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Did Win XP save the day? My continuing 9800 Pro dilemma.



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 23rd 04, 05:47 PM
Lydokane
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Did Win XP save the day? My continuing 9800 Pro dilemma.

Highlights from our hero's beginning of this perilous journey.



--Begin-


Powmax 400W PSU
Seagate Barracuda 120GB HDD
1 DVD-ROM
1 Pioneer DVD Burner
Gigabyte GA-7VTXE Motherboard with the latest BIOS update (F9 from
Gigabyte's web site)
Motherboard Chipset
1. VIA KT266A(VT8366A) System controller north bridge
2. VIA VT8233 V-Link south bridge
3. RealTek ALC201A audio codec
4. 1.5 GHz PC2100 RAM
5. Further motherboard specs he
http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard...s_GA-7VTXE.htm

All other cards have been pulled.
Nothing is overclocked.
The former video card was the nVidia Geforce 4 MX (AGP version). I used a
driver cleaner to make sure all 'droppings' were removed.

The new card is the ATI Radeon Powercolor 9800 Pro (AGP version) OEM.
I did download and install the VIA AGP driver update. 4 in 1 update patch
from the Gigabyte website (version 4.51v).
I downloaded Catalyst 4.7 from ATI website.

Currently the system will boot into safe mode with 2D graphics. If I
uninstall the ATI drivers/Software the system will still boot into regular
mode with 2D graphics.

1. When I install the drivers/software and reboot, the system will begin to
start up. The Windows XP splash screen with the blue-dash status bar will
come up then the screen will go blank.

2. At this point I SHOULD get the blue Welcome to Windows screen and then
the desktop should come up.

3. What actually happens is the screen goes blank then the monitor looses
signal and the system reboots (or maybe the monitor looses signal BECAUSE
the system is rebooting).

4. When the system reboots I'll get the option to go to safe mode, safe w/
networking, safe w/ command prompt, last known working configuration, or
normal windows boot.


I have tried un/reinstalling drivers. I have pulled the card and made sure
that there is no dust in the AGP slot. The card IS seated properly. No
matter what I do, if I try to go into windows normally steps 1 - 4 above
will repeat everytime.

I also had an IT friend of mine check the BIOS settings to make sure
everything was set properly there he made a few tweaks but no help.

Here are some things that happened that I think should be mentioned.

When I first put the ATI card in and powered up, the fan/heat sink on the
ATI card was really loud (buzzing). At first I didn't think anything about
it because this is my first card with a fan/heat sink. And I'm always
reading about fan noise. When the system booted up (first time) Windows
came up and the cursor became an hourglass like the OS was finding the card
and preparing to install the drivers. Then the screen kind of 'melted' and
started to go black. I quickly shut the system down with the PSU switch in
the back. I pulled the ATI card. It was a warm but not very hot. It seems
the fan/heat sink was not secured to the board properly and when the fan
kicked in it made enough backlash for one of the pins on the heat sink to
come out of the board while the other pin stayed in. I pushed the pin back
in and properly secured the fan/heat sink to the board. Replaced the card
and rebooted (no more fan noise). During this episode the computer was on
for less than a minute. This includes the time it takes to boot up; not
just how long Windows was up. Could this have killed the board?

When I rebooted, everything was normal. Windows found the board and I first
installed the drivers from the CD-ROM using the Windows 'Found New Hardware'
wizard. When I rebooted, well, see 1 - 4 above.

After a little research I learned about updating the VIA chipset drivers. I
updated the drivers with 4.51 version and at this time I also updated the
BIOS. I also learned that I had not properly uninstalled the old nVidia
card & drivers. I then proceeded to do just that.

Rebooted… see 1 - 4 again.

After more research I learned that sometimes nVidia drivers can be stubborn
to remove. I downloaded a program to make sure the nVidia removal was
clean. I used the program in safe mode and removed the nVidia and ATI
drivers.

I Rebooted and reinstalled ATI drivers.

Rebooted… see 1 - 4 Again.

I did even more research and downloaded the Catalyst driver/software from
ATI. In safe mode I uninstalled ATI drivers. Rebooted and did not use the
'Found New Hardware' wizard. I canceled those windows and executed the
Catalyst drivers. The drivers installed with no errors.

Rebooted… see 1 - 4 Again!

After some investigation I learned that there was an IRQ conflict with the
NIC card. At this point I pulled ALL the cards from the system. The only
card left was the ATI. I also disabled the onboard sound through the BIOS.
Now there is now IRQ sharing/conflicts.

Rebooted… see 1 - 4 AGAIN!

The only thing I can think of is:

A: the card is fried.
2: There is some configuration setting that I am not aware of.
C: AGP slot has gone bad (unlikely because nVidia card was working fine).
4: This is all a really bad dream and the card hasn't actually arrived in
the mail yet (unlikely because no night terror can ever be this bad).

I am contemplating a format and reinstall of Win XP and/or a call to tech
support @ ATI. Just thought I would post here first.

If you have made it this far, thank you for your patience.

In a follow up I added that I had an AMD 1.6 GHz processor.



--END-


And now, without further ado, let's read on as our hero continues with this
most challenging adventure.


Unfortunately I didn't get much help from the community here. So I called
tech support (absolutely no help) and the tech said that he had e-mailed me
a link to an earlier set of drivers (Catalyst v. 4.6). I downloaded the
file then I purged the old drivers and used drive clean. When I rebooted I
forgot to F8 into safe mode and windows loaded normal. As I'm waiting for
the system to finish booting so I can restart I couldn't help but notice
that the 'Add Hardware' wizard didn't come up. Then the monitor does some
flickering and when it comes back up the display looks 'different'.

"What's this?" I say aloud.

I check the display properties and low-and-behold Radeon 9800 drivers had
loaded!

"Holy ****!" I exclaimed aloud.

Obviously Windows had loaded the drivers 'behind my back'. Why did it do
this on this particular boot up and not on any of the previous 214 boot ups?
Who knows? Did Windows XP save the day? That remains to be seen. Please,
read on.

So I check the Radeon driver version that installed and it was either the
6.14.10.6422 or the 6.14.10.6414 (I'm not at my machine now). The only
hitch is, all the menus (right-click and start button) as well as the help
bubbles 'fade in' quite slowly. For a $200.00 card I decided that this was
not acceptable. I installed the Catalyst software (v. 4.6 minus the driver
updates) to see if I could tweak the settings to make the menus pop up the
way they should. I played around a bit all to no avail. I then decided to
load the current card drivers 6.14.10.6458. Big mistake… (See 1 - 4 from
the paste of my earlier post).

So, it is my theory that this [Radeon] card's most current drivers do not
get along well with the VIA KT266A chipset running on the most current 4 in
1 drivers (v. 4.51v). In a technical newsletter printed many months ago
somebody ran some benchmark tests on the KT266A and compared it to an older
set of 4 in 1 drivers as well as four of its successor versions. The
author's benchmark results showed that the 4.35 version (oldest) out
performed all of the newer versions. My next step is to remove the current
4 in 1 driver set and replace it with v. 4.35.


Does this mean that our hero has conquered the formidable Radeon 9800 Pro?
Will he move on happily ever after? I think not. There are many questions
that still need to be answered. Will he ever get the card tweaked properly?
Will he ever be able to play "Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time"? Should he
even bother to install "Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow"? Will he have an
aneurysm and fall face first onto his keyboard? Stay tuned for the exciting
conclusion.


Thanks for reading,

-Lydokane-

If you are bored enough, I will be posting a brief synopsis of my call to
"customer support". I think that it is important for future customers to
know that after their ATI purchase they will be 'on their own'.
  #2  
Old July 23rd 04, 07:15 PM
Sharanga Dayananda
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Have you tried putting the AGP speed down from AGPx4 to AGPx2?

I know someone who had similar mobo Gigabyte GA-7DXE and that simply would
not run with a GF4 Ti 4200 at AGPx4. The AGP interface had to be turned down
to AGPx2. Tech suppot from Gigabyte was of no use. The graphics card woked
fine in another mobo.

Give it a go, just try turning down the AGP interface speed down in teh
BIOS.

Cheers
Sha

"Lydokane" wrote in message
...
Highlights from our hero's beginning of this perilous journey.



--Begin-


Powmax 400W PSU
Seagate Barracuda 120GB HDD
1 DVD-ROM
1 Pioneer DVD Burner
Gigabyte GA-7VTXE Motherboard with the latest BIOS update (F9 from
Gigabyte's web site)
Motherboard Chipset
1. VIA KT266A(VT8366A) System controller north bridge
2. VIA VT8233 V-Link south bridge
3. RealTek ALC201A audio codec
4. 1.5 GHz PC2100 RAM
5. Further motherboard specs he
http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard...s_GA-7VTXE.htm

All other cards have been pulled.
Nothing is overclocked.
The former video card was the nVidia Geforce 4 MX (AGP version). I used a
driver cleaner to make sure all 'droppings' were removed.

The new card is the ATI Radeon Powercolor 9800 Pro (AGP version) OEM.
I did download and install the VIA AGP driver update. 4 in 1 update patch
from the Gigabyte website (version 4.51v).
I downloaded Catalyst 4.7 from ATI website.

Currently the system will boot into safe mode with 2D graphics. If I
uninstall the ATI drivers/Software the system will still boot into regular
mode with 2D graphics.

1. When I install the drivers/software and reboot, the system will begin

to
start up. The Windows XP splash screen with the blue-dash status bar will
come up then the screen will go blank.

2. At this point I SHOULD get the blue Welcome to Windows screen and then
the desktop should come up.

3. What actually happens is the screen goes blank then the monitor looses
signal and the system reboots (or maybe the monitor looses signal BECAUSE
the system is rebooting).

4. When the system reboots I'll get the option to go to safe mode, safe

w/
networking, safe w/ command prompt, last known working configuration, or
normal windows boot.


I have tried un/reinstalling drivers. I have pulled the card and made

sure
that there is no dust in the AGP slot. The card IS seated properly. No
matter what I do, if I try to go into windows normally steps 1 - 4 above
will repeat everytime.

I also had an IT friend of mine check the BIOS settings to make sure
everything was set properly there he made a few tweaks but no help.

Here are some things that happened that I think should be mentioned.

When I first put the ATI card in and powered up, the fan/heat sink on the
ATI card was really loud (buzzing). At first I didn't think anything

about
it because this is my first card with a fan/heat sink. And I'm always
reading about fan noise. When the system booted up (first time) Windows
came up and the cursor became an hourglass like the OS was finding the

card
and preparing to install the drivers. Then the screen kind of 'melted'

and
started to go black. I quickly shut the system down with the PSU switch

in
the back. I pulled the ATI card. It was a warm but not very hot. It

seems
the fan/heat sink was not secured to the board properly and when the fan
kicked in it made enough backlash for one of the pins on the heat sink to
come out of the board while the other pin stayed in. I pushed the pin

back
in and properly secured the fan/heat sink to the board. Replaced the card
and rebooted (no more fan noise). During this episode the computer was on
for less than a minute. This includes the time it takes to boot up; not
just how long Windows was up. Could this have killed the board?

When I rebooted, everything was normal. Windows found the board and I

first
installed the drivers from the CD-ROM using the Windows 'Found New

Hardware'
wizard. When I rebooted, well, see 1 - 4 above.

After a little research I learned about updating the VIA chipset drivers.

I
updated the drivers with 4.51 version and at this time I also updated the
BIOS. I also learned that I had not properly uninstalled the old nVidia
card & drivers. I then proceeded to do just that.

Rebooted. see 1 - 4 again.

After more research I learned that sometimes nVidia drivers can be

stubborn
to remove. I downloaded a program to make sure the nVidia removal was
clean. I used the program in safe mode and removed the nVidia and ATI
drivers.

I Rebooted and reinstalled ATI drivers.

Rebooted. see 1 - 4 Again.

I did even more research and downloaded the Catalyst driver/software from
ATI. In safe mode I uninstalled ATI drivers. Rebooted and did not use

the
'Found New Hardware' wizard. I canceled those windows and executed the
Catalyst drivers. The drivers installed with no errors.

Rebooted. see 1 - 4 Again!

After some investigation I learned that there was an IRQ conflict with the
NIC card. At this point I pulled ALL the cards from the system. The only
card left was the ATI. I also disabled the onboard sound through the

BIOS.
Now there is now IRQ sharing/conflicts.

Rebooted. see 1 - 4 AGAIN!

The only thing I can think of is:

A: the card is fried.
2: There is some configuration setting that I am not aware of.
C: AGP slot has gone bad (unlikely because nVidia card was working fine).
4: This is all a really bad dream and the card hasn't actually arrived in
the mail yet (unlikely because no night terror can ever be this bad).

I am contemplating a format and reinstall of Win XP and/or a call to tech
support @ ATI. Just thought I would post here first.

If you have made it this far, thank you for your patience.

In a follow up I added that I had an AMD 1.6 GHz processor.



--END-


And now, without further ado, let's read on as our hero continues with

this
most challenging adventure.


Unfortunately I didn't get much help from the community here. So I called
tech support (absolutely no help) and the tech said that he had e-mailed

me
a link to an earlier set of drivers (Catalyst v. 4.6). I downloaded the
file then I purged the old drivers and used drive clean. When I rebooted

I
forgot to F8 into safe mode and windows loaded normal. As I'm waiting for
the system to finish booting so I can restart I couldn't help but notice
that the 'Add Hardware' wizard didn't come up. Then the monitor does some
flickering and when it comes back up the display looks 'different'.

"What's this?" I say aloud.

I check the display properties and low-and-behold Radeon 9800 drivers had
loaded!

"Holy ****!" I exclaimed aloud.

Obviously Windows had loaded the drivers 'behind my back'. Why did it do
this on this particular boot up and not on any of the previous 214 boot

ups?
Who knows? Did Windows XP save the day? That remains to be seen.

Please,
read on.

So I check the Radeon driver version that installed and it was either the
6.14.10.6422 or the 6.14.10.6414 (I'm not at my machine now). The only
hitch is, all the menus (right-click and start button) as well as the help
bubbles 'fade in' quite slowly. For a $200.00 card I decided that this

was
not acceptable. I installed the Catalyst software (v. 4.6 minus the

driver
updates) to see if I could tweak the settings to make the menus pop up the
way they should. I played around a bit all to no avail. I then decided

to
load the current card drivers 6.14.10.6458. Big mistake. (See 1 - 4 from
the paste of my earlier post).

So, it is my theory that this [Radeon] card's most current drivers do not
get along well with the VIA KT266A chipset running on the most current 4

in
1 drivers (v. 4.51v). In a technical newsletter printed many months ago
somebody ran some benchmark tests on the KT266A and compared it to an

older
set of 4 in 1 drivers as well as four of its successor versions. The
author's benchmark results showed that the 4.35 version (oldest) out
performed all of the newer versions. My next step is to remove the

current
4 in 1 driver set and replace it with v. 4.35.


Does this mean that our hero has conquered the formidable Radeon 9800 Pro?
Will he move on happily ever after? I think not. There are many

questions
that still need to be answered. Will he ever get the card tweaked

properly?
Will he ever be able to play "Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time"? Should

he
even bother to install "Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow"? Will he have an
aneurysm and fall face first onto his keyboard? Stay tuned for the

exciting
conclusion.


Thanks for reading,

-Lydokane-

If you are bored enough, I will be posting a brief synopsis of my call to
"customer support". I think that it is important for future customers to
know that after their ATI purchase they will be 'on their own'.



  #3  
Old July 24th 04, 03:08 AM
Lee Marsh
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"Lydokane" wrote in message
...
Highlights from our hero's beginning of this perilous journey.



--Begin-


Powmax 400W PSU
Seagate Barracuda 120GB HDD
1 DVD-ROM
1 Pioneer DVD Burner
Gigabyte GA-7VTXE Motherboard with the latest BIOS update (F9 from
Gigabyte's web site)
Motherboard Chipset
1. VIA KT266A(VT8366A) System controller north bridge
2. VIA VT8233 V-Link south bridge
3. RealTek ALC201A audio codec
4. 1.5 GHz PC2100 RAM
5. Further motherboard specs he
http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard...s_GA-7VTXE.htm

All other cards have been pulled.
Nothing is overclocked.
The former video card was the nVidia Geforce 4 MX (AGP version). I used a
driver cleaner to make sure all 'droppings' were removed.

The new card is the ATI Radeon Powercolor 9800 Pro (AGP version) OEM.
I did download and install the VIA AGP driver update. 4 in 1 update patch
from the Gigabyte website (version 4.51v).
I downloaded Catalyst 4.7 from ATI website.

Currently the system will boot into safe mode with 2D graphics. If I
uninstall the ATI drivers/Software the system will still boot into regular
mode with 2D graphics.

1. When I install the drivers/software and reboot, the system will begin

to
start up. The Windows XP splash screen with the blue-dash status bar will
come up then the screen will go blank.

2. At this point I SHOULD get the blue Welcome to Windows screen and then
the desktop should come up.

3. What actually happens is the screen goes blank then the monitor looses
signal and the system reboots (or maybe the monitor looses signal BECAUSE
the system is rebooting).

4. When the system reboots I'll get the option to go to safe mode, safe

w/
networking, safe w/ command prompt, last known working configuration, or
normal windows boot.


I have tried un/reinstalling drivers. I have pulled the card and made

sure
that there is no dust in the AGP slot. The card IS seated properly. No
matter what I do, if I try to go into windows normally steps 1 - 4 above
will repeat everytime.

I also had an IT friend of mine check the BIOS settings to make sure
everything was set properly there he made a few tweaks but no help.

Here are some things that happened that I think should be mentioned.

When I first put the ATI card in and powered up, the fan/heat sink on the
ATI card was really loud (buzzing). At first I didn't think anything

about
it because this is my first card with a fan/heat sink. And I'm always
reading about fan noise. When the system booted up (first time) Windows
came up and the cursor became an hourglass like the OS was finding the

card
and preparing to install the drivers. Then the screen kind of 'melted'

and
started to go black. I quickly shut the system down with the PSU switch

in
the back. I pulled the ATI card. It was a warm but not very hot. It

seems
the fan/heat sink was not secured to the board properly and when the fan
kicked in it made enough backlash for one of the pins on the heat sink to
come out of the board while the other pin stayed in. I pushed the pin

back
in and properly secured the fan/heat sink to the board. Replaced the card
and rebooted (no more fan noise). During this episode the computer was on
for less than a minute. This includes the time it takes to boot up; not
just how long Windows was up. Could this have killed the board?

When I rebooted, everything was normal. Windows found the board and I

first
installed the drivers from the CD-ROM using the Windows 'Found New

Hardware'
wizard. When I rebooted, well, see 1 - 4 above.

After a little research I learned about updating the VIA chipset drivers.

I
updated the drivers with 4.51 version and at this time I also updated the
BIOS. I also learned that I had not properly uninstalled the old nVidia
card & drivers. I then proceeded to do just that.

Rebooted. see 1 - 4 again.

After more research I learned that sometimes nVidia drivers can be

stubborn
to remove. I downloaded a program to make sure the nVidia removal was
clean. I used the program in safe mode and removed the nVidia and ATI
drivers.

I Rebooted and reinstalled ATI drivers.

Rebooted. see 1 - 4 Again.

I did even more research and downloaded the Catalyst driver/software from
ATI. In safe mode I uninstalled ATI drivers. Rebooted and did not use

the
'Found New Hardware' wizard. I canceled those windows and executed the
Catalyst drivers. The drivers installed with no errors.

Rebooted. see 1 - 4 Again!

After some investigation I learned that there was an IRQ conflict with the
NIC card. At this point I pulled ALL the cards from the system. The only
card left was the ATI. I also disabled the onboard sound through the

BIOS.
Now there is now IRQ sharing/conflicts.

Rebooted. see 1 - 4 AGAIN!

The only thing I can think of is:

A: the card is fried.
2: There is some configuration setting that I am not aware of.
C: AGP slot has gone bad (unlikely because nVidia card was working fine).
4: This is all a really bad dream and the card hasn't actually arrived in
the mail yet (unlikely because no night terror can ever be this bad).

I am contemplating a format and reinstall of Win XP and/or a call to tech
support @ ATI. Just thought I would post here first.

If you have made it this far, thank you for your patience.

In a follow up I added that I had an AMD 1.6 GHz processor.



--END-


And now, without further ado, let's read on as our hero continues with

this
most challenging adventure.


Unfortunately I didn't get much help from the community here. So I called
tech support (absolutely no help) and the tech said that he had e-mailed

me
a link to an earlier set of drivers (Catalyst v. 4.6). I downloaded the
file then I purged the old drivers and used drive clean. When I rebooted

I
forgot to F8 into safe mode and windows loaded normal. As I'm waiting for
the system to finish booting so I can restart I couldn't help but notice
that the 'Add Hardware' wizard didn't come up. Then the monitor does some
flickering and when it comes back up the display looks 'different'.

"What's this?" I say aloud.

I check the display properties and low-and-behold Radeon 9800 drivers had
loaded!

"Holy ****!" I exclaimed aloud.

Obviously Windows had loaded the drivers 'behind my back'. Why did it do
this on this particular boot up and not on any of the previous 214 boot

ups?
Who knows? Did Windows XP save the day? That remains to be seen.

Please,
read on.

So I check the Radeon driver version that installed and it was either the
6.14.10.6422 or the 6.14.10.6414 (I'm not at my machine now). The only
hitch is, all the menus (right-click and start button) as well as the help
bubbles 'fade in' quite slowly. For a $200.00 card I decided that this

was
not acceptable. I installed the Catalyst software (v. 4.6 minus the

driver
updates) to see if I could tweak the settings to make the menus pop up the
way they should. I played around a bit all to no avail. I then decided

to
load the current card drivers 6.14.10.6458. Big mistake. (See 1 - 4 from
the paste of my earlier post).

So, it is my theory that this [Radeon] card's most current drivers do not
get along well with the VIA KT266A chipset running on the most current 4

in
1 drivers (v. 4.51v). In a technical newsletter printed many months ago
somebody ran some benchmark tests on the KT266A and compared it to an

older
set of 4 in 1 drivers as well as four of its successor versions. The
author's benchmark results showed that the 4.35 version (oldest) out
performed all of the newer versions. My next step is to remove the

current
4 in 1 driver set and replace it with v. 4.35.


Does this mean that our hero has conquered the formidable Radeon 9800 Pro?
Will he move on happily ever after? I think not. There are many

questions
that still need to be answered. Will he ever get the card tweaked

properly?
Will he ever be able to play "Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time"? Should

he
even bother to install "Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow"? Will he have an
aneurysm and fall face first onto his keyboard? Stay tuned for the

exciting
conclusion.


Thanks for reading,

-Lydokane-

If you are bored enough, I will be posting a brief synopsis of my call to
"customer support". I think that it is important for future customers to
know that after their ATI purchase they will be 'on their own'.


Hi Mate,

Try going to 'RUN' and typing MSCONFIG. Disable everything running!
Obviously you will be
doing this under safe mode, if it goes in OK, try and pin point the app
causing the problem!

Try and change the voltage of the AGP slot in the bios! I think the norm is
1.6V. Also disable
AGP fast write in the bios!

Cheers,

Lee.


  #4  
Old July 24th 04, 10:41 PM
First of One
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

There should be a setting in BIOS labeled "assign IRQ to VGA" or something
to that effect (depends on BIOS mfr). Make sure the option is enabled.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"Lydokane" wrote in message
...
Highlights from our hero's beginning of this perilous journey.



--Begin-


Powmax 400W PSU
Seagate Barracuda 120GB HDD
1 DVD-ROM
1 Pioneer DVD Burner
Gigabyte GA-7VTXE Motherboard with the latest BIOS update (F9 from
Gigabyte's web site)
Motherboard Chipset
1. VIA KT266A(VT8366A) System controller north bridge
2. VIA VT8233 V-Link south bridge
3. RealTek ALC201A audio codec
4. 1.5 GHz PC2100 RAM
5. Further motherboard specs he
http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard...s_GA-7VTXE.htm

All other cards have been pulled.
Nothing is overclocked.
The former video card was the nVidia Geforce 4 MX (AGP version). I used a
driver cleaner to make sure all 'droppings' were removed.

The new card is the ATI Radeon Powercolor 9800 Pro (AGP version) OEM.
I did download and install the VIA AGP driver update. 4 in 1 update patch
from the Gigabyte website (version 4.51v).
I downloaded Catalyst 4.7 from ATI website.

Currently the system will boot into safe mode with 2D graphics. If I
uninstall the ATI drivers/Software the system will still boot into regular
mode with 2D graphics.

1. When I install the drivers/software and reboot, the system will begin

to
start up. The Windows XP splash screen with the blue-dash status bar will
come up then the screen will go blank.

2. At this point I SHOULD get the blue Welcome to Windows screen and then
the desktop should come up.

3. What actually happens is the screen goes blank then the monitor looses
signal and the system reboots (or maybe the monitor looses signal BECAUSE
the system is rebooting).

4. When the system reboots I'll get the option to go to safe mode, safe

w/
networking, safe w/ command prompt, last known working configuration, or
normal windows boot.


I have tried un/reinstalling drivers. I have pulled the card and made

sure
that there is no dust in the AGP slot. The card IS seated properly. No
matter what I do, if I try to go into windows normally steps 1 - 4 above
will repeat everytime.

I also had an IT friend of mine check the BIOS settings to make sure
everything was set properly there he made a few tweaks but no help.

Here are some things that happened that I think should be mentioned.

When I first put the ATI card in and powered up, the fan/heat sink on the
ATI card was really loud (buzzing). At first I didn't think anything

about
it because this is my first card with a fan/heat sink. And I'm always
reading about fan noise. When the system booted up (first time) Windows
came up and the cursor became an hourglass like the OS was finding the

card
and preparing to install the drivers. Then the screen kind of 'melted'

and
started to go black. I quickly shut the system down with the PSU switch

in
the back. I pulled the ATI card. It was a warm but not very hot. It

seems
the fan/heat sink was not secured to the board properly and when the fan
kicked in it made enough backlash for one of the pins on the heat sink to
come out of the board while the other pin stayed in. I pushed the pin

back
in and properly secured the fan/heat sink to the board. Replaced the card
and rebooted (no more fan noise). During this episode the computer was on
for less than a minute. This includes the time it takes to boot up; not
just how long Windows was up. Could this have killed the board?

When I rebooted, everything was normal. Windows found the board and I

first
installed the drivers from the CD-ROM using the Windows 'Found New

Hardware'
wizard. When I rebooted, well, see 1 - 4 above.

After a little research I learned about updating the VIA chipset drivers.

I
updated the drivers with 4.51 version and at this time I also updated the
BIOS. I also learned that I had not properly uninstalled the old nVidia
card & drivers. I then proceeded to do just that.

Rebooted. see 1 - 4 again.

After more research I learned that sometimes nVidia drivers can be

stubborn
to remove. I downloaded a program to make sure the nVidia removal was
clean. I used the program in safe mode and removed the nVidia and ATI
drivers.

I Rebooted and reinstalled ATI drivers.

Rebooted. see 1 - 4 Again.

I did even more research and downloaded the Catalyst driver/software from
ATI. In safe mode I uninstalled ATI drivers. Rebooted and did not use

the
'Found New Hardware' wizard. I canceled those windows and executed the
Catalyst drivers. The drivers installed with no errors.

Rebooted. see 1 - 4 Again!

After some investigation I learned that there was an IRQ conflict with the
NIC card. At this point I pulled ALL the cards from the system. The only
card left was the ATI. I also disabled the onboard sound through the

BIOS.
Now there is now IRQ sharing/conflicts.

Rebooted. see 1 - 4 AGAIN!

The only thing I can think of is:

A: the card is fried.
2: There is some configuration setting that I am not aware of.
C: AGP slot has gone bad (unlikely because nVidia card was working fine).
4: This is all a really bad dream and the card hasn't actually arrived in
the mail yet (unlikely because no night terror can ever be this bad).

I am contemplating a format and reinstall of Win XP and/or a call to tech
support @ ATI. Just thought I would post here first.

If you have made it this far, thank you for your patience.

In a follow up I added that I had an AMD 1.6 GHz processor.



--END-


And now, without further ado, let's read on as our hero continues with

this
most challenging adventure.


Unfortunately I didn't get much help from the community here. So I called
tech support (absolutely no help) and the tech said that he had e-mailed

me
a link to an earlier set of drivers (Catalyst v. 4.6). I downloaded the
file then I purged the old drivers and used drive clean. When I rebooted

I
forgot to F8 into safe mode and windows loaded normal. As I'm waiting for
the system to finish booting so I can restart I couldn't help but notice
that the 'Add Hardware' wizard didn't come up. Then the monitor does some
flickering and when it comes back up the display looks 'different'.

"What's this?" I say aloud.

I check the display properties and low-and-behold Radeon 9800 drivers had
loaded!

"Holy ****!" I exclaimed aloud.

Obviously Windows had loaded the drivers 'behind my back'. Why did it do
this on this particular boot up and not on any of the previous 214 boot

ups?
Who knows? Did Windows XP save the day? That remains to be seen.

Please,
read on.

So I check the Radeon driver version that installed and it was either the
6.14.10.6422 or the 6.14.10.6414 (I'm not at my machine now). The only
hitch is, all the menus (right-click and start button) as well as the help
bubbles 'fade in' quite slowly. For a $200.00 card I decided that this

was
not acceptable. I installed the Catalyst software (v. 4.6 minus the

driver
updates) to see if I could tweak the settings to make the menus pop up the
way they should. I played around a bit all to no avail. I then decided

to
load the current card drivers 6.14.10.6458. Big mistake. (See 1 - 4 from
the paste of my earlier post).

So, it is my theory that this [Radeon] card's most current drivers do not
get along well with the VIA KT266A chipset running on the most current 4

in
1 drivers (v. 4.51v). In a technical newsletter printed many months ago
somebody ran some benchmark tests on the KT266A and compared it to an

older
set of 4 in 1 drivers as well as four of its successor versions. The
author's benchmark results showed that the 4.35 version (oldest) out
performed all of the newer versions. My next step is to remove the

current
4 in 1 driver set and replace it with v. 4.35.


Does this mean that our hero has conquered the formidable Radeon 9800 Pro?
Will he move on happily ever after? I think not. There are many

questions
that still need to be answered. Will he ever get the card tweaked

properly?
Will he ever be able to play "Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time"? Should

he
even bother to install "Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow"? Will he have an
aneurysm and fall face first onto his keyboard? Stay tuned for the

exciting
conclusion.


Thanks for reading,

-Lydokane-

If you are bored enough, I will be posting a brief synopsis of my call to
"customer support". I think that it is important for future customers to
know that after their ATI purchase they will be 'on their own'.



 




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