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Sigh, I just tried the 3286 drivers, and I'm sad to say they suck.
I couldn't do anything, and I do mean anything. I got some error no matter what I tried running. It wouldn't even shutdown.
I would rather have a Ti200/Ti500 over the Radeon 8500.
Well, I half agree with you, because I would rather have a Ti500 too.
However given that the Ti500 was twice the price, but not twice the proformance, I went with the 8500. The 8500 blows away the Ti200 IMO. >>
Mua, sounds like an idiotic question, but did you do a fresh format and install before you switched cards? Most folks that go that route ended up with zero or a couple minor problems. I have had zero problems on XP Pro. Did a fresh install. Going through and picking out registry keys doesn't seem to help, there's always a stray floating around to mess things up.
-Might also want to try downloading the latest 4in1 drivers that just came out yesterday if you haven't already. There's an updated AGP driver.
-Did you install the hydravision and MMC software? I'd uninstall and try drivers only if you did.
-Turn off fastwrites? Not supported by ATI anyway.
-Vcache, BIOS Shadowing disabled?
-Cache type should be UC and I'd set it @ 64MB initially if it isn't already. Try increasing it from that point to see if stability gets better.
-Did you drop down to AGP 2X?
-Are you OC'ing @ all? Maybe the 8500 doesn't like a AGP speed out of spec.
-Only other suggestion I can think of is be sure you let the drivers install in the directory they default to. I changed it and started having problems.
-When you updated the drivers, did you uninstall, then install the generic VGA's, reboot and install the 3286's? If not, that's the process.
The grapevine/peanut gallery keeps saying that new drivers should be out this week. Might want to wait a bit longer.
SamuraiSludge ATI committed to driver updates every 4 weeks. They're still on track. Let us not forget that nVIDIA has had a few problems as well with driver issues, GF3 launch.
This is my first ATI product, I'm not unhappy with my purchase.