Deleting drivers

[Yakumo]

As you may have read, my graphics card died. So I bought a new Asus (ATi graphics chip set) card with HDMI and so on. It's not the ultimate in graphics cards but still quite nice. Anyway here's the problem.

I originally installed the card on Saturday. it worked fine although at first I did have a few problems with the High Definition audio drivers but finally sorted them. So I'm playing Dead or Alive Model 2 game via emulation and all is looking great. So I decide to overclock the card with the built in "safe" software. As soon as I try this all goes black and the card won't work in anything but standard VGA driver mode. This is no good because it doesn't give access to the HDMI, High Def Audio, none of the cards features or memory. basically it's now working the same as my motherboard's built in VGA.

So here's what I do. take out the card and use the mother board's VGA for an image. I then remove ALL ATi drivers and software from the PC using the Windows XP Add and Remove software tool in the control panel.

Next I reset the PC in to safe mode without online access just to be safe. I run drivercleaner and do a CAB clean and a ATi driver clean. From doing this my PC should be as if there was never any ATi graphics card drivers installed.

So I now put the card back in to the PC and boot XP up. XP finds the cards before I even have chance to run the Driver install CD. So I cancel the windows hardware install and use the driver CD that came with the card (remember that these drivers originally worked before the fuck up).

All drivers are installed fine. I'm asked to reset the PC so I do. The PC boots and shows the black screen with the XP logo on it and the blue loading bar. All is looking good. Next the "Welcome" blue XP screen should appear but it doesn't. Everything just goes black and the PC hangs.

So I reset the PC back in to safe mode and delete the Display Drivers for the card then reboot in to normal windows mode. Everything loads but I'm now stuck without any of the cards features again.

So did I brake the card when I tried to overclock it with the provided software or is my PC being a right twat?

Yakumo

[Jamtex]

With the card installed, did you boot into safe mode and then go to the Device manage and uninstall the drivers this way? Allow the computer to reboot and let Windows install it's drivers then update them with latest downloaded drivers.

Also if you can restore the system to a point before you installed the cards.

[Segata Sanshiro]

You should always use the latest drivers provided on the cards website, driver CDs are usually out of date before cards are even shipped out to stores.

Cheap graphics cards usually don't take well to overclocking, which model do you have?

I had this same problem recently when trying to install drivers for a GeForce 2 MMX 400, I had to use an earlier version. I don't believe you've broken your card but it's almost certainly a driver problem and ATI are known for buggy drivers.

Try downloading the latest drivers and installing them in safe mode. The very best thing you could do though is a complete reinstall of Windows.

[Yakumo]

I did a re-install of windows but no luck. Tried the latest drivers too from the 9th September 2009 but still the same problem.

The card is a Asus AH3450 with HDMI and 512MB of memory plus custom HD Video processor chips to enable a PC to display the same image quality of a high end HD Blue Ray set up or so they say on the box.

The price was 7980 yen so not that cheap, probably mid range. I really think the card is buggered. All I can get it to do is work using the motherboards standard VGA driver. Everytime I try to install the card's drivers it just blacks out. Like I said, the card was working until I did that overclocking thing.

Yakumo

[port187]

Did you try disabling the onboard VGA card in the bios? this has caused lots of issues previously for me.
But to be honost it sounds like your card died, if the overclocking was part of the software package so to say I would go back to the shop and have it replaced.

[Jamtex]

As the card is working on boot up and in safe mode it's safe to say the card isn't broken. Boot into safe mode, right click desktop screen and go to and set the video mode to the lowest it can go, click advanced and make sure that the refresh rate is 60hz and in troubleshoot turn off hardware acceleration.

See if then you can boot in Windows normally. If so, load up the ATI options and make sure overclocking is default. Then set video mode to normal reboot, then nonch up hardware acceleration a notch to see if it hands. If you still get a problem, then try to underclock the card until it starts to work.

[Segata Sanshiro]

That much for that card? That's a lot, a assume you didn't order online. Although PC part prices might be different from over here.

[madhatter256]

I ran into this problem before with another card: Radeon 9600 Pro.

It would work fine in safe mode and display resolutions at 800x600, but anything higher and I would get an ATIdv2g.dll error. basically, once you 'stressed' the card, it would crap out.

Chances are you did break it when you OCed it... never OC cheap cards as they are not meant to be OCed....

I'm sure you can return it for a refund or an exchange. Just say it fails to load windows after you install the drivers.

One thing you can try.... reinstall the drivers, but ONLY the drivers. Do not install Catalyst Control Center and the ATI HDMI Audio output. Just the drivers.

[Yakumo]

THanks for the advice guys. I can't be bothered trying this card again so I'm goingto replace it for another then start over.

@Segata Sanshiro, PC parts are very expensive in Japan compared to the US and even Europe. But at least all the PC parts come with English manuals :)

[madhatter256]

Must be import tariffs, since most PC components like that are made in Taiwan.

[Segata Sanshiro]

Similar deal with headphones between the US and UK.

[Yakumo]

Must be import tariffs, since most PC components like that are made in Taiwan.

Yes that's right. My card even has "made in Taiwan" on it plus the homepage address takes you to a Taiwanese site from which you can choose many other languages.

[Jamtex]

Asustek being a er Taiwanese company... personally I can't believe how cheap stuff is here compared to Japan. Even the stuff made in Japan is cheaper here then it is in Japan.

[alecjahn]

So is it a Taiwan->Japan problem and not a Taiwan<->Japan problem, then?

[Barc0de]

If a given card could take a given speed with safe results it would have been clocked at that rate by the manufacturer. In my view, stability is a superior quality to spikes of performance and ultimate malfunction of components.

It seems you paid quite a lot for the card. I got my 4850 for about 65 euros, although a bargain, last item on the shelf, I m sure you ll be able to snatch a good deal if you do a bit of detective work.

[Yakumo]

THat was a good price in Japan. Like I said, Video Cards and Memory here are very expensive if you want brand names. Optical drives on the other hand are quite cheap.

[Jamtex]

As I had to go into town, I popped into a backstreet computer shop to see what the card yakumo had could be bought for, I haggled with one shop and got the price down to 1250 TWD. Which works out at 3502 yen... For just less then what he paid I could have got a 4730 based card (512MB) with change for a crate of decent taiwanese beer.

[Yakumo]

Lucky you. Unfortunately they'd rather rape your ass here than give any discount.

[Alien Workshop]

Yakumo, just to ensure your old drivers are 100% cleaned up, you'll want to reboot into safe mode and run Driver Sweeper.

You can get Driver Sweeper here:

http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

[Yakumo]

Yakumo, just to ensure your old drivers are 100% cleaned up, you'll want to reboot into safe mode and run Driver Sweeper.

You can get Driver Sweeper here:

http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

That's what I did mate which leads me to believe that I have indeed killed the card. I'll be changing it for a new one in 1 hour so the truth will come out soon :)