[karajorma]

I just bought myself a Radeon 9600 and I'm having all kinds of problems getting the damn thing to work properly with my computer.

I upgraded from a 7200 running the latest catalyst drivers so I didn't think the upgrade would be hard.

I suspect the problem is with one of my Bios settings rather than with Windows XP because when my Asus A7N8X-Deluxe starts up the post screen comes up corrupted with scratchy vertical white lines running down the screen. It also looks like it's being displayed in less colours than it was when I was using the 7200.

In windows if I let windows find drivers it sort of works (The taskbar can get corrupted and it has a habit of turning my explorer windows pink).

If I try to install the catalyst drivers everything works fine until I reboot. When the system reloads it starts loading stuff into the system tray the screen goes black and windows reverts to a 16 colour display and announces that Windows XP has managed to save me from a serious error but a reboot should be performed.

Anyway here are the system specs

Athlon XP 2100
Asus A7N8X-Deluxe
HIS Excalibur Radeon 9600 Pro
1 Gig DDR 2700

[Geezer]

Kaj - I don't know about the scratchy white lines on the post screen but did you do a clean install of the catalyst drivers?  I've heard of problems when the previous version wasn't removed completely before the new version went in.  I'd assume you could have similar problems if you change the card and don't clean out the drivers - even if you're going to re-install the same version.

[karajorma]

Well I've tried killing the drivers as much as I could and it made no differerence. I removed both the ATI control panel and the display drivers from the Add/Remove programs option.
 I then opened up the device manager and manually delete both the display drivers present (R9600 and R9600 SEC).

Anything I missed?

I think the problem is with the bios or the card itself though. When I use an application like Ghost I get the same lines that I get on the post screen. Since neither of these are using the windows drivers I suspect at least one problem lies elsewhere.

[Grey Wolf]

Bleh. There hasn't been a good mid-range card since the GF4 Ti4200. and the Radeon 9500 Pro. The 9600 line and the FX 5600 line both are quite horrible compared to their predecessors.

[IceFire]

Did you install the proper GART driver and use the GART system to ensure that you've got everything on the AGP side fixed up.  I know that anything aside from an Intel chipset NEEDS Gart drivers with the latest ATI and nVidia products...I can't even get a display if my GART drivers aren't installed properly (thank you safe mode ).

Another thing to check.  Turn off AGP fast write, set the AGP apature size to the equivalent of your video memory.

[Fury]

So you're saying that there are graphical artifacts right from the boot even before Windows is loading? In that case the radeon is most likely faulty.

[karajorma]

That's what I'm starting to suspect. I'll try it in another computer later today.

[Nico]

Originally posted by IceFire
Did you install the proper GART driver and use the GART system to ensure that you've got everything on the AGP side fixed up.  

Ati cards install it by default. well, in fact they install it, period ( no choice given iirc ).

[Admiral LSD]

SMARTGART was made optional fairly recently (Cat 3.4/3.5) IIRC as it was causing a number of people some grief however if you're seeing issues before Windows even loads then it's unlikely to be a problem with GART, take the earlier advice and RMA that sucker.