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Catalyst 10.9 issues
I realize this isn't strictly a hardware problem, but I figured I'd toss this problem out there (as a reason to stay away from Ati's newest drivers, if nothing else).
Catalyst 10.6 was the last completely stable driver release for me. 10.7 was mostly stable, but crashed on the Windows 7 performance index tests, and in a couple other places. 10.8 downgraded me in stability to the issue of crashing and getting a blue screen error on about 10%-20% of flash videos (.flv), the common thread between which I was never able to find. I figured I didn't have anything to lose by installing 10.9, because eventually Ati would have to fix these problems (and figured the quick release was just that: a rapid fix of all the recent issues), and I was wrong 
The Catalyst 10.9 drivers didn't even wait for an excuse to crash the system; they did it during install. When the computer recovered, Catalyst Control Panel said there was no valid GPU, etc etc, and now I'm trying to roll back to Ati's 10.6 drivers, and can't install ANY graphics driver. The driver install just fails now. I've tried running both driver sweeper and Ccleaner to clean off any junk this bad install might have left, but somehow it's managed to more or less permanently cripple my system's video.
I'm trying a system restore right now while I ponder Ati's rather impressive phailsauce approach to graphics drivers of late (up until now, I hadn't had a problem for years). Has anyone else had experience with this driver, either good or bad?
Comments
Most issues assumed to be drivers aren't actually caused from the drivers. If everyone who installed 10.9 has problems, then its issues with the driver. There is probably a different problem on your machine that is causing the drivers to improperly install. Such as an Anti-Virus, a Virus, or the like. I also have 10.9 on my machine and its working fine.
So let's see here:
Catalyst 10.7 works fine on other peoples' systems but not yours.
Catalyst 10.8 works fine on other peoples' systems but not yours.
Catalyst 10.9 works fine on other peoples' systems but not yours.
I think the common thread is your system. If you've overclocked the card, I'd try undoing that first. If not, then if you have some other video card available, I'd try swapping that into the system and seeing if it works.
Incidentally, I have Catalyst 10.8 installed and it works just fine, but the action center in Windows 7 is telling me that I don't have a video driver installed and need to install one. DxDiag properly recognizes the installed driver, too. And most importantly, it works properly.
Problems with the last few releases of drivers have been rather widespread, and a quick google search revealed that my exact problem (7e bugckeck on install followed by CCC complaining of an invalid/nonexistent GPU, followed by stubborn driver installs) has been encountered by others.
I can assure you, my nearly-new copy of Windows is virus-free, and it's extremely unlikely that the others who have encountered my issues all happened to be running my exact anti-virus program (just as I doubt that a widespread AV program that has worked with every previous version of the ati drivers would suddenly cause a bugcheck with this version).
As Crossfire-enabled, AMD-based systems with Windows 7 64-bit installed go, mine is remarkable unextraordinary
10.7 does work fine on my system, actually, just with a couple of minor bugs, and I'm hardly the only person who has complained about recent driver installs.
I think the common thread is your system.
and every other system that's having issues; too bad that isn't of much help unless you can tell me what that common thread is, and unless it actually represents a flaw my system, it's still a fault of poorly-written drivers.
If you've overclocked the card, I'd try undoing that first. If not, then if you have some other video card available, I'd try swapping that into the system and seeing if it works.
The card is not overclocked, and I've already tried what you suggest, at least in a manner of speaking (I have two 5770s to work with here to eliminate a hardware flaw as a likely culprit).
Believe it or not, I am intelligent enough to not put unstable overclocks on my GPUs. In fact, given the marginal gains in performance from overclocking these video cards to begin with, I don't bother at all. 7% or 8% isn't worth the effort, and between the rev.2 5770 coolers that don't cover the memory, and the mediocre headway on the core clocks, it's about all I get.
Are you uninstalling the old versions before installing the new? Have you uninstalled your drivers and gone back to the last version (10.6) that worked for you and tested to see if you still have the issue? Have you contacted ATI or your card manufacturer to see if there's an issue with your specific configuration? Have you updated all your other drivers, including chipset drivers? Have you checked for BIOS updates and installed any if applicable? Are you overclocking your CPU, memory or Video? Have you run memtest to see if there's an issue with your memory?
All good advice, but yes, it's all been done minus getting help from contacting Ati (which is pending a response to my query).
Have you tried each card separately? What were the results when reinstalling the 10.6 drivers? Was the system stable?
Copy your DxDiag file here and let's see what you've got.
You've got the whole Catalyst Software Suite with the Catalyst Application Profiles all of exactly the same version each time? If you're running CrossFire, then you do need the latter, and AMD says that mixing different versions can cause bad things to happen.
If you've got two cards, then I'd try pulling one of them out of the system and running it in either of the PCI Express x16 slots and seeing if it works either way, at least well enough to uninstall and reinstall drivers. If not, I'd try doing the same with the other card. This would at least make sure that it isn't a problem with either card or either PCI Express slot (as it's unlikely that both would fail at once).
You haven't flashed the BIOS or tweaked the voltage on either card, I assume? (You probably haven't, but people do strange things sometimes.)
Yeah, 10.6 is stable. 10.7 has also been very stable. I am now running 10.8 after a system restore and nothing is giving trouble aside from the one bug with flash videos (which I'll take up with Ati at some point; it's been a small enough issue for me to be too worried about other things right now).
I may give 10.9a a go in just a little while here just for curiosity's sake, but honestly, I've read posts from a number of people who get BSODs running this version of the Catalyst drivers, so I'm not sure I expect much. As I said before, this is really unusual in the grand scheme of things. I almost never have problems of any kind with Ati drivers
Hmm, you know you might actually have a point on the Crossfire profiles. I DID forget to update that (separate download, it slips my sometimes), though, again, the BSOD was right in the middle of the graphics driver install.
I guess I'll disable one card (I'll just pull the plug on it or the crossfire bridge or something), start with a single 5770, get the updated profiles installed, and then physically enable the second card. Thanks.
Good Luck!
Well I reinstalled Windows, figuring it would wipe out whatever generally causes the uncommon (but not unheard of) trouble with recent ati driver releases, and installing a plain copy of Window 7 Professional 64-bit, then nothing but the core OS updates, then the .net framework allowed Catalyst 10.9 to install beautifully.
The crashing issues with 10.8 on flash videos is gone too. What bothers me is that while this was an easy fix for me (I keep all my stuff in a single folder and have plenty of backup drives), it still doesn't help me figure out what the common thread is between my last install, and that of the others having these problems. I have to admit it's a limited success if I can't tell others having 10.9 BSOD problems how to fix them, or guarantee they won't come back when I start installing my other device drivers and software (though I have my doubts there).
Still, they seem like nice drivers. Performance is good, and hopefully they really are more stable than my initial impression would suggest. Thanks for the various suggestions guys.
So I've finally solved the entire problem.
Even though at was the Ati video drivers crashing, it wasn't them causing the problem; it was my Asus Xonar DX drivers.
Apparently, Asus Xonar drivers crash Ati Catalyst drivers. This isn't actually surprising. I was shocked to have so many problems with Ati drivers (they've been so good these past few years), but Asus Xonar drivers? Those have been as consistently bad as Ati drivers have been good (down to random sound lockups in games, and other fun troubles that people universally have).
I had no trouble with the Catalyst 10.9 drivers, even doing the things that crashed 10.8 before. Then I installed the drivers for my Asus Xonar DX, and it crashed the system (BC Code 116; video driver crash) on the first youtube video I tried. I uninstalled the Xonar Drivers, went back to that exact video... nothing. It played fine. I replaced the Xonar card in the system with the onboard Asus Xfi sound riser (included with the Crosshair mobos), and went back to that video again, and sound played and everything.
In fact, EVERYTHING I do is now handled just fine. My crash dumps never indicated this problem, so if I hadn't started from scratch on Windows, I likely never would have found the culprit. Maybe this information will be of use to others having similar troubles.
This reminds me of something. Alot of game crashing issues are caused by faulty sound card drivers.