X1550 + ATI driver = No signal in windows XP

[nevbie]

Well I put a good system with cheap CPU and GPU together.

Motherboard: ASUS P5K-E/Wifi
GPU: MSI X1550 128EH or something along those lines
CPU: Celeron 420 (that's 65nm single core conroe @ 8x200MHz)
RAM: G.skill 2x2 (powerchips)
PSU: Corsair VX550
Monitor: HP LP2065

Everything is fine, until I install video card driver. Reboot and after windows XP logo my monitor goes to sleep because it loses signal. Normally when XP boots, you first get the logo, then the screen goes black, and then desktop appears. Well in my case, screen goes black and when it loads the driver, it suddenly stops sending signal via the DVI cable... I can still use windows button + up key + enter + right key to select "reboot" blindly, and it shuts down the computer. After that I can go to safe mode and remove the driver, if I want to see picture in windows. If I blindly select "shut down", it shuts down FAST.. and when I press power button next time, I'll see a quick flash of blue screen, and after that it POSTs.

A short google search told me that it once was a problem with ATI catalyst drivers at least since 7.2 and when using any card. Well I tried the newest driver, I tried the driver at MSI site, I tried the Omega driver, and I tried two older drivers, namely 7.11 and 7.1. 6.1 didn't have support for X1300 so it refused to install. 7.1 saw my card as X1300 and installed.. but I hit the problem again.

Another google search told me that someone had resolved the problem by switching to VGA cable temporary, and after that DVI would work too. Well I'm not a cable expert, but my video card has only DVI-I output and my monitor has only DVI-I inputs, so I figured out that I couldn't try using a VGA mode. I assume my DVI-I <-> VGA cables don't fit into DVI-I from the VGA end...

I can only use the generic windows XP driver to get a safemode-like graphical experience atm. Any ideas how to install a real driver for my radeon?

 

[nevbie]

I tried directing the "new hardware found" feature of windows XP to the folder with the graphics card driver inf files, and it installed them ok (as with the official way). Then I tried changing my resolution, which triggered it to load the driver, so I lost DVI signal. Same effect as reboot, I assume.

I'll try to hunt the earliest driver that supports X1300 and give it a try.. but I'm quite sure that it won't work either.

Are there any other drivers than catalyst-based out there, that work for X1550? Hacked nvidia drivers for ATI cards? Extended generic graphic drivers that allow slightly more than basic functionality? Linux drivers ported for windows? Some other solution?

 

[nevbie]

well, i found a workaround from ati's site. it didn't work.

then i found a DVI-VGA adapter from MSI's package. i used it with an VGA-DVI cable, and now i can get to windows with drivers. i'm stuck with VGA quality though.