ASUS Radeon 9600XT ATI driver stops Windows XP Pro getting to Login Screen

Hi,

I recently put together a new PC with the following:

ASUS A7N8Xe deluxe motherboard
ASUS Radeon 9600XT 8x AGP video card 128mb
2 x 160GB Seagate SATA harddisks
Samsung 52x24x52 CDRW.

Installed Windows XP Pro about 3 weeks ago and it was working fine until
this morning. I turned on the PC and it went blank after the Windows XP
loading screen (i.e. did not get to the Windows XP Login screen).

I reinstalled Windows XP and found that the problem occurs after I install
the ATI driver on the ASUS Radeon 9600XT Driver CD.

It stopped working for some unknown reason, and even reinstalling Windows
XP, then the motherboard drivers followed by the ASUS drivers (which I did
the first time) doesn't even work at all now. I have no idea what could be
causing the problems.

Can anyone help?

Thanks
Chris

In article , "Chris Sze"
wrote:

Hi,

I recently put together a new PC with the following:

ASUS A7N8Xe deluxe motherboard
ASUS Radeon 9600XT 8x AGP video card 128mb
2 x 160GB Seagate SATA harddisks
Samsung 52x24x52 CDRW.

Installed Windows XP Pro about 3 weeks ago and it was working fine until
this morning. I turned on the PC and it went blank after the Windows XP
loading screen (i.e. did not get to the Windows XP Login screen).

I reinstalled Windows XP and found that the problem occurs after I install
the ATI driver on the ASUS Radeon 9600XT Driver CD.

It stopped working for some unknown reason, and even reinstalling Windows
XP, then the motherboard drivers followed by the ASUS drivers (which I did
the first time) doesn't even work at all now. I have no idea what could be
causing the problems.

Can anyone help?

Thanks
Chris

Download another driver from ATI. I don't know why yours has stopped
working, but the driver from the Catalyst CD that came with my ATI9800
didn't work, and getting a later one from the ATI site fixed it. This
can sometimes be due to the SmartGART code getting stuck while it is
testing the card to see what AGP speed it will support.

The other unlikely problem, is related to power. The video card
might be drawing a little extra current just as the desktop appears.
So, if playing the driver game doesn't fix your problem, find
another PSU to swap in. (I guess your BIOS screen still works, so
you can actually check this out by visiting the hardware monitor
page in the BIOS and seeing whether the PSU voltages are within
the normal 5% tolerance. Only waste time swapping the PSU if they
look to be off by closer to 10%.)

HTH,
Paul

Hi Paul,

I tried the newest drivers however same problem.

Also checked the power issues and everything was well within the range.

I even did a clean install 3 times and the same problem. Is it possible
there is a fault with the MB or video card? It only plays up when I try to
install the drivers for the video card which is odd considering it was fine
three weeks ago when I first put it together.

Any other ideas?

Thanks
Chris

"Paul" wrote in message
...
In article , "Chris Sze"
wrote:

Hi,

I recently put together a new PC with the following:

ASUS A7N8Xe deluxe motherboard
ASUS Radeon 9600XT 8x AGP video card 128mb
2 x 160GB Seagate SATA harddisks
Samsung 52x24x52 CDRW.

Installed Windows XP Pro about 3 weeks ago and it was working fine until
this morning. I turned on the PC and it went blank after the Windows XP
loading screen (i.e. did not get to the Windows XP Login screen).

I reinstalled Windows XP and found that the problem occurs after I
install
the ATI driver on the ASUS Radeon 9600XT Driver CD.

It stopped working for some unknown reason, and even reinstalling
Windows
XP, then the motherboard drivers followed by the ASUS drivers (which I
did
the first time) doesn't even work at all now. I have no idea what could
be
causing the problems.

Can anyone help?

Thanks
Chris

Download another driver from ATI. I don't know why yours has stopped
working, but the driver from the Catalyst CD that came with my ATI9800
didn't work, and getting a later one from the ATI site fixed it. This
can sometimes be due to the SmartGART code getting stuck while it is
testing the card to see what AGP speed it will support.

The other unlikely problem, is related to power. The video card
might be drawing a little extra current just as the desktop appears.
So, if playing the driver game doesn't fix your problem, find
another PSU to swap in. (I guess your BIOS screen still works, so
you can actually check this out by visiting the hardware monitor
page in the BIOS and seeing whether the PSU voltages are within
the normal 5% tolerance. Only waste time swapping the PSU if they
look to be off by closer to 10%.)

HTH,
Paul

In article , "Chris Sze"
wrote:

Hi Paul,

I tried the newest drivers however same problem.

Also checked the power issues and everything was well within the range.

I even did a clean install 3 times and the same problem. Is it possible
there is a fault with the MB or video card? It only plays up when I try to
install the drivers for the video card which is odd considering it was fine
three weeks ago when I first put it together.

Any other ideas?

Thanks
Chris

Nothing else I can think of. A hardware fault is likely, if you've
tried different versions of drivers and symptoms don't change.

BIOS Settings I would try:
AGP Frequency [66] or 67, assuming Auto isn't working
FSB Spread Spectrum [Disabled] shouldn't be necessary but...
AGP Spread Spectrum [Disabled] shouldn't be necessary but...
Graphics Aperture [64MB] should be good enough
AGP 8X Support [Disabled] will probably be ignored by Catalyst
AGP Fast Write [Disabled] will probably be ignored by Catalyst

Install Windows
Install Nvidia Forceware 4.27 (http://www.ben.pope.name/a7n8x_faq.html)
Install a different Catalyst
Install a different DirectX if you can find one

(I think Catalyst has a dependency on which version of DirectX you
use, and that might be why DirectX is included on the ATI CDROM. At
least ATI has some minimum DirectX requirement.)

You might be right about the video card. It could be faulty hardware,
but a typical failure would be, say, bad memory, in which case you'd
get colored blocks, or some other visual artifacts. The blank screen
implies an AGP problem, and unfortunately, at least with the
Catalysts I've tried, you cannot even go into a motherboard BIOS
and turn down the AGP to 4X, 2X, or 1X to try and fix it. I found
the SmartGART code ignored the BIOS setting, and instead it checks
the status register on the video card. If it finds 8X, it will try
to run at 8X. If you could get into wherever the SmartGART startup
conditions are stored, then maybe you could adjust it. You cannot
do it with the SmartGART tab, until the computer has successfully
booted once, so it is a chicken vs egg problem.

Paul

"Paul" wrote in message
...
In article , "Chris Sze"
wrote:

Hi,

I recently put together a new PC with the following:

ASUS A7N8Xe deluxe motherboard
ASUS Radeon 9600XT 8x AGP video card 128mb
2 x 160GB Seagate SATA harddisks
Samsung 52x24x52 CDRW.

Installed Windows XP Pro about 3 weeks ago and it was working fine until
this morning. I turned on the PC and it went blank after the Windows XP
loading screen (i.e. did not get to the Windows XP Login screen).

I reinstalled Windows XP and found that the problem occurs after I
install
the ATI driver on the ASUS Radeon 9600XT Driver CD.

It stopped working for some unknown reason, and even reinstalling
Windows
XP, then the motherboard drivers followed by the ASUS drivers (which I
did
the first time) doesn't even work at all now. I have no idea what could
be
causing the problems.

Can anyone help?

Thanks
Chris

Download another driver from ATI. I don't know why yours has stopped
working, but the driver from the Catalyst CD that came with my ATI9800
didn't work, and getting a later one from the ATI site fixed it. This
can sometimes be due to the SmartGART code getting stuck while it is
testing the card to see what AGP speed it will support.

The other unlikely problem, is related to power. The video card
might be drawing a little extra current just as the desktop appears.
So, if playing the driver game doesn't fix your problem, find
another PSU to swap in. (I guess your BIOS screen still works, so
you can actually check this out by visiting the hardware monitor
page in the BIOS and seeing whether the PSU voltages are within
the normal 5% tolerance. Only waste time swapping the PSU if they
look to be off by closer to 10%.)

HTH,
Paul