Catalyst 14.12 Omega drivers crash when folding

[debs3759]

On the AMD system I fold with the drivers crash at least once daily, sometimes half dozen times. I have the Catalyst 14.12 Omega drivers installed. System specs are:

GA-A75-UD4H motherboard
Llano A8-3870K
4 GB DDR3-1600
XFX Radeon HD 7770 Black Edition
Catalyst 14.12 Omega drivers
Windows 7 64-bit

Does anyone have any idea why the driver crashes when folding? It was fine in general use for a couple of years. It crashes the same at stock speeds as when overclocked, and the temp never exceeds 51 C. Any known workarounds? Would an older driver set be better?

[JimF]

You can try the 14.9 drivers, which are a little faster anyway. But do a clean install using a driver remover (Display Driver Uninstaller works well).

However, I wouldn't assume that it is necessarily the drivers. I had a lot of trouble getting my GA-Z87X-UD3H motherboard stable, especially with Nvidia cards, but even with my HD 7790s. There was a recent firmware update that helped on http://www.station-drivers.com (just search for your motherboard). Also, the memory played a role. Usually two modules are more stable than four, and in any case do not overclock. Stick with the motherboard default timings (9-9-9-24 at 1333 MHz), even though the memory is rated faster.

[foldy]

Are you doing something else on the PC while folding?
e.g. you cannot play a 3D game while folding on GPU, because then the driver crashes.

You should also check if your system is stable under stress in general.
For CPU and RAM you can use e.g. IntelBurnTest and for GPU Furmark in parallel.
RAM detail check is also available with Windows Memory Diagnostic.

If these tests are green then it is a folding@home only problem.

[debs3759]

Thank you for your replies. I have uninstalled the Omega drivers and run ccleaner, then installed the 14.9 drivers. Will see if that fixes it.

[JimF]

I have uninstalled the Omega drivers and run ccleaner, then installed the 14.9 drivers.

CCleaner is a useful registry cleaner, but it does not remove driver leftovers. You need a dedicated driver cleaner for that. It may not be a problem in your case, but as a general rule I always run either Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) or Driver Fusion before installing new drivers. It is quite necessary in the case of multiple cards, or when changing from one type of card to another.

[debs3759]

I reinstalled Win 7 64-bit with the 14.9 drivers, minus the motherboard chipset drivers. FAH is still crashing. i think my next folding GPU will be NVidia

[bruce]

Have you considered the possibility that it's not the drivers but something in the hardware? [At times, tt can be really difficult to distinguish.]

[debs3759]

I am considering that it might be hardware related, as the only other apps that are always loaded when it crashes (I get a message telling me the drivers crashed) are Excel, notepad, zonealarm and µTorrent. I am now leaving Firefox open all the time, as that goes blank when the drivers crash, so if it crashes overnight I know in the morning. I may swap the GPU for a GTX 550 Ti, not as powerful but it will show me if it's the AMD drivers if the NVidia card can fold without problems. It only happens when I am folding, when not folding I had the PC running for up to 6 months without a reboot and never had problems with it.

[JimF]

It only happens when I am folding, when not folding I had the PC running for up to 6 months without a reboot and never had problems with it.

It could also be the power supply, since you use more current while folding. The GTX 550 Ti is not as fast as the HD 7770 for folding, but it will use more power and might actually make the situation worse. That would be useful to know.

By the way, I had not one but two HD 7770's fail on me after about a year to 1 1/2 years of use. They would produce errors at an increasing rate, first every couple of weeks, then every week, then every day or two. I don't remember if they crashed the PC, but that is possible. It was surprising, since they ran very cool also. (They were MSI, and I assume the voltage regulators went bad.)

[debs3759]

Started getting various bsod errors, including memory management issues, so I have stopped folding on this system until I get a gtx 970 to fold on. happy to stick to folding with my 2600K for now.