I need your Tech Help please...

[ChinaCat]

I had a local store build my son a PC three months ago:

Windows XP Pro
P4B533-V Asus Board
512 Corsair DDR 2700
P4 2.4B CPU
Leadtek Geoforce 4 Ti-4600
Western Digital LE HD
Audigy
etc.

After two days the Leadtek Video card went on the blink. No big deal. Pulled the card out, drove to store and returned to pop a new one in. For the past three months all has been fine.

Yesterday the card goes on the fritz again. I pull the card out, drive to the store (in San Francisco), but now they have no other cards in stock that are comparible to the Ti-4600. So to do me a favor until one comes in, the guy gives me an ATI 9000 Pro to use. I asked what to do in terms of installing and he said just install it; not to worry about uninstalling anything. Ok, in hind sight the guy was wrong and I was an idiot to buy that but pls..keep reading...

Got home, put the card in and booted up the PC. Detected the ATI Sapphire 9000 Pro by name and searched for drivers. Found the drivers on the installation CD and loaded. At end of loading got an Error message. I downloaded the latest ATI drivers; loaded em and still got error messages about not being able to complete install.

I then remove any trace of Nvidia stuff via control panel but continue having the same problems. In Device Manager instead of "Video Card" I see "Other Devices" with a question mark.

I finally give up and pull out the ATI Card. I go to an older computer and take a Geoforce 3 and put that in as a temporary fix. I install the latest Nvidia drivers and that goes fine with no error messages. Problem is I still have a question mark by "Other Devices" and my computer simply does not know the name of the video adapter.

For some reason, my computer will not recognize the name of my video card for either that ATI card or the Geoforce 3.

The Tech at the store told me I need to load a regular VGA driver; but when I search for one and try to do that I get error messages.

This is so incredibly frustrating. At this point I am waiting for a replacement Vid. Card to come in stock and I'll bring the entire PC in and let them figure it out, but seems like I should be able to fix this myself.

So after all this rambling I have two questions:

1) Does anyone have a clue why I can't get my PC to assign a name to the Video Adapter even tho the drivers loaded and the "new hardware wizard" knows the name of the card; and

2) Is the Gainwood 4800 a good choice for a replacement to the Leadtek Ti-4600. I'm just too freakin scared to move over to ATI at this point.


Thank you in advance.

ChinaCat

 

[CurtCold]

Going from NVIDIA to ATI without uninstalling the former, will almost always cause problems. You need to uninstall the 9000, reboot. Then search for ati, and nvidia drivers. For a good guide on how to uninstall Nvidia drivers, go to forums here, to uninstall 9000 drivers go to the forums here Both forums have sticky's on how to uninstall drivers.

After that install the catalyst drivers for the ati card, and the cntrl panel. You should be fine then. It's not the ati card's fault that you are having problems, it's more likely driver conflicts.

 

[ChinaCat]

I am unable to find where at the ATI link it explains how to uninstall its drivers.

What's weird is when I reinstalled the Nvidia drivers, the installation went fine and I can raise my ressolutions up high, but the PC doesn't recognize what adapater it is and is still looking for a VGA driver.

It sounds like your totally right about a conflict, but can't figure out how to resolve it.

I just want to get back to Nvidia.

Thank you for your help.

ChinaCat

 

[d00m]

Yep, a conflict it is. If I were in your shoes I would do a backup of everything that you need and format. That, way, you can be sure everything is clean and the way it's supposed to be. Of course, it's up to you what you decide to do, you might very well be able to fix this without formatting.

Also, about the 4800 card, from what I know, it's actually better than the 4600 card. If it has higher clock speeds or what I'm not sure.

 

[ChinaCat]

I think your right man. I'm just gonna backup the important files and do a clean install.

One would think in this day and age manufacturers would make a utility to allow us to avoid this nonsense. It's really rediculous.

Thanks guys.

China