ATI 7970M Driver Issues

Hello everyone

Sorry for posting YET ANOTHER thread on these damn drivers, but may I request that PC Specialist perhaps sticky a thread or something, or keep the actual "announcement" updated? As the last update in the announcement thread hasn't been updated since last June (Which is quite disturbing tbh, both on PCS' part and AMDs.

I am currently having masses of problems with these damn drivers.

I was originally having issues with this, when I noticed that if my laptop was not plugged in, and I was say playing WoW, I get a lot of graphical glitches and bugs which is incredibly off putting. Changing the System settings in WoW made no difference. So I tried to update the drivers in an attempt to fix this, oh what a mistake that was.

I am not currently on my 2nd/3rd day of trying to install the right drivers, with the right tweaks to get this to work. I installed the AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta 11 Drivers, and this has now caused my laptop to blue screen every single time I try to start it with an error on the file ATIKMPAG.SYS. This was the last straw for me. Because it takes 30-60 minutes for me to download a single driver (as I don't have the best internet in the world) trying to fix this issue is starting to get incredibly frustrating. The fact that this issue has been going on for so many months now is starting to be a bit of a joke and I am starting to lose faith in AMD (For which I have been an avid customer of there's since I started building my own PC's) and I'm starting to lose patience. So much so, that I am actually looking upgrading my laptop 680M just to save me the hassle of all these problems.

Is anyone else having these issues? Have you fixed them or are you still suffering?

Sorry for the rant, but I think the amount of threads for this card in this sub-forum and again, that are disappearing into the fog that is Page 2 and beyond, that I think we need to keep something centralized and frequently updated, either by the public on this forum, or by PCS themselves.

I am currently typing this in Safe Mode, downloading the driver AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta 8 (of which it has nearly half an hour remaining) in hope that it's going to at least make it boot-able.

The reason you're having trouble with them is because they're beta drivers. Not officially released by any means, and by downloading them you should have understood that they're unfinished, hence your problems.

Roll back to the latest stable drivers until they're fully released without bugs. If you're only playing WoW, it's not like you need the extra FPS the drivers provide.

TL;DR: It's no one's fault but yours that you're whinging about the problems that beta drivers always have.

wow well i was expecting that sort of response back.

i have rolled back to the latest stable drivers, and i would say that im entitled to "whinge" about it, as you call it. i paid good money for this laptop, if AMD havent actually released a full stable update to the drivers, then maybe they should priotise that first before releasing the product. WoW isnt the omly game im paying, im also playing Far Cry 3, Guild Wars 2 and bf3 but wow just happens to be the fame with the most noticeanle glitches so i mentioned that primarily. i tried to update the drivers BECAUSE im having bugs in the games, not because i felt like updating them. i understand that they are neta drivers, but if they cause BSODs the minute it finishes installing, and forcing me to boot into safe mode just so i can uninstall them, which i knownfor a faxt isnt affecting just me, then i wouldnt even call that a beta to be honest and forces me to question how they tested them before they release them to the public ifnso many people are having problems with them.

i didnt post the thread to :"whinge", i posted it to see if anyone else is having such poor experiences with such a sought after producr, whilst AMD have still not fixed it yet. if all you're going to bring to this topic is just unnecessary comments then maybe you shouldnt post at all.

Yes, I had the same BSOD issue after updating my 7970ms (crossfire) to 12.11 Beta 11. But after 2 bsod the problem just stopped and I haven't had one since (approximately a month). Since then, I finished Need for Speed Most Wanted, Far Cry 3, Call of Duty Black Ops II, Race Driver GRID and I'm now playing Assassin's Creed III and GTA IV with no problems whatsoever. I do admit that a lot of users on the internet have a lot of issues with these drivers (from what I've seen on overclock.net or notebookreview forums) but unless the final version of the driver will still have these problems, I'm not complaining. My 7970s are still kicking Nvidia's overpriced 680's a**s. Not to mention their latest 310.90 drivers which LITERALLY rendered many people's hard drives and SSds dead just after installing and rebooting. So I can say I am pretty satisfied with two BSODs in two months, rather than loosing all my data. And I am patiently waiting for the final version of 12.11 so that I could then fully enjoy the latest games with no issues whatsoever for many many years. Hopefully it will be released before Crysis 3

Hello m8

For some reason a few people have experienced similar problems to you, maybe you need to do a clean sweep of your AMD drivers and then try to install the AMD driver fresh after that. Do you also have the latest Intel display driver too? I got constant BSOD and regular crashes due to not having the compatible Intel driver.
I'd suggest 1. Installing the most recent Intel Display driver for your Laptop, http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Default.aspx?lang=eng 2. Uninstall the AMD driver. 3. Reboot your system and use Driver Sweeper and remove AMD display drivers from the menu. http://www.techspot.com/downloads/4266-driver-sweeper.html 3. Reboot again and install the AMD 12.11 Beta 11 driver from the AMD site http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/Catalyst-Hotfixes.aspx 4. Reboot again and fingers crossed you shouldn't have any issues

Hope you get sorted!!

P.S Make sure you download the AMD driver which includes the .NET 4.0 support if you have not downloaded this yet!!

2.Try this m8, seems to be the best way to install without BSOD

1. Download the the AMD 12.11 driver here: http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/Catalyst-Hotfixes.aspx
2. Download the Intel HD 4000 9.17.10.2867 graphics driver: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Default.aspx?lang=eng
3. Download Driver Sweeper, find the program here: http://www.techspot.com/downloads/4266-driver-sweeper.html
4. Uninstall all AMD files through the Catalyst manager (you can access this by going to the Uninstall a Program section in Windows and selecting "Change" on the AMD option)
5. Restart, and install Driver Sweeper
6. Restart in safe mode (type in msconfig in run, go to the boot tab, and select safe mode), run Driver Sweeper and delete both AMD Driver and Intel Display* Driver files
7. Restart in normal mode (uncheck safe mode in msconfig), install every component in the AMD 12.11 package
8. Restart in safe mode (you have to one more time or you will get a BSOD on normal startup), install the Intel HD 4000 9.17.10.2867 driver
9. Restart in normal mode and you will be good to go

*Update* I edited this to add Intel Display Driver. Make sure you do not delete the Intel Chipset drivers in Driver Sweeper!

AMD download page: http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/Catalyst-Hotfixes.aspx
Intel Download page: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Default.aspx?lang=eng
Facebook unofficial help/support page: http://www.facebook.com/Amd7000mEnduroUtilizationAwareness
Read through the other 7970m driver support pages on here as they have other responses and solutions to a lot of problems that other people have had while trying install the new drivers.

It is worth spending some time looking through different forums and stuff as there is loads of info out there. I'm currently having no issues with my 7970m after following some of the advice mentioned on this thread. Hope everyone gets their 7970m issues sorted soon

You do not provide your system spec's but if it is a Clevo based build then you might want to try the Clevo supplied drivers for your particular build there -> http://www.clevo.com.tw/en/e-services/download/

Though you might see from some of my posts that I have had issues with my system I found them to be pretty stable and cannot really apportion any blame to them.

Hope it helps if you are still having problems, while I do agree with you being entitled to whinge as we all are when the frustration of things not quite working out right as they should do gets to us, do try and keep it to a minimum as well as ignoring any negative comments, better to just focus on dealing with your issues, the majority of genuinely helpful folks are pretty positive in attitude.

Disregard Dekstar's comments, given the scope of this issue you have every right to feel aggrieved and seek advice. Though please note this problem is the fault of AMD and AMD alone, there's nothing any distributor can do about it (but I will look into getting the thread updated now for you). Kylhan's advice is spot on and if this doesn't work I don't know what else will.

But we should be able to get you sorted as you have a PCS Clevo model as the hardware is the same and some of us have succeeded in getting the problem sorted as of the latest BETA drivers. Also note rumour has it (and AMD have left way too much to rumour over the past 6 months) that the stable version of the current BETA driver is well on the way, so hold out for just a bit longer. Once the new drivers are working the problems do seem to be gone.

The 13.1 WHQL drivers are out as of today. Also the 13.2 Beta is bound to be released next week, bringing significant improvements, as tested in this article http://techreport.com/review/24218/a-driver-update-to-reduce-radeon-frame-times Read all 5 pages, it's worth it. If you don't want to wait until next week for these changes, you can download the leaked 13.2 Beta from http://www.sendspace.com/file/x628y6 This I found over at http://www.overclock.net/t/1318756/amd-12-11-beta-drivers/1760 , bottom of the page from someone who has "connections" ) Haven;t tested it yet, and bear in mind is leaked and might not be finished yet. But if you're hardcore, might give it a try.

Sorry I haven't posted for a while guys, been swamped at work and with the my new OU course starting Thanks Khylan, I'll try that now

Oh I know it's not PCS' fault, I was merely just saying I was a little disappointed that there was no mention of it on the website whilst I placed the order, not even a warning (That's partly my fault though as I clearly didn't do my research properly either)