suzumebachi Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 I've been having problems with one of my computers for a couple of weeks now. I put it together out of some spare parts to be used for photography purposes (ie: scanning, editing). It works fine except for an extremely weird problem with the video card. For one thing, it appears exactly 8 times in the device manager and in system information; even after a fresh format and reinstall of Windows. If I attempt to install the manufacturer drivers (ATI Catalyst) the computer will blue screen on bootup until I do a system restore. As a result, I'm pretty much stuck with generic Windows display drivers, which are extremely slow. It literally takes 5-10 minutes to load a decent sized .jpeg. I'm at a loss as to what the problem is. I don't know if it's the video card, or the motherboard. Both have worked fine in the past. Here are the specs: Motherboard: Chaintech VNF3-250 Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2600+ Memory: 1GB Corsair DDR400 Video: ATI Radeon X800 AGP Anyone have any idea what the problem could be? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutritious Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 Hmm, sounds really strange. Any chance you could try the card out in a different computer? Have you tried different versions of ATI's drivers? Also, you can also try Omega drivers (http://www.omegadrivers.net/) which are modified ATI drivers to give more features/bug fixes/optimizations. I've had some luck with them in the past. When reinstalling drivers, I'd recommend using the ATI removal tool (after uninstalling previous ATI drivers) to make sure you remove all of the ATI files that get left behind during the normal uninstall. Can't find a link to it right now, unfortunately, but I think ATI hosts it on their site. EDIT: By the way, what's your power supply? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suzumebachi Posted October 14, 2007 Author Share Posted October 14, 2007 power supply is a basic antec 420 watt. i tried those omega drivers but they do the same exact thing. as soon as i install them, the computer blue screens after rebooting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutritious Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 Well, it's possible that the power supply isn't providing enough for that card. Video cards use more power after you install the drivers since it's utiziling more features. If you're underpowered on the bootup, I'd imagine it could cause a BSOD. Anyway, I've always had good luck with video card support on this site though, so you might want to try there to see if they can help you more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suzumebachi Posted October 15, 2007 Author Share Posted October 15, 2007 i'm curious as to how not having enough power would cause the computer to detect 8 video cards? i can understand how it might cause it to blue screen or otherwise fail, but the 8 video card thing is what's really throwing me off here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phill Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 First question, does the x800 show up as 8 x800 display adapters or does it show up as 8 generic display adapters? Have you tried to 'manually' install the drivers for the video card? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suzumebachi Posted October 15, 2007 Author Share Posted October 15, 2007 what do you mean "manually" install drivers? is there any other way? if the drivers are installed it appears as: Radeon X800 Display Adapter Radeon X800 Display Adapter Radeon X800 Display Adapter Radeon X800 Display Adapter Radeon X800 Display Adapter Radeon X800 Display Adapter Radeon X800 Display Adapter Radeon X800 Display Adapter if the drivers are not installed, it appears as: Unknown VGA Device Unknown VGA Device Unknown VGA Device Unknown VGA Device Unknown VGA Device Unknown VGA Device Unknown VGA Device Unknown VGA Device (or something. i'm paraphrasing, i'm not at home) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cecilff2 Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 Power shouldn't be a problem, I have an ATI X800 too, though its PCI-E. I think it needed a 300 or 350 watt PS. I'd recommend swapping the video card into another machine. If it works fine there, it's your motherboard, probably the AGP slot itself. Otherwise your video card is screwed up. Edit: Also by manually install, he means don't use an exe installer, but instead go to the unknown device, and click update drivers, then point to a folder where you've extracted the driver files. Also Edit: Got any other AGP cards if there's no other available computers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Effef Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 It sounds to me like there are 8 separate installs of the video card drivers...but that can't happen since they would clusterfuck before there ever got to be that many. My advice would be to take drivercleaner and remove all of them, then try to install the omega drivers again. Also, make sure you hae disabled your onboard video. Its also possible that the bios on the card is screwed up somehow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suzumebachi Posted October 15, 2007 Author Share Posted October 15, 2007 It sounds to me like there are 8 separate installs of the video card drivers...but that can't happen since they would clusterfuck before there ever got to be that many. My advice would be to take drivercleaner and remove all of them, then try to install the omega drivers again. Also, make sure you hae disabled your onboard video. Its also possible that the bios on the card is screwed up somehow. it's not 8 installs of drivers. all 8 of them appear even after formatting and reinstalling windows. i imagine if i install linux, linux would detect it 8 times too. so it's gotta be something with either the card or the motherboard. unfortunately i don't have another AGP card to test in it, or another computer to test the card in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suzumebachi Posted October 18, 2007 Author Share Posted October 18, 2007 So, I replaced the video card with another one, and it works fine. Then I tested the X800 in another computer, and it worked fine. So like... wtf?!??!??! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katsurugi Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 Some things were not meant to be. *shrugs* Maybe your motherboard has some bizarro spec that doesn't make it recognize the card. All that matters now is that it works?? I think you've probably had a rough time already thinking about what went wrong. Go play games or watch movies now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cecilff2 Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 Oh there's something I should have suggested from the start. Reseating the card. Maybe it was just slightly loose or something. Have you tried it again since? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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