Vista - Random BlueScreen in Vista

I get the BSoD about once or twice a day probably because of my video drivers, but I'm not sure how to fix it. My screen also flickers a lot and a message in system tray says something "has stopped responding and has recovered."

These are the problem details I get after my computer boots up again:

Any help would be appreciated.

That error codes is not a lot to go on. Could you attach a mini-dump from:

C:\Windows\Minidump

The nvlddkmlm.sys (nvidia) or atikmdag.sys (ati) has stopped responding message is indeed the video drivers. Have you tried installing the latest drivers from either from nvidia or ATI (depending on your card)

I tried updating the drivers, but that made the situation worse because it wouldn't keep my video settings and I still got the same errors, so I had to rollback the drivers.

I hope this is what you were looking for.

SYMBOL_NAME: atikmdag+21d20

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: atikmdag

IMAGE_NAME: atikmdag.sys

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 48286b80

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0x116_IMAGE_atikmdag.sys

BUCKET_ID: 0x116_IMAGE_atikmdag.sys


All indications point to the display driver being at fault.

What card do you have? On-board or add-in? Some older cards have stopped being supported with each new release, although the driver should have failed to install if that was the case.

It may be worthwhile 'starting from scratch' driver wise. There are many reasons why BSOD's occur, so it's best to start troubleshooting with something simple.

Here's a site with current and previous versions versions of ATI catalyst drivers:

ATI Catalyst Drivers Downloads


Download Driver Sweeper and install it:
Guru3D - Driver Sweeper

Then in Control panel>uninstall programs - Uninstall "ATI Catalyst Install manager" and let it express remove all ATI components.



*(If there is no ATI install manger, then it's likely that you don't have Catalyst Control Center installed. Just the drivers. It may be one possible cause for the crashes)

Once you've uninstalled Catalyst, Reboot into safe mode and run Driver Sweeper. It must be 'run as administrator' . (right-click on Driver Sweeper>properties>compatibility and tick the "run this program as administrator)


Make sure you only select ATI and then select analyse first to verify that's it's only ATI components your removing. Then clean the drivers.



Re-boot normally and then run the driver installation again. If all goes well, then you should have a working CCC and drivers which will let you keep your settings and hopefully put an end to the BSOD.

If you have any problems with the above, feel free to ask.

When you say "run the driver installation again", do you mean to install the CCC again?

Yes. re-run the downloaded driver .exe which contains both CCC and the driver.

Thanks for the help. I haven't had a BlueScreen thus far and my screen hasn't been flickering anymore.

Good to hear mate. Fingers crossed that fixed it for good

I'd hate to resurrect a dead thread, but given the circumstances, I figured, what have I got to lose?

NOTE: Please ignore the username. The ones I normally use on other forums were apparently already in use here.

Anyway, I am having the exact same problem that UserName1 was having in March.

Only the funny thing is, it started happening before installing new updated drivers. I thought that installing up to date drivers would solve the issue, but apparently not.

I have tried uninstalling the current drivers, using Driver Sweeper, rebooting, then installing new up to date drivers.

No such luck.

I am using a nvidia GeForce 8800GT 512mb card in a Dell XPS 420, running Windows Vista Home Premium SP2 32-bit.

The PC is just over a year old.

Please help because I would rather not fork out £100+ just to get an extended warrenty from Dell.

I still really need help with this.