· OS - Windows 10 x64
· OEM version of Windows 7 upgraded to Windows 10. Now on clean install on Windows 10.
· System age: +- 5 years
· New OS install: > 1 month
· CPU
· 2x Clevo AMD Radeon 7970M in Crossfire
· Power Supply - Dell 330W manufactured by Delta
· System Manufacturer - Dell (Alienware)
· M17X R2
· Laptop
I know with some certainty through my troubleshooting that AMD's Windows 10 drivers that are giving me these red screen of death errors. I'm hoping an experienced Windows debugger can go through my dump file to determine whether my hardware isn't at fault as I'm running a very customised hardware configuration. I have WinDBG installed although my attempts to get to the root of the problem were futile due to the fact that there are no publicly available symbols for the atikmdag.sys driver and my lack of Windows debugging skills. My PerfMon and SysNativeFileCollectionApp reports were done while running on the stable 14.12 Catalyst drivers with more apps and drivers installed. My BSOD/RSOD dumps linked below were run on a much leaner OS install to rule out potential conflicts.
TL;DR: Red Screen of Death occurs immediately when 3Dmark, Crysis 3, Metro Last Light, Grid Autosport, Project Cars and Alien Isolation launch into fullscreen mode when Crossfire is enabled and running the 15.7, 15.7.1, 15.7.1 Hotfix1 and 15.7.1 Hotfix2 drivers. If I create a custom profile for Metro Last Light with AFR Friendly Crossfire Mode, Metro Last Light does not BSOD/RSOD on startup and plays without issue. Crysis 3 works with an AFR Friendly Crossfile Profile as well with no BSOD/RSOD but certain textures are dark. 3Dmark still crashes with an AFR Friendly profile. The BSOD/RSOD does not occur when playing the following games Thief(2014), Sniper Elite 3, Tomb Raider(2013), Mortal Kombat X and Unreal Tournament 3 (both cards confirmed working flawlessly in Crossfire by using "Show AMD CrossireX status Icon" from the Catalyst System tray icon). These Crossfire RSOD's do not occur at all when running the 15.6 beta's for Windows 8.1.
/TL;DR
On Windows 10 Pro x64, when I start select 3D applications/games with 7970M Crossfire enabled and the application/game launches to fullscreen mode from the Windows desktop, my laptop immediately crashes with a blank red screen of death (RSOD) and then reboots after Windows has completed creating the dump file. Usually there is a millisecond of what looks like corrupted textures before the blank red screen comes up.
- Only occurs when Crossfire is enabled with drivers 15.7, 15.7.1, 15.7.1 Hotfix1 and 15.7.1 Hotfix2.
- Does not occur with 15.6 beta for Windows 8.1 x64 (14.502.1014.1001)
- If I create a custom profile for Metro Last Light with AFR Friendly Crossfire Mode, Metro Last Light does not BSOD/RSOD on startup and plays without issue. Crysis 3 works with an AFR Friendly Crossfile Profile as well with no BSOD/RSOD but certain textures are dark. 3Dmark still crashes with an AFR Friendly profile. I have not tested the other games with the different Crossfire Modes.
- These BSOD/RSOD's occur on the following applications that I am able to test with 3Dmark Firestrike, Crysis 3, Metro Last Light, Grid Autosport, Project Cars and Alien Isolation.
- The BSOD/RSOD does not occur when playing the following games Thief(2014), Sniper Elite 3, Tomb Raider(2013), Mortal Kombat X and Unreal Tournament 3 (both cards confirmed working flawlessly in Crossfire by using "Show AMD CrossireX status Icon" from the Catalyst System tray icon).
- The BSOD/RSOD does not occur when Crossfire is disabled or if the application/game is run in window mode.
I have tested each graphic card independantly in the first pci-express slot and I receive no errors. I have tried another set of 4gb DIMM's as well with the same result. I have also tried another crossfire cable to rule out that as a possible cause but since I dont receive the error with 15.6 Beta's and I'm able to workaround the error in Metro Last Light and Crysis 3 with a custom Crossfire profile using AFR, I dont think its hardware related.
My hardware is not overclocked. I have stress tested my RAM using Memtest at boot for 11 passes, my CPU using Prime95 for 12 hours with the blend setting and GPU's using 15.6 beta's for Windows 8.1 with 3Dmark's "Run Primary Test's" which runs all tests including their demo's consecutively. No errors occured in any of these tests. I know running 3Dmark is not an ideal GPU stress test but since I do not experience the RSOD's with earlier drivers I am not going to submit my cards to the torture that is FurMark.
As I mentioned the RSOD does not occur after a period of time when gaming, it occurs
immediately when select applications/games launch into fullscreen mode when Crossfire is enabled and running the 15.7, 15.7.1, 15.7.1 Hotfix1 and 15.7.1 Hotfix2 drivers. I do not have an integrated GPU, the 7970M's are dedicated cards in my machine.
Please find Windows 10 memory dumps at the link below. It includes minidumps as well as two full memory dumps, hence the size. I have used WinRAR to compress the files using RAR5 in order to reduce the file size from 19GB to 2GB.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8IDXugAxTo-QkJvR2N6Z0lOejA/view?usp=sharing
MD5: CDAF44E9EF2CF8533D0B2B87CEBAAA6A
I'm sure you will be able to retrieve some of my system specifications from the Windows dump files as well as the attached files but I have included the core components below in the interests of being thorough.
Alienware M17X R2
CPU: Intel Core i7 920XM
RAM: 2 x 4GB Samsung DDR3 1600Mhz running at 1333Mhz
GPU: 2 x Clevo AMD Radeon 7970M
HDD: 256GB Samsung 830 Series SSD
MB Chipset: PM55 Express
Your help would be greatly appreciated :smile9:
