ATI x800xt problems...

[xiaobao12]

Hello all,

The other day, I decided to update my drivers. So, I accidentally installed the new set of Catalyst drivers (7.1) without uninstalling the old ones. Then, I realized what I had done so I tried to do an uninstall (with driver cleaner). However, when I went to boot in safe mode, the computer hanged at 440agp.sys. So, I plugged in my internet, went online, and looked up this:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324764

After I did that, when I tried to boot in safe mode, it hung at mup.sys. So, I also tried disabling that but then when I tried to access the safe boot menu at start-up by pressing F8, it would just ask me for the operating system and it wouldn't give me an option to boot in safe mode. So, I just decided to go ahead with the uninstall in normal bootup. I uninstalled, ran driver cleaner (and cab cleaner), rebooted, and installed the 7.1 display driver only. Everything was fine until I restart the computer and after Windows started up, I got the BSOD. So I restarted again and now I am here. The computer is running fine but it is running on the old display adapters as when I click on device manager, there is an exclamation mark by RADEON x800xt PLATINUM EDITION. And below that, there is another line that says: RADEON x800xt PLATINUM EDITION SECONDARY.

I have been using this card in this system for 2 years without any problems. I am running a Dell 4600 with 1GB of RAM, 2 HDS, 2 opticals, Audigy 2 Platinum, and many USB devices all on a stock PSU.

Oh, and when I uninstalled, there were a few items that I couldn't uninstall from the add/remove menu...so I followed ATI's guide to uninstalling manually in addition to running driver cleaner pro. However, there are still a few items that are still listed in the add/remove menu which I couldn't remove. I don't know if this could have affected the installation of the new drivers.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[AllGamer]

Yes windows is annoying in that way.

Can you at least install the old 6.x versions?

go into safe mode if you can, then install the normal windows Standard VGA drivers, then boot to normal mode

now you should have no problem installing the 6.x version

if all works, leave it at that

 

[xiaobao12]

allgamer, how do i install the standard VGA drivers?

and how do i boot into safemode? it locks up at mup.sys (when i disable agp440.sys).

thanks.

 

[Roguestar]

I think you can get the standard VGA drivers from ATI/AMD's website, get the download that doesn't have the Catalyst Control Centre included.

 

[xiaobao12]

so do you think i should install an older version of catalyst or the latest ones?

 

[GimpyFuzznut]

The same thing happened to me and I had to format. I'm pretty sure the problem was actually caused by Driver Cleaner. I had so many frustrating problems after that - the exact same symptoms with my system crashing at agp440.sys. The similarities between our problems has led me to believe that Driver Cleaner is acting screwy and deleting things it isn't supposed to. With the new ATI drivers, there is an uninstall utility - I just use that and it seems to do the trick when I need to remove drivers.

 

[xiaobao12]

thanks gimpy.

can anybody comment on gimpy's experience?

 

[Roguestar]

I too had problems with the driver cleaner at one point. I can't remember the name of the program I used to remove it, to be honest, but it was some little suite of utilities that were pretty darn handy. When I'm at home I'll find out what it was and post it here for you if I can.

 

[AllGamer]

well in a related incident, just 2 days ago, some how after a few hard reset (not video card related), some drivers files got corrupted, and it happen to be some of the ATI driver files.

It was getting weird artifacts, so meanwhile trying to uninstall some other stupid windows program asked for an update, i hit okay, and it finished before the ATI drivers uninstall completed, and it rebooted the PC halfway.... needless to say it crapped out my ATI drivers uninstall (i was going to reinstall them clean)

So now i got a mess in my hands, unable to boot back properly because of the messed up drivers thanks to the stupid Windows Update....(i hate that piece of ******) anyways... so i proceeded into SafeMode

then i had to hack out the remaining registry settings in HKLM and HKCU, then remove the left over from the InstallShield in windows\installer, and also in \program files\installshield blah blah blah...

then when all was clean i went into ManageComputer \ Device Manager \ Unknown Video card
I picked the manual install of drivers and selected the standard vga
then updated the monitor to be Plug and Play, because damn stupid windows always removes it when you have no video card, and give you annoying "default monitor" which sucks

anyways so after all that was done, reboot

back to normal mode

now it starts to detect all those ATI extra components ask you for drivers
ignore all, cancel everything

when fully booted into desktop

run ATI installer for the drivers, and select express mode

presto, done

reboot

and back happy gaming again

and the first thing i went to Kill was Windows Update that caused the whole mess. :|

BTW, this was in my other Rig (Dual P3-1400mhz 1GB ram SATA ATI AIW 9800XT SBAudigy, etc...)

 

[xiaobao12]

thanks for the help guys. i managed to boot into safe mode (after waiting for about 8 minutes at the agp440.sys) and run driver cleaner pro. i then installed the latest drivers in normal mode and everything is working fine now.