ATi Radeon 9700 Pro.

HI guys

I just got a radeon 9700 pro for my computer and it keeps crashing in games, what i hear this is a common prob.. i've tried updating my video drivers, but still hasn't fixed the problem.

And in device manager It says that i have two Video devices..
Ati radeon 9700 pro and Ati radeon 9700 pro SEC family (Microsoft corp).
is that normal?

Any other ideas that could fix the problem?


Thanks Paul

 

Two Display Adapters are normal for having multiple output heads, what I don't think is normal is "...family (Microsoft corp) ", especially if you say you have updated the drivers. Just right-click on the secondary display adapter and select Uninstall. That should automatically update the drivers to the same as the primary when you restart.

"I just got a new radeon..." uninstalling the drivers for the previous graphics card before installing the new one can be very significant. Let us know if there is any change from uninstalling the secondary adapter.

Matt

 

I've installed the lastest ATI Catalyst control centre and drivers. Now it has helped as now only a few don't crash. So there still is a problem..

 

That is not what I suggested. If your drivers are using the wrong file versions I don't think they will work.

Matt

 

The driver version im running is 8.360.0.0...

I installed the control center to have more control of the video card, if you don't think i need it i'l get rid of it.

any other ideas why it may not be working?

If i uninstall the secondary adapter it just installs it again..

 

That's fine, but is it still listed as Microsoft corp? For the drivers to be updated they should be listed as ATI in Properties (right-click on the adapter).

What was the previous graphics card, before this 9700 Pro?

Matt

 

Have you determined that an overheating GPU (video card) is not the problem? Is the card's fan spinning? Would leaving the case door off and blowing a fan at the card help prevent crashes?

Have you determined that DirectX 9.0c is in good working order by running DXDIAG?

After determining that, here's what I would do:

- uninstall CCC (I would uninstall .NET also if you don't need it)
- use Driver Cleaner Pro to remove both ATI and Nvidia drivers (for kicks and grins). I also would use the CAB File Cleaner to make sure Windows does not install its own drivers.
- download the Catalyst 4.12s from guru3d.com and install them (with your card you don't need anything newer and you definitely don't need the bloat of CCC)
- see how it goes

If you still get failures, it would be time to get a bit more drastic but let's not cross that bridge now...

 

the fan is spinning and the case door has been off from the start. Having the extra fan seems to stop it crashing, so by that I’m guessing I have a heat issue…

DirectX is fine too.


Now as for the other stuff.. I’ve gone through all the steps removed everything and now I can’t load the new drivers.. it says an error has occurred during installation, system can’t find specified file. But the drivers are there..

any ideas?

 

i have been able to update the driver since my last post and install Catalyst 4.12. I'll let you know how i go..

 

everything works fine, while i have the fan on it. So any ideas to stop it over heating?

 

a) improve the airflow in your case.
b) remove the stock cooler and apply Arctic Silver 5 and reinstall cooler.
c) buy this - which according to Zalman works with all 9700 Pros.

Even if you accomplished 'a', it still might not be effective enough to bring your video card's temps down to get stable.

 

Fixed my problem, which was the same

This is not a heat issue, its a 9700 pro issue. This is very common with early versions of this card. When playing games (WoW, UT2004...) and using Windows Media Center, my video card would freeze, and require a restart. I know this is a hardware version problem with the ATI Radeon 9700 pro, but I was able to fix it with the driver: Omega 3.8.252. I did try several other very similar Omega and ATI drivers that didn't work, but this one did fix it. It can be found at http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1411

Success is sweet.