Radeon 8500 Refresh rate stuck at 60Hz

[suvid]

I just got my 8500 today (yay ) but i'm locked in at 60Hz in Windows. I can change the resolution fine, but the frequency does not change even thought the driver and WinXP indicates higher frequencies. The registery also displays incorrectly. Anyone know why i'm stuck @ 60Hz?

My config:

1.4GHz athlon
soyo dragon, onboard sound and lan
Radeon 8500 with the 6.13.3286 driver
TDK 12x burner
80GBWD

Someone tell me a fix soon before my head explodes.

 

[csH4x0r]

dear god, ive seen a lot of the exact same question. for the future use the search engine.


powerstrip can brute force the refresh rate, i suggest using that.

 

[IonBlade]

Wow, doing a search on 60hz just comes up with a bunch of responses regarding registry tweaking and the 2K / XP 60hz bugs as far as I see. Skimming them over, I don't see any that actually present the right solution. Rather than just saying to search and being "31337", let's actually work towards a solution.

The problem lies in that the Radeon, for some reason, relies on PnP information from your monitor to detect its highest resolution and refresh rate. If it can't detect that information for some reason, it limits you as to the resolutions and refresh rates that you can set, even though it'll allow you to select them (and for that matter, will make Windows think you did set them right). I was pulling my hair out on this one for the first day I had my Radeon, but I found the solution in the advanced settings.

Go to display properties, click on settings, and then click on advanced. In the window that pops up, click on the attributes tab. Then select the right maximum resolution for your monitor and the maximum refresh rate that it can handle (not the highest refresh rate it can handle in the highest resolution). For example, my monitor handles 160hz @ 640X480 and 70hz @ 1600X1200, thus I set the maximum resolution box to 1600X1200 and the maximum refresh rate box to 160hz, not to 1600 and 70). Click apply and OK to all the boxes, then try to set your resolution and refresh rate again. Now you should have the right refresh.

LMK if this works / doesn't work.

Shawn

 

[Davegod75]

if the driver and winxp are saying it's @ 60hz what r u using to tell that it's not???

 

[triska]

dl powerstrip
i think you can change it in there
im not sure tho
gl

 

[plex24]

It's not the video card, It is the operating system. All the video card will default to 60 hz On windows XP except some new games that give u the choice of resolution and hz options. All nvidia, all voodoo, Kyro, and Radeon will do this. You have to use Powerstrip which cost $29.95 after 30 day trial period. If U have Nvidia card there is nvidia refresh rate utility that is free.

 

[RockysDad]

Suvid: I was pulling my hair out on this one as well. There's really two evils fighting here. The first one is, no matter what settings you choose under the "display properties" or "monitor/screen refresh rate", when you bring up your monitors menu, its show you at 60hz and the blinking is driving you crazy. The problem is you monitor is either not DCC compliant, or, the radeon 8500 does not "see" it as DCC compliant. Go to the display properties and under "advanced" go to "ATI Displays" and click on the active monitor tab. IF the "use DDC information" button is grayed out, you need to update your Radeon drivers. Once that is done, uncheck the "use dcc information" button. At this point, you can manually select the maximum resolution and maximum refresh for your monitor. As previously stated, these should be the maximum values that your monitor is capable of at any resolution or any refresh rate. (Probably 1920X1440, 160hz for a 21inch monitor) These should be available from your monitors manual under specs. Apply settings and you should be set...

*** This will not have an effect on damaging your monitor. If you have your monitor properly selected and you have the box chosen that says "hide modes that this monitor cannot display", it will only let you choose the proper refresh rates for the resolution you have chosen.

The second problem, once you've eliminated the first, is that everything is working fine, but when you go into a game and check your refresh rate its stuck on 60hz. Most games don't let you change that in the games options settings, they just use the default minimums. This is where Powerstrip, rage3d or unituner come in. They will let you establish refresh rates for every resolution that you may use along will a ton of other setting changes overall or on a game by game basis. (www.rage3d.com) has links to all of them. If you don't want to use a "tweaker", there is also a registry hack to adjust the minimum, but I think it only works overall, not an entry for each resolution. But if your monitor at least supported 75 at all resolutions, you could change the minimum to 75, but that may not be what you want for all resolutions. I recommend using the "tweaker" personally.

You should be all set...

 

[RockysDad]

p.s. - powerstrip, unituner or any other brute force refresh adjuster did not work for me until I accomplished the first step that I described.