Noob help 9700 pro died

W

Whiskerfish

New member
Hello folks.

If this is in the wrong place please feel free to move it. I have not had the time to study this group just yet and don’t mean to step on any toes.

I have an older machine I built at a computer fair a few years back and have recently developed a pretty severe problem I think is related to my AIW 9700 Pro card.

The Machine is a ASUS P4S800 MB with a Pent (4) 2.4ghz chip. 768 M Ram with Windows XP Home SP3.

About a week ago I went to turn on the TV tuner and it failed. “ATI has experienced a problem and needs to shut down” or something like that. I tried several times and got distracted by something else. A few days later I tried to launch Google Earth and it failed with a similar error. I got to thinking about it and thought it might be a graphics glitch so I checked my drivers and everything appeared to be ok there. I had done pretty good keeping up with the updates over the years but I was missing one. I got the latest (9.13 I think?) and tried to install that and got a “Severe” error “Video driver not found” and the install terminated itself. I figure it was best to reboot the whole thing before going any further and that got ugly. She would get to a certain spot in the boot process and the whole PC would reboot itself automatically. I am now forced to work only in the safe mode. I again tried to install the latest driver for the AIW card and got the same error. I uninstalled everything associated with ATI and started over from Scratch with the CD I got with the card. Same thing. “Severe” Error Video Driver not found” I pulled the card out and reseated it and noticed that the fan is not running on it.

That is where I am now. My PC is working in Safe mode with a 800 x 600 screen. So my very uneducated/ experienced mind suggests to me that my 9700 card went bye bye?? Any other idea’s or things I can try???

My Second question (if I can not get this to work) is about a recommendation for a replacement. I have become addicted to the TV on my PC while I am working on my web site. So I very much want that capability. Beyond that I would like to have something newer that is still supported by the OEM with software updates and such. I am not a gamer so intense video rendering is not critical. I use a single monitor usually set to 1680 x 1050. So any recommendations?

Thank you!!

Steve
 
I don't belive its your video card as in safe mode it works. It might be another driver on the motherboard that needs to be updated. Check to see if the motherboard AGP drivers (sorry can't remember what it was called but something to do with the AGP by default on montherboard) are the latest. If your looking for a replacement, you could always trying finding a AIW X800XT. Or get a regular AGP card and a PCI tunner card.
 
Yeup I think you are right. I have been playing with it for a couple of hours and now :eek: and I can get it to boot up good using the "last known good configuration" setting. I have been through all the device drivers and nothing stands out as bad. Everything shows that it is current and working properly, but I do not have anything installed for the Graphics card. I am gonn try to get a clean boot then I guess try to load the graphics card drivers again??

Thanks for the reply
 
*Becareful of which Drivers you install (see further below)...

Hey, sorry I never saw this post before. I've been away for a while...
But Last known good configuration is just fine to get your system back and running however...you just encounted the biggest problem with ATI AIW's during those years.

In reading through your first post (both the last known configuartion popped into my head to get you back up and running & then I wondered if I should suggest re-installing (clean boot) your OS and starting over from scratch.
(Once you have re-installed the OS if you have a Seagate / Maxtor drive you can use there free (limited) Image software from their website. It's from Acronis, or if you already have Acronis True Image / or Norton Ghost you can save or burn off an image. If you don't have any of that; if you have a spare HD laying around you can use (Seagate/Maxtor\Western Digital etc.) etc.'s software to make an exact clone of your HD. It's free!
You could also set Restore points and I would do this in addition to the cloning or drive imaging as well.


Why do I recommend you do this? Well it will save you some time if A you make a mistake or have troubles with getting the AIW card back up and running and B since you have some doubts as to whether your card is good.
The AIW 9800 fan should be spinning always when the system is running so i'd check that it's clean and that it spins manually by your finger, also that it's power cable didnt' come loose or get pulled / melted... Try testing it or/and or replacing it with a suitable fan.

The AIW 9800 RUN's BEST using a much lower MMC version than the one you mention (9.13). BTW 9.16 is the newest & final version BUT IT WAS NOT MADE FOR NOR DID IT EVER WORK AS WELL for the AIW 9800 or the other cards for that matter.
You are FAR better off running either what came on the installation disk or going to ATI's site and downloading Catalyst 6.1 or older... Catalyst 5.13, 5.11 etc. and MMC 9.06.1 or (MMC 9.06, or MMC 9.08)

You can if you are interested search this and other sites thoroughly about why what I say is true / and will cause you FAR less headaches. But let me sum up by saying ATI switched over from Pretty Damn Good Analog drivers (either WDM SP or WDM NSP drivers) to some really $#itty digital drivers (WDM T200) and the two don't play nice at all together.

Your card was made with and runs excellent (I still have one AIW 9800 running) - on analog drivers (Essentially in or about the Catalyst 6.2 WDM (required for AIW & TV tuner cards) switched over to there T200 Unified Digital driver... In order to Use that and later versions of Catalyst 6.2 -through- Catalyst Version 9.3 with an AIW or an older TV Tuner card you then had to match it (if you wanted to use ATI's MMC Software) with a Digital Version of MMC...9.10 - MMC9.16.

NOTE: Catalyst Version 9.3 (.1) is the Highest Version of Catalyst that the Now legacy cards (which all of the Old AIW cards are x1900, x1800, x800, 9800, 9600, 9200 etc.) So if by chance you had tried to download & install the newest Catalyst version that maybe what caused the problem (s)...

If you for some ODD reason like MMC 9.16 or NEED to use it...then you should install Catalyst 9.3(.1) to run with it.

Once you are stuck in driver hell like you are it can be really frustrating b/c ATI's Software (via MS's program un-staller doesn't delete the many registry settings and entries that will continue to prevent you from getting a good working installation). And unlike with many vendors (at least back then) their set-up did not go and delete/un-install the previous software so unless and untill you clean it out (especially if you've inadvertantly installed incompatible versions) you will get no where.

After I un-install ATI's software I use a program called Driver Cleaner Pro. It used to be offered free but now it's $9.99 to download it from their website (google it) - worth it IMO. It cleans out the registry and can more times than not get you back going even after installed either analog or digital set-ups. Sometimes the system is just too corrupt and a re-installation is the only remedy.
==============================================================
If your AIW 9800 is dead, there are still a lot of really decent (even HDCP capable AGP cards out there) very cheap $40 or under. The last time I looked (if you wanted the fasted AGP card out there the HD3850 AGP they are now about $84 After Rebate.=> they actually made a HD 4670 AGP it's about $110 - $125 (it's slightly slower SO FAR than the HD 3850 probably b/c of the memory bandwidth, but it's lower energy usage and they seem pretty neck & neck in games compared PCI-E to PCI-E so don't exaclty know AGP vs. AGP) and you could find a PCI TV tuner card. Cheap one for a single tuner or more for a dual / digital tuner. ATI had some refurbished generic single TV tuners for under $30 on their website store. If you decided you wanted to DITCH the ATI MMC software than you could use some of the free software or if you got say the Hauppauge Dual tuner PCI card you could use Hauppauge's software...
 
Last edited:
Everything you said makes perfect sense!! I have it working half A&&ed right now. Everything is fine except for heavy graphics applications like the TV and Google Earth. Google Earth will sometimes open if I tell it to run in "Open GL Mode", I have no idea what or why that is? (analog only?) Any other attempts to open it and it locks and fails. The TV will not boot at all. I just get a notice "ATI failed to initialize and needs to close". It seems like everything else is ok for now, but I reallly do miss my TV tuner. I run a 5000 member Motorcycle Web site and spending hours a day sitting at the PC having something in the background makes life much better.

I just verified that the fan on the ATI Board is not runing. When I first experienced these problems I pulled the PC apart and cleaned it. There is no obstructions and the fan is free to turn but it is not. So if I can get the software working I guess a new fan is in order.

I had a friend send me a copy of Acronis True Image and I have plenty of HD's to play with so I will do a complete BU of the OS Drive and start playing again.

Thank you so very much for the insight and information. hopefully I won't screw this up too bad and be able to provide some feedback if I am sucessful.

Steve
 
i've had a 9800pro fan go really slow/die on me, & the card was able to work in windows just fine, but a game like ut2k4 froze the whole comp in say 5-10min

actually.. the 3rd party cooler died too.. i'm ghetto hanging a case fan right now (though that comp has been off for a while)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top