disk based emailed type files - and yes the DVD is genuine, and yes I have tried other DVD's .... ?

The default driver with Windows update seems to e 8.38???, the one from Lenovo, ati driver seems to be 8.561??? as does the one from the CCC 10.1 beta ...???

BTW. The machine seems to run most of the time if I avoid 3D. Seems it progressivly crashes with internet browsing ... maybe some 3D flash components creeping in ???

Kind regards
Bruce

[Marin85]

Since PC-doctor makes the machine crash in the video card test, I think you should use warranty service provided the machine is still within warranty. I think it could be some hardware problem... I remember there was a period when my video card was overheating due to faulty fan and there were things like "ATI driver stopped responding" etc. In other words, some hardware problems may appear in Windows 7 as software ones Having said that, can you verify that the problem is windows 7-driver-related? You could try running some linux live CD with compiz enabled to push the video card a bit... Also, I believe there is a DOS version of PC-doctor that can be run without OS, i.e. before windows has booted. I will try to find the link.

The ATI drivers for Windows 7 on Lenovo website are actually for their newer machines (like T500, W500). I can´t say for the current versions but that was definitely the case with the earlier versions.

Marin

[bruceorwho]

Update on BSOD saga ...

Warrantee replaced motherboard (graphics card part of board) - same problem
Tried similar board, different graphics card - intel 950 - no issues.
Tried 3rd planar board - same problem,
With factory Vista business 32 - same problem

Crashes with 3D graphics from PcTools / ThinkVantage Toolbox; Catalyst control centre; MS Expression Studio 3 install; ....

Seeing reports of similar syptoms on T60 and other V5200 / V5250 based Thinkpads - as soonas the 3D graphics accellerator is accessed there are issues.

[ArtShapiro]

As it's quick to try: I've had similar problems in the past on my T60p, with a V5200. It's 32 bit, but I don't have any reason to think this is x86 / x64 specific. I've had problems with both XP and Windows 7.

I've had to back off the hardware acceleration to cure them. It's in the "troubleshooting" section for the device properties. Details if needed (I'm sitting in the tub with my T23, and don't have the Win 7 machine within reach.)

Give it a go, and report. Try going down 3/4 of the way, and then bumping a "notch" at a time if it seems stable for a while.

Art