XP instability related to ATI bad drivers?

[Budman]

So far I am thinking,... XP problems related to ATI bad drivers????

I have been using xp since last night with Beta ATI drivers that pass SOAF (The sum of all fears) test ( it used to lock up after a mission with official ati drivers) & so far it's been rock stable and even in everyday duties.

If some of you don't know the Radeon 8500 official drivers used with Ghost recon or the sum of all fears you would get a lock up at the end of a mission.

And XP was never stable for me & that's why I used Win2k & it was rock stable.

So my question is,how can display drivers make an os unstable even when not using Video dependant programs? (games) .

BUT using the latest Beta drivers I was able to play my favorite game & didn't have any lock up problems.

I have done all I can think of to try & crash this XP os today ( video editing,burning cds dvd to divx ... ) & so far I cant, XP or ATI drivers responsible???

I am leaning towards ATI.

I never trusted XP until those magical drivers,I dunno why but those beta drivers do so much good & no matter what I do i cant crash the OS (just like in win2k.), it's not that I didnt try, I did a bunch of Video conversions (divX to dvd) ( svcd to vcd) (audio conversions) all of the above at once & XP came out perfect.

So now I say, how can a video driver do so much for an OS?.

And no I didn't change the hardware I have been using the same system as in my system rig says.

I used to hate XP but now i am not so sure, it's looking like a very good OS to me.

Thanks for reading it all.

 

[Budman]

Sorry I didnt mention what drivers I was using in XP. the are

6.13.10.6118

 

[NogginBoink]

So my question is,how can display drivers make an os unstable even when not using Video dependant programs? (games) .

Absolutely.

No question.

Undeniably.

Bad third party drivers are the number one cause of system instability.

 

[Technonut]

I have been using the 6118 drivers with both the 64 & 128MB retail 8500 and they have been doing very well.

 

[corkyg]

Have a 64 MB Radeon 8500 and it is rock solid in XP with the 6071 certified drivers. Before that, random freezes would occur when scrolling in IE6 while browsing the web. Scrolling through graphics heavy pages can put game-like stresses on video systems.

 

[Vadatajs]

Originally posted by: Technonut
I have been using the 6118 drivers with both the 64 & 128MB retail 8500 and they have been doing very well.

Same here

 

[Budman]

Yes those 6118 drivers seem to have done the trick & it's very stable now,I might keep XP after all.