Dell vostro 3450 AMD Radeon 6700M blue screen after turn on start up in win 7 atikmpag.sys file
The Laptop was purchased online from Dell and came with 1) Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and 2) AMD Radeon HD 6470M - 1GB display card. Recently, I had a problem where my laptop just wouldn't boot up, showing the blue screen everytime it tries to boot up. The Blue screen mentions a problem with the atikmpag.sys file which I understand is the driver for the AMD video card. If I remove/rename the atikmpag.sys and atikmdag.sys files (through safe boot mode) in C:/windows/system32/drivers, the laptop boots up (no blue screen), but obviously doesn't recognize the display card. After a lot of unsuccessful debugging tries on my own (including trying to upgrade the display drivers etc.)., I reinstalled the OS and the drivers that came with the original kit (just to remove any possibility of an upgrade gone bad). However, I still see the issue. ========================= Final: the problem you are describing is actually a hardware fault. There is nothing you can do, except replacing a laptop motherboard, or taking it to some advanced IT technicians, which will replace or reball GPU chip. Do not waste your time, just reinstall OS, then install the display drivers, which are available at the official DELL Support website, and after that - if it doesn't works, just do what I said. Mostly these are consequences of overheating the laptop, but as this was certainly not my case (I was doing regular service checks), I could even bet on bad quality GPU chips, which was used in manufacturing of this laptop model... again.... ========================== UPDATE: Okay, last night was a very long night for me, and I can finally confirm - it is that *** AMD chip, that's causing the blue screen you mentioned. I disassembled my faulty, armed with heatgun, temperature sensor (probe), and tons of aluminum foil + some soldering flux, I did a reasonably quick reflow, and the result is just what I expected - everything works perfectly again, with the very same setup - even with very same Windows installation, which was throwing those blue screens. Now there is no blue screens at all, and laptop performs like new. Apparently bad soldering, when this laptop was manufactured, is the exact reason, why we are where we are. That BGA chip wasn't dead at all (it was just badly soldered). The same story, which HP and bunch of other companies had a while ago with those NVIDIA chips (I'm sure, some of you guys know, what I'm talking about). CONCLUSION: DELL built-in diagnostics software is useless against detecting faults with a discrete AMD graphics card. Problem wasn't in software or drivers - it was just a badly soldered chip (I regulary cleaned my laptop from dust, so overheating is not an option here).
The Laptop was purchased online from Dell and came with 1) Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and 2) AMD Radeon HD 6470M - 1GB display card. Recently, I had a problem where my laptop just wouldn't boot up, showing the blue screen everytime it tries to boot up. The Blue screen mentions a problem with the atikmpag.sys file which I understand is the driver for the AMD video card. If I remove/rename the atikmpag.sys and atikmdag.sys files (through safe boot mode) in C:/windows/system32/drivers, the laptop boots up (no blue screen), but obviously doesn't recognize the display card. After a lot of unsuccessful debugging tries on my own (including trying to upgrade the display drivers etc.)., I reinstalled the OS and the drivers that came with the original kit (just to remove any possibility of an upgrade gone bad). However, I still see the issue. ========================= Final: the problem you are describing is actually a hardware fault. There is nothing you can do, except replacing a laptop motherboard, or taking it to some advanced IT technicians, which will replace or reball GPU chip. Do not waste your time, just reinstall OS, then install the display drivers, which are available at the official DELL Support website, and after that - if it doesn't works, just do what I said. Mostly these are consequences of overheating the laptop, but as this was certainly not my case (I was doing regular service checks), I could even bet on bad quality GPU chips, which was used in manufacturing of this laptop model... again.... ========================== UPDATE: Okay, last night was a very long night for me, and I can finally confirm - it is that *** AMD chip, that's causing the blue screen you mentioned. I disassembled my faulty, armed with heatgun, temperature sensor (probe), and tons of aluminum foil + some soldering flux, I did a reasonably quick reflow, and the result is just what I expected - everything works perfectly again, with the very same setup - even with very same Windows installation, which was throwing those blue screens. Now there is no blue screens at all, and laptop performs like new. Apparently bad soldering, when this laptop was manufactured, is the exact reason, why we are where we are. That BGA chip wasn't dead at all (it was just badly soldered). The same story, which HP and bunch of other companies had a while ago with those NVIDIA chips (I'm sure, some of you guys know, what I'm talking about). CONCLUSION: DELL built-in diagnostics software is useless against detecting faults with a discrete AMD graphics card. Problem wasn't in software or drivers - it was just a badly soldered chip (I regulary cleaned my laptop from dust, so overheating is not an option here).