ATI video card causing xp to freeze up

Hope someone can help.

I just did a clean install of my compaq presario 7940 to xp from windows 98se. I was using my ati all in wonder 7500 with nothing but satisfied service. When win xp installed itself the system reboot failed and the black screen just sat there with a little _ underscore in the upper left hand corner. I could not get past that point. I did all the stuff like, safe boot, boot to prompt to install the ati software from my cd drive. No dice. Gave up and reinstalled my S3 Diamond Stealth S540 to see if that was the problem. It booted right up and is working like a charm. I paid a good price for the ATI and would like to make it my adapter and card in XP. Been searching all over the net to see if any answers but haven't found one yet...any ideas...jongru....

 

Thats a bit of a contradiction. Either you did a "Clean Installation" or you did an upgrade from 98se to XP. Please elaborate.

Pete, he said, "When win xp installed itself the system reboot failed and the black screen just sat there" so he can't have any ATI drivers yet (native XP only at this point), unless he installed over 98se, in which case, they would be the wrong drivers.

Good news is, your 7500 All In Wonder will work just fine with XP. Bad news is you may need to do a true "Clean" install or, if you did start from scratch, then we have a worse problem to deal with.

 

Hi Rockster, Pete,

I originally did an upgrade to xp from windows 98se. I setup a dual boot system on the c: drive with win 98se and xp. I had replaced my ATI 7500 due to not being able to get past the black screen with a blinking "_ ". After re-installing the Diamond stealth s540 graphics card. I did a, what it looked like a clean install from the upgrade. It formatted the boot disk, and installed xp with no other problems. So, I asked the same question, is this really a clean boot, which I believe it to be, or merely an ugrade again. I verified that all the old programs, drivers, etc. were gone.

I used the ATI with windows 98se for a good year. It worked perfectly, so I assumed it had to be a problem with xp compatibility. I did not download the 32 mb downloads yet. I wanted some opinions if you guys thought it was worth doing. I loved the ATI card as it did everything I wanted to do with graphics, movies, dvds etc. Almost wish I had left the win 98se as is and invested in a new pc....sorry for the delay, I am very busy but do hope you can help. By the way, I am running an old Compaq presario 7940 desktop that has been an absolute jewel in the five years I have been using it. Thank you in advance....jongru

 

OK, I give up

 

I think what jongru is saying is that he/she had windows 98, wiped it clean and used a winXP ugrade disk to do a clean install. Is that right jongru?

 

Hi Zander,

That is correct. I bought the xp upgrade thinking I would run a dual booting operation on the compaq 7940. Also knew I had to apply partitioning to have that apply. So I purchased Partition Magic 8.0. I also installed a new 60 GB hard drive as my new boot drive. Using the maxtor hdd formatting options, I formatted it. Used partition magic to set up the dual partitions and reinstalled win 98se and also win xp home in their respective partitions. Worked like a charm. All this was after I realized nothing would work with the ATI AIW 7500 graphics card.

After playing with the dual boot concept, I found it an adventure in duplication. I really liked xp so I started over and installed xp as the only operating system on an unpartitioned fat 32 hard disk. I am using fat 32 because my two external hard drives also are loaded with fat 32 files.

I hope I haven't confused anyone. I just got off the ATI web site and they claim to offer a cd rom with all the upgrade drivers and mmcenter files for sale. I can't find any information on the driver and system upgrades. Anyone know about this?? I am still using a slow dial up modem and can't take a vacation waiting for over 40 mb of files to download....sure enjoy the dialogue, and hope we can get this done....thank you, jongru

 

I know how slow dialup can be. I got Getright years ago because I needed to download Service Pacts. They are huge. I used to start the download and go to bed. Getright would keep resuming the download when it timed out. I have have DSL and still use it for big downloads.
Help pages
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894

My notes I'm using a Radeon 8500 64MB Note I'm using a Via bord so some of this at the bottom will be different

Fast Gate A20 Option : ENABLED
Video BIOS shadowing : DISABLED
Video BIOS cacheable : DISABLED
xxxxx - xxxxx Shadow : ALL DISABLED
IDE prefetch mode : ENABLED
Init Display First : AGP or PCI (SELECT YOUR CARD TYPE)
IDE HDD Block Mode : ENABLED
IDE 32-bit transfer mode : ENABLED
Assign IRQ for USB : DISABLED (UNLESS YOU USE USB DEVICES)
Assign IRQ for VGA : ENABLED
PCI/VGA palette snoop : DISABLED
PNP OS Installed : ENABLED (UNLESS YOU WANT TO MANUALLY ASSIGN IRQ's)
Resource Controlled By : AUTO (UNLESS YOU WANT TO MANUALLY ASSIGN IRQs AND DMAs)
AGP aperture size : 128
AGP master 1 WS write : ENABLED***
AGP master 1 WS read : ENABLED***
Bank 0/1, 2/3 DRAM timing : TURBO***
CPU to PCI write buffer : ENABLED
Delayed Transaction : ENABLED
DRAM speculative leadoff : ENABLED***
DRAM Data Integrity Mode : NON-ECC (UNLESS YOU HAVE ECC MEMORY)
Delay DRAM read latch : (THE LOWER, THE FASTER)***
Fast writes : DISABLED
Memory parity/ECC check : DISABLED***
Passive Release : ENABLED
PCI Concurrency : ENABLED
PCI master 0 WS write : ENABLED***
RAS active time : (THE HIGHER, THE FASTER)***
RAS to CAS delay : (THE LOWER, THE FASTER)**
Read around write : ENABLED
SDRAM Bank Interleave : 4-bank/way
SDRAM CAS Latency Time : 2**
SDRAM cycle length : 2**
SDRAM Precharge control : ENABLED
Spread spectrum (modulation): DISABLED
System BIOS cacheable : DISABLED
Video RAM cacheable : DISABLED
8 bit I/O Recovery Time : 1
16 bit I/O Recovery Time : 1
Turbo frequency : ENABLED

** = ONLY IF YOUR MEMORY SUPPORT IT, OTHERWISE USE THE NEXT
HIGHER VALUE

*** = WILL IMPROVE SPEED BUT DECREASES STABILITY, IF YOU HAVE
PROBLEMS CHANGE IT

Well, that's all for the BIOS.
This settings should increase you framerates with your video card, if you want do a benchmark before and after the changes, it will give you a good idea of the gain obtained.

Basic from ATI
2. Basic BIOS options.

NOTE: These options may vary depending on the type/version of your system. You may or may not have all these options present.

Video BIOS Shadow - DISABLED
Init Primary Display - AGP (Toggle this setting if your video card is PCI)
AGP MASTER 1W/S READ/WRITE - ENABLED/DISABLED (Toggle this option)
AGP Aperture size - 128 MB
AGP Driving Control - AUTO
Disable AGP 8x/4x mode in the BIOS.
Disable AGP Fast Writes in the BIOS.
AGP Driving Control - AUTO
AGP Performance Control - ENABLED/DISABLED (Toggle this option)
Assign IRQ for VGA - ENABLED
System Bios Cacheable - DISABLED
Video BIOS Cacheable - DISABLED
VIDEO RAM Cacheable - DISABLED
Read Around Write - ENABLED/DISABLED (toggle this setting)
PnP OS installed - YES


. BIOS Settings for ADVANCED USERS:

NOTE: These options may vary depending on the type/version of your system. You may or may not have all these options.

Load optimized defaults in your BIOS
Set your memory settings to default values (I.e.. DRAM Timing = SPD)
Lower the memory frequency to 133/166mhz (effectively DDR266/333mhz)
If available increase AGP Voltage to 1.6 - 1.8 in the BIOS
SDRAM Cycle length - 2.5
Bank Interleave - ENABLE/DISABLE (toggle this setting - It will only make a difference if you have more than one memory module.)
DRAM Burst length - 4

4. Recommended Hardware changes:

Test system with a single memory module if multiples are being used
Test with different memory modules.
Test with a different Power supply
Disable/Remove ALL non-essential hardware i.e. sound card, network card, additional HDD etc.
Test the video card in a different PC
Additional Information on the Infinite Loop:

Staying Out Of The Loop - http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=64

Microsoft Knowledge Base - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q293078

 

Thanks Maggie,

That's a lot of information. I will print it out and review it tomorrow. I will post a response to your info. Thanks again to you and all the other respondents on the great approach to my problem. I think I will see if I can find someone with a high speed dsl and offer them a fee if they can download the updates and burn an installation cd for me....how about you, Maggie??? Sure would appreciate it....let me know, I could send my mailing address to you in an email....thanks again....jongru

 

jongru:

I'd advise you to spend the $15 and get a newer CD from ATI Tech. It will take about 10 days and includes a couple of things you can't get from the download re: DVD. I still have two 7500 Radeon AIW's running in a couple of my boxes and have my wife's machine setup with a 7500 AIW - All XP Pro on NTFS. (you can read your FAT32 drives from NTFS, but can't read NTFS from FAT32)

To give you a little background re: similarities - I did have one of the 7500's running with a dual boot (yikes maggie - its spooky) 98se/WinXP Pro setup on an ABIT KT7A RAID V 1.1 with an OC'ed Agoga core 1900 Palamino. Had problems with my 7500 AIW on 98se at shutdown only using the original drivers and tried everything re: ATI downloaded drivers and updates. Finally ordered an updated CD and things went flawlessly. Maggie note - default AGP voltage, but was running coreV at 1.8. Current setups with the 7500 include SOYO KT333 Platinum Ultra 2500 Barton XP stock, SOYO KT400 Ultra 2600 Barton MP stock and wife's MSI board 2200 Thoroughbred stock. Also running 9800 Pro AIW on ASUS SK8V FX53 but very different drivers there. Just changed that puppy around after using 9800 pro (non AIW) initially on XP Pro - Now running XP Media Center installation. Also have two DFI LanParty II boards setup with 2500XPM's OC'ed to 3600+ with NVIDIA FX5600 256MB TV Cards and can say with total confidence, your 7500's will run just fine with the correct drivers.

Order the CD and do another clean install of your OS once it arrives - that should give you trouble free performance. I personally had all kinds of problems with the ATI 7500 AIW driver updates D/L 'ed from their website - be it on a clean installation or an existing one.

Sorry for the verbosity but have a pretty strong opinion on this.

 

Hi Rockster,

Your verbosity was very enlightening. Please find me the ordering site info as I have spent nearly 2 days trying to locate the address or web location to order the $15 cd to upgrade my system. I enjoyed learning of your configurations. Thanks, will be hopefully waiting to get the information on ordering....either I am a dummy, or they hid the cd ordering on another web site. Would appreciate the info....thanks again, jongru

 

Start Here



If you still can't find it - let your fingers do the walking.

 

Hi Rockster,

Thank you for the information on the cd. I can't figure out why I couldn't find it. I guess I never went to the store itself. Just an update, this morning after a night of downloading the driver updates I ran the updates to my computer after installing the AIW 7500 back in the agp slot. It looked like everything was working fine. The card installed, then I got the idea to put my old mmc 7.5 onto the new operating system and then I started having problems. Getting error messages, etc. I uninstalled the MMC and downloaded the recormmended MMC 9.02. I have spent a lot of time on this. I think I might be trying to make a cadillace out of a ford frame. I will try in the next couple of days to install it all over again.....

From looking at the disks for sale, I would like to get one but am not sure this is the right disks for the AIW 7500. Will keep you posted...thanks again...jongru

 

Thanks to you all. I finally got xp loaded on my compaq presario 7940 with the right drivers and upgrades from ATI. I never knew the card was as good as it now looks on the computer. I am deleriously happy with all the advice and help....thank you again....rockster, maggie, et al....jongru

 

OK! Sorry you had so many problems. I changer from a Matrox 450 to the Radeon. My old card uninstalled clean so I had no conflicts. I did do a bunch of reading before, that is how I ended up with those notes. I do like the ATI. Matrox are nice but I wanted 3D.

 

Congratulations - tenacity and persistance paid off for you. Enjoy.