Problem with x1600 graphics (on 8204 laptop)

[hungryghost]

I've checked these forums for the last several weeks looking for clues to a graphics driver issue, but haven't found any information about it ... So, here goes, I'll just start my own thread.

I've been having some major performance issues with my 8204. The problem was that my machine would become very "sluggish" almost immediately after starting Windows. Sometimes, Windows would become nearly unusable due to the lag. Also, the screen would occasionally flicker as if cycling through multiple displays. I actually do have multiple displays, but this behaviour happens whether or not my external display is attached.

After some trouble-shooting, I've identified the probelms related to a ATI graphics process (atievxx.exe). The problem goes away if I disable it.

Has anybody else experienced this?

[hungryghost]

Here are some more details:

There are 2 processes that have actually caused me problems (atievxx.exe and cli.exe). The atievxx.exe is the "ATI Hot Key Poller" service. Apparently, this controls the graphics card power management features along with the hot keys manager (although strangely, I can still use hot keys when this service isn't running). The cli.exe is the "Command Line Interface", which is basically the Catalyst Control Center program that handles your graphics card settings.

The main culprit seems to be ati2evxx.exe. The problem is after booting up and waiting for everything else to settle down, my CPU jumps from 0 to 20-30% (sometimes even more) every few seconds. This happens no matter how long I wait for eveything to load. When dragging a window around the desktop, the movement "stutters" when the CPU spike happens.

By checking the task manager, I see the CPU is being used by one of two atievxx.exe processes that are running (multiple instances are normal). Now 20-30% doesn't sound like much, but the process only runs on one of CPU cores, meaning that the process is actually consuming 40-60% of that core. Regardless of the numbers though, this cosistetent "spike" corresponds to the sluggishness and occasional screen drop-outs.

The other less serious problem is the cli.exe, which usually has 3 instances running (again, this is normal behavior). Although cli.exe isn't normally a problem, sometimes dozens of cli.exe proceses start for some unknown reason, causing my CPU to go to almost 100%. It eventually settles down back to 3 instances, but on some occasions, my machine becomes so unresponsive that I have to kill the cli.exe processes and reboot. I know this sounds even more serious than the first problem, but I consider it less important since it's only happened a few times and isn't currently plaguing me. My guess is that it's related to using an external high resolution LCD display, but I have yet to investigate this. For now, I am not attaching my external LCD and I will focus on resolving the persistent atievxx.exe problem.

[hungryghost]

Here is what I've done to try to resolve this.

I installed the latest ATI drivers from the Acer Europe FTP site (version 8.231). That didn't help (still problems with atievxx.exe). I tried installing the bare drivers only without the extra catalyst software. Still a problem since atievxx.exe is part of the basic driver set. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling numerous times. I've tried recovering back to factory defaults multiple times. I've even tried multiple clean installs of Windows (XP Pro w/ SP2) and installing drivers separately. Nothing has worked and atievxx.exe still behaves badly.

I also called tech support but they were no help. They said it was a hardware problem (which I really doubt) and said I need to ship it in for service. This is actually my second 8204 laptop. I returned the first one due to an unrelated problem with the plastic bezel on the case. I've already gone through a painfully drawn-out return process and didn't want to depart with the laptop yet again. I did notice that the first laptop had the same atievxx.exe problem, but I didn't investigate it initially since I was going to return it anyway. Since the problem appears even on my second laptop, I expect other 8204 users are experiencing the same issues. But like I've said, I've found no other any information regarding this.

So, my only solution has been to disable the ATI Hot Key Poller service so it doesn't startup with Windows. Without atievxx.exe running, my machine acts fine (and is pretty speedy in fact, especially after the clean install without all the Acer bloatware).

Although this seems to work, I really don't like this solution. I don't know everything the ATI Hot Poller service does which makes me nervous since it's supposed to run with the ATI X1600 graphics card. Since it was designed to run, I'd rather it just work rather than having to disable it.

Does anybody have suggestions on fixing this another way?

[ejl]

have you attempted to use other drivers like omega? since they are second party drivers, they probably don't include the hot poller service.

[hungryghost]

I've considered the omega drivers, but I don't normally use modded software like that. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I shy away from third party software hacks, although I'm sure there are many good ones out there. I'd rather fix this using "official" drivers if possible.

[Yellow11]

I have had my 8204 since February and have experienced none of what you describe. Mine just works fine. I did update all drivers, including ATI video, as well as going to the latest version of .NET.

TO help diagnose your issue I would recommend replacing the Windows Task Manager with the latest version of Process Explorer from www.sysinternals.com . They have a lot of other great free tools there that can help. I understand your frustration I wouldn't want to have to undergo the hassle of returning the laptop again, but in this case i think you should just bite the bullet and send it back while it is still warrantied. Let them deal with the issue so you can just get on with using it like the rest of us.

Another thought. Do you have installed an application that might be using these processes in an unusually heavy way? This is something that Process Explorer can help you find out about.

Cheers

[Technospaz]

I just got my 8204 about a week ago and I almost immediately uninstalled the current ATI drivers and replaced them with the Omega Drivers 3.8.252 and have not had any problems (then again, I didn't have the problems you raised when I first started using the notebook).

Graphics run smoothly. I rack about 4.4k on 3DM05 and close to 2k on 3DM06.

[Drez]

Hi.

I have the same problem on a 8200 with x1600 card and I've been going crazy to figure this out. I've also isolated the problems to the ati2evxx.exe process, but I had not yet understood that it was the hotkeys manager that was the culprit. My machine also acts sluggish right after start-up and the problems especially appear when I run my external screen eventhough that runs lower res than the built-in screen.
I've also updated the drivers and everything I can think of without any really good solution, I'm just by-passing the real problem by shutting down the process but it's not a real fix and it sucks.

I know this thread is a bit out of date by now but has anyone come up with a "real solution" to this yet?

Any help is welcome, it would help me enormously to get this sorted.

[orthorim]

I don't have this problem on my 8204, never had it. It was always fast.

The ati2evxx process has come to my attention because it constantly produces I/O - you can see that if you turn on I/O Read Bytes and Write Bytes columns in Task Manager, in the view options.

When I noticed this, I killed the process, but I later realized that I/O bytes is not necessarily Hard Disk access, it's more likely reading from and writing to a pipe, a logical device. So now I have ati2vexx on again. I still don't like the reading/writing - it just looks like poor implementation to me if something is constantly polling something else and reading hundreds of megabytes of data. It doesn't cause me any slowness or access the HD though.

The only negative of killing the ati2... process is that power management stops working. Meaning, battery life will be worse. Other than that, you don't need it at all.

Both people who have this problem also run a secondary external display - I wonder if that triggers the bug. I don't use an external display.

PS: I/O read bytes stands at 244MB for that ATI process since I restarted my machine. Increases by about 6.5KB/second. I have promised myself to not buy another ATI card... these drivers are crap.

[Zoomastigophora]

CCC basically sucks although the new one is slightly better. Install the latest ATI drivers without CCC. If atievxx.exe still gives you trouble, just disable the service, although it really shouldn't bother you.