Did my ship sink, or can it be fixed?

SilentHopes · May 12, 2013

Back in March, I was playing some Civ V. I had to start on my homework, so I hit escape and clicked "Quit to Windows". Well, for some reason, that created a problem with my computer. The screen went black, and I couldn't see anything. Nothing out of the ordinary, this happens every now and then, no big deal, right? It came back, but it came back with a partial checkerboard pattern over top of my desktop. Then my computer bluescreened. I reboot, and it launches back into Windows just fine. However, I can't get it to switch back into aero mode. I restart it to see if it will fix it. This time, however, it will not boot into Windows. I get stuck on a bluescreen. I panic a bit, and I'm not usually one to get scared over broken parts. I get out the tools, screwdriver, flashlight, and then open up the computer. I spent an hour or so just looking at my 7970, poking things, seeing if anything seemed out of place. Nothing. Took it out of the top slot and then put it in the bottom. Tried booting, same problem. I've got no idea what to do at this point, so I put it away for the night and do my homework.

The next day after school, I open it back up and pull the graphics card out entirely. I tried booting off of integrated graphics, and now I can get into Windows. However, it freezes up and I have to shut it down again. Freezes every time I try to get into it on integrated graphics. I tried putting the graphics card back in, and the problem returns. So I've narrowed it down to the graphics card not working properly with something. After playing around with it a bit, I found I could boot into Windows with safe mode. I search for the file mentioned, atikmpag.sys, and since it says ATI, I know it's something to do with the drivers. After finding the file, I googled a bit to see if I could find a solution. I read that deleting the file fixed the problem for some, and I tried that. Booting in brought up a different file as the culprit, atikmdag.sys. Deleted it, and now I can get into Windows, but any functionality on the graphics card is gone. Can't play games, aero is unusable, eveything.

Thoroughly confused, I put it away for a few days. When I came back, I tried reinstalling the drivers fresh from AMD. I had the latest drivers at the time, which were like 13.1, I believe. It says it needs a reboot in order to have effects, and after trying to reboot, I get a bluescreen again. Delete the files and try again. I installed various driver versions over and over in hopes of fixing the problem, none of them worked. Even tried beta drivers. At this point, I just give up and go us integrated graphics. I've got no idea what the problem is, and after looking online, I found it has happened to many people with many AMD graphics cards and it happens on any driver number. After about a week of playing around with files every now and then, a buddy wants to play Battlefield 3. I try to hook up my 7970, and all of a sudden, everything works all of a sudden. I'm halfway through a game of conquest, and then all of a sudden, bluescreen. No warning this time. My fifteen minutes of functionality (Literally only 15 minutes) were gone. After this, I reinstalled Windows somewhere around five times. It hasn't worked since.

I've been running off integrated graphics for two months now, I called AMD like a week after playing Battlefield, and the guy told me my card was dead and I needed to send it back. Except, I'm not under warranty. I bought it back in September. I can't get 100% of my money back. I don't have a license yet, and my dad has been gone every week since Christmas and I've only seen him six times since then. My mom is disabled so she can't drive. I can't find a time to get the post office, but my dad is finally home so I may be able to get there this week. Basically, I haven't been able to send it back.

The guy at AMD seems to think it's dead, and I did too for a while. But if this happens to many people, the same problem, different card, different drivers, then how could all of their cards have just died like that? That doesn't make sense.