PC-HELP.CZ

Have same problem...BSOD atimdag.sys or just crash to desktop and ATI driver failed to recover.

Happens to all demanding games.
But is only testing on HL2 team Fortress 2 at the moment. Since i know i can get a crash within 2 minutes (guarantee)

1:. removing Creative soundcard. And use onboard
2:. only one X2900XT instead of Crossfire & disable Crossfire.
3:. remove Ageia physX
4:. different PSU.
5:. standard settings for CPU & run Memory test.
6:. difrerent catalyst settings & versions.
7:. reinstall 3 times of Winodws VISTA
8:. Different DX versions from DX7, DX8, DX8.1, DX9 & DX10
9:. Mounted 120mm fan to blow directly to GFX card

10:. I solved one BSOD issue by removing Creative soundcard (would get more than 12 different BSOD a day). Aparently...Creative stinks when it comes to Vista 64

11:. I still had around 7 different BSOD after. So found out that ULI raid on DFI CFX3200-DR is a no go. Drivers is a joke for VISTA 64. Use SIL raid instead...works like a charm.

12:. Now i´m down to one BSOD only! The atimdag.sys "Attempt to reset display driver or recover from timeout failed HEEEELP

13:. STEAM issue for all HL gamers. And it does not matter if you use NVidia or ATI CmeshDX8::lockvertexbuffer
Solution from Steam support is to change DX version. Is not helping so far i´m afraid But will keep testing

14:. launch game in WIN XP SP2 mode in VISTA...No luck neither Nice try Microsoft

Here is DX info...if it can help (DELETED NOW) If some one will complain...i will delete all this info ASAP. Just hope go get a resolved issue for all of us.

System/rigg setup...
OS:. VISTA 64 & XP
CPU:. AMD X2 4400+
Mobo:. DFI CFX3200-DR
GFX:. Crossfire Club3D X2900Xt
PhysX:. Ageia PhysX
RAM:. Corsair 2GB
PSU:. OCZ 1015W

i have tryed all possible solutions i can think of. It´s driving me mad now
Many things can be wrong Microsoft(VISTA), STEAM/Valve, ATI...hardware or driver issue.

please tell me some one has gotten closer to a solution!!? it sucks to have an exspensige crossfire rigg...when it "Does Not Compute"

A solution is to install XP drivers under Vista!
Vista 32bit and 64bit drivers have problems!
Follow the steps below, it's a manual process.

1- download the driver (driver only without the catalyst to save time and space) from Drivers & Software for your video card.
2- Run the setup software to unpack files only. Be aware that you shall run into a problem stating the software does not like VISTA operating system. It's ok, because it already has unpacked the necessary driver files which you need! So exit the program by clicking "OK"
3- Go to: Control Panel -> Add Hardware -> Click Next
4- Select: Install hardware that I manually select from the list -> Click Next
5- Select: Display adapters -> Click Next
6- Click "Have Disk"
7- Brows to the folder where the .inf file resides. Example: "C:\ATI\SUPPORT\8-5_xp32_dd_63030\XP_INF"
8- Select the driver in the list and click Next.

XP driver shall be installed together with the original driver for Vista in your device manager. Keep them both. Do not delete or uninstall the first one as it will case other problems when vista decides to replace all your work back when you restat your system later.

I have not tried increasing my memory to see if it resolves. Because I didn't have any more memory to add to my system. I will get some and find out if that would also work. If so, then increasing the memory would be the ideal solution.