This device cannot start (code 10)

A

andy838

New member
Hello all,

I've been trying to reinstall my ATI AIW 9600XT for a few days after a system crash. The card was working fine in Windows XP SP2 with all the updates and then when I reloaded windows it doesn't work anymore.

I've tried a fresh install and then loading the original driver CD and I get a code 10 cannot start device error.

I've tried a fresh install with all windows updates, DirectX, and original driver CD. Same problem

I've tried a fresh install with all windows updates, DirectX, and the latest drivers from ATI.Same problem.

I've installed the latest BIOS for my motherboard, the 4 in 1 drivers for it, and begun to pull out my hair.

In looking through posts on various sites, many people are having the same problem. I'm wondering if it might be a conflict between XP SP2, a non-intel chipset motherboard, and ATI's drivers?

ATI's drivers have sucked as long as I can remember but I could usually find a way to make things work using driver cleaners in safe mode and cab cleaners in safe mode. This one has me stumped though.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks,

My machine:

Athlon 2100+
1 GB RAM
160 GB Maxtor HDD
SOYO Dragon Black KT400 Ultra Motherboard
ATI AIW 9600XT
Windows XP SP2 with all updates.



Latest Direct X
 
hi,

I have the same problem with my aiw x800xt. did you find the solution?
Meanwhile, i'm filing RMA on this.
 
First make sure DirectX is working. Run DXDIAG and check that all acceleration options are enabled.

Next trouble-shoot your system.

Usually the easy way to handle this problem is to go into the device manager and look for problem devices "yellow" mark. Usually "unknown device".
Simply remove the problem devices from the device manger and reinstall the drivers.

Do not reboot until you have finished installing the drivers.

You can also do a manual install if desired from the device manager.
If either method does not work on your system then there is a system problem.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310123#XSLTH4177121122120121120120


Code 10
If the device has a FailReasonString value in its hardware key, that string appears as the error message. The driver or enumerator puts this registry string value there. If there is no FailReasonString in the hardware key, you receive the following error message:
This device cannot start. (Code 10)


Recommended resolution


Device failed to start. Click Update Driver to update the drivers for this device. On the General Properties tab of the device, click Troubleshoot to start the Troubleshooting Wizard.


Greg
 
Hi Greg,

Thanks for your suggestion. I did exactly what you posted. In fact, I tried the following things:

1.) Unintalled all ATi instances under 'Video, Sound and Codec' in device manager. Then I reinstalled the WDM drivers....result still the same.

2.) I unintalled the XP system and reinstall everything...result still the same.
 
Try it in another system if you can. If it doesn't work there, then the card needs to be RMA'd. If it does work there, then chances are you need a new motherboard. When they go Code 10, it's usually a bad card, or motherboard or a bad combination of the two. I own 3 AIW cards, an Original Radeon AIW, an AIW 9600 Pro and an AIW X800XT, so I've had some experience with the dreaded Code 10 errors. See sig for some of my systems.

I just moved my AIW 9600 Pro from a system where it worked just fine, to another motherboard where the Code 10 errors showed up. Nothing I do will make those 3 devices work. So, this card and that motherboard are not compatible. I had that same card working in 3 other motherboards.

So, try it in another system before you do anything else.

My .02
 
lolento said:
Hi Greg,

Thanks for your suggestion. I did exactly what you posted. In fact, I tried the following things:

1.) Unintalled all ATi instances under 'Video, Sound and Codec' in device manager. Then I reinstalled the WDM drivers....result still the same.

2.) I unintalled the XP system and reinstall everything...result still the same.
Click to expand...


I'm getting similar issues:
ATI WDM Rage Theater Audio
ATI WDM Rage Theater Video NSP
ATI WDM TV Audio Crossbar

All show yellow exclamations in Device Manager.

Before Cat 5.10 everything was copasetic. Now, every other time I boot, yellow exclamations with "This device cannot start" Code 10.

I will add this. I've owned every version of ATI AIW cards up through my current 9800. I've even owned 2 TV cards.

:mad: This is the last ATI anything I purchase, unless of course they take over the world.
 
The Error Code 10 means the Windows are able to enumerate the hardware.

What does that mean in plain english...

Each AGP or PCI card includes a Vendor-ID and Device-ID. There are also Sub-fields from the PCI device that let's the system know what it is.

All of the information used to enumerate the device is contained in the PCI device header of the card. Each PCI device has a unique ID to show what the device is.

The ID includes the Vendor-ID, Device-ID and the CLASS of the device.
If the device for example is SCSI then we can search for all SCSI PCI devices to find the one that we are looking for. Once we find a SCSI device we can match the VENDOR_ID and DEVICE_ID to know how to enumerate in the system.

For ATI the PCI_VENDOR_ID is 0x1002.
The PCI_DEVICE_ID is based on the card used. The ATI 9700 for example could be 0x4e44 thru 0x4e47.

There are other things that go on during the scan of the PCI devices and the enumeration of them. The BIOS of your motherboard is also involved since the PCI base address (BAR) are assiged during the booting process.

The actuall PCI device contains this information. This is not software, it is firmware on the card.

Ok.. You may be saying to yourself "what the hell is he talking about and what does this have to do with my problem".

What I am saying is if you get a fail CODE-10 then Windows was unable to match the PCI device to any known hardware.

In this case there are only two know causes.

1.) Windows does not have to data to match the device (ie. No drivers installed).
If this is the case then:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314464
When a device driver for a device is not available, Device Manager displays the device as Unknown Device, and places it in the Other devices branch. This is very common with Universal Serial Bus (USB) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) 1394 composite devices. Also, a status of Error Code 1 or Error Code 10 may be displayed when you view the properties of the device in Device Manager.


This not what you are seeing. In your case the device is not re-detected as an unknown device but as a non-functioning device!

2.) The device is not present or not working properly.
This seems to be the case with your system.
This is a hardware issue.
The hardware issue could be as simple as the board is not seated correctly or the AGP or PCI slot has a problem. The card my be defective or your motherboard may have a problem.

What we do know is Windows was unable to read the PCI device information from the card and match it to what was found when the driver was installed. And since this happens on some reboots of the system there is no question this is a hardware problem with your system.

Sorry if I got a little technical on some of the issue but I am a design this kind of stuff.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q125174/#XSLTH3253121122120121120120

If the device has a "FailReasonString" value in its hardware key, that string is displayed as the error message. The driver or enumerator places this registry string value there. If there is no "FailReasonString" in the hardware key, the following generic error message is displayed:
This device is either not present, not working properly, or does not have all the drivers installed. (Code 10)

Try upgrading the device drivers for this device.

Solution button: Update Driver

To resolve this error code, make sure the device is connected to the computer correctly. For example, make sure all cables are plugged in fully and that all adapter cards are properly seated. Follow the suggested solution button and update the device driver. It may be possible to remove the device and redetect it using the Add New Hardware wizard.


Oh... ATI already rules the world. :)

Greg

NYCFalcon said:
I'm getting similar issues:
ATI WDM Rage Theater Audio
ATI WDM Rage Theater Video NSP
ATI WDM TV Audio Crossbar

All show yellow exclamations in Device Manager.

Before Cat 5.10 everything was copasetic. Now, every other time I boot, yellow exclamations with "This device cannot start" Code 10.

I will add this. I've owned every version of ATI AIW cards up through my current 9800. I've even owned 2 TV cards.

:mad: This is the last ATI anything I purchase, unless of course they take over the world.
Click to expand...
 
thanks for the thorough analysis here.

since my card is an AIW card and only the TV tuner function is malfunctioning, i think i can eliminate the possibility that the card is seated incorrectly on the AGP slot.

so i definitely have a hardware problem.
 
I've had the same problem in the past with an AIW 9600 Pro
It was RMA'd about 3 months ago and they sent out a new card. Worked fine until 2 weeks ago. Now the same problem is back - and nothing has changed on the system....

I believe that there may be another problem on the system causing the error code 10, it seems odd that 2 cards would mess up all of a sudden...
 
well, i'll get my card back tomorrow...according to fedex

i hope mine doesn't break down again....ATi only covers the cards for 1 year now....kinda expensive to buy a $300 card that's only good for 1 year....
 
lolento said:
thanks for the thorough analysis here.

since my card is an AIW card and only the TV tuner function is malfunctioning, i think i can eliminate the possibility that the card is seated incorrectly on the AGP slot.

so i definitely have a hardware problem.
Click to expand...

I know this thread is 9 months old now, but I just started having identical problems with my AIW 2006 card. The video is fine. It's the WDMs (i.e. the TV tuner) that shows up with code 10s in my device manager, which leads me to wonder why if it's the card the video can be funttioning just fine. Is it possible the tuners are just that bad and can fail like that?

Here's another twist--I first started having issues with my TV app about a month ago--all of a sudden it would reboot my machine every time I so much as clicked the icon or any part of the tv app (other apps on MMC worked fine.) So I started the usual uninstall/system purge/reinstall process with 4 different cat versions--including 6.8 and MMC 9.15. Things really took a nosedive after I uninstalled that set and tried to go back to the the original install disk. It seemed fine (TV still not working, though) until one day I got the message: "There is a conflict with your current ATI driver and your graphic card's bios. We recommend that you verify that the correct driver is installed..." and so forth with info on where to get updated drivers.

So, what's with this "graphic card's bios" jazz? I didn't know these had a bios, and in any event how does it suddenly know my Cat's it's out of date? I havent' seen the message since my last purge, but that was when my WDM's showed up yellow in my device manager.

One more thing--I did notice for some reason my system bios reset itself to defaults about a month ago--inexplicably. Hasn't been a problem since, but for some unknown reason it just booted up weird one day. But once I booted it up normally I didn't think of it unti this other stuff started happening...

Just thought I'd throw these out in case any new insights have come up.
 
i have been able to purposfully create a situation similar.
and it does not have to mean that the hardware itself is faulty, although it indeed might still be a connection to it.
mostly what i see is a DEVICE problem , again.

it gets kinda confusing because i only flash over this stuff. but there are MASSIVE HUGE differences in the NEW drivers, and old drivers, and drivers on disk, AND SP1 and SP2 things.
soo
so from my observations, if you allowed MS to update the ATI junk, which it does have the capacity to do, it could hose a working tuner driver set.
And
if you put the wrong , or different drivers in only ONCE, these different drivers could be applied and completly disable the driver set.

like there are 2 drivers, and the SIZE of them has REVERSED, meaning huge change.
on one set of drivers item A was ~80K and item B was ~254K
on a different set of drivers these same Named items Item A was ~256k and Item B was 80K.

so what i am saying is if you (and of course i did) Mixed these hugely different driver sets, it would hose the whole thing and never start, even if the drivers are all present.

throwing a Code(10) on the t-200 for this driver set, can happen EASILY, and is surely a driver issue.
it can be because of MS media drivers.

unless we have a total list of every item that is supposed to exist in a specific driver set to check, the option is the same LAME option as it was before, CLEAN IT OUT COMPLETLY, and reinstall.
BUT
then you still going to get hosed by microsoft updates.
the driver conflict could be ONLY the Microsoft files that ATI uses. and re-install of ati wouldnt do a thing.
you see Included in ATI driver Loading, is MS driver loads, of which there can be 3 versions of those files also.

there must be a solution? completly update Microsoft, and keep it updated, but shut OFF autoupdates so it doesnt change ATI and MEDIA drivers , when a new qworl driver set comes out?

Install only ONE full completed set of ATI drivers and if you think you need to "update" then your going to want to clean any traces that can be re-installed by the updating process. you know when the driver sets start loading all the parts and pieces.

use a program like TOTALUNINSTALL , that will tear out every parts and pieces of a specific instalation, and show you what it could not remove, so you can make sure you remove the old driver set, prior to installing the new one.

me thinks from what i seen, if you left the microsoft auto updates on, it would automatically change your system, well that IS the point of it. and ati is so directally tied to MS media items, it can cause a failure.

crossing up the MS drivers , BY:
aquiring the devices from various service packs
re-pairing MS by using the CD (which returns old files)
rolling back , and only having parts roll back
partial installs via background installing (background downloading is not a problem)
downloading repairs off the web, or even any Media or DRM hotfixes
installing any other package that might change these media drivers.
Auto "repair" from DLLcaches via SFC
Auto Rollbacks from last good

wanna see? if you have your original CD, and the service pack cabs sitting around
use the Search doggie with advanced options, and search for each of the drivers in the t-200 set.
you can see that some of them are all similar, and probably would act similarly
then you can see some that are completly different from thier older versions of the same name.
 
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Well, it's an intriguing possibility--MS updating my drivers without my knowing it--except wouldn't that show up in the list of MS updates? My add/remove panel shows no such updates per se, but I wouldn't put it past MS to pull a surreptitious drive update on us.

The thing is, I HAVE done the complete removal thing--I have followed two different sets of instructions, both involving regclean, one using driver cleaner, one (the tweaktown link that SciDoctor posted sticky in the Multimedia forum) using no driver cleaner but simply going in and deleting all ati*.* files from /system32 and /system32/drivers folders. I do this in safemode with the network cable unplugged and with NO AV or spyware removal or any such thing running. I reboot after regclean chores, double check same folders for evidence of ATI, find none, reinstall, and--whaddaya know--there's those yellow exclamation points! Doesn't seem to matter which version of Cat I use either.

As an aside, I will say that driver cleaner doesn't always get it all--there's always ati stuff left over after I use driver cleaner.

From what I've seen after researching this Code 10 thing on a bunch of other boards is that once you've got it, it's pretty much a death sentence. There's no cure. The people who get it never get rid of it (or if they do, they never post their success stories on the boards). I would love nothing more than for someone to prove me wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.
 
which is some of my point.
you can remove all of the ATI till your blue in the face, and that doesnt re-sync (lets say) all of the ATI stuff with all of the MS media parts that ATI uses.

it also doesnt remove various crypto disk and safe disk (virus like dongle drivers) and DRM files that HIDE in the device list.

it is all there in the drivers, and figuring it all out is harder than throwing it out the window.

course your not using the t-200, but if you looked in the ATI drivers, they HAVE IN THEM winders media parts and pieces. if the winders media parts and pieces changed, ati uninstall wont fix it, and windows re-install wont fix it.
only writing down every version that was there, and setting that all back the way it was would work.
 
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hmm, there is a way to get the computer to write down what you WERE using before it got screwed up. things like adding in a media player with DRM parts , or upgrading the MS media player , or even a sound card driver, can change the MS media parts, its like that NET garbage, it not forewards compatable when your using old stuff, and barly backwards compatable.

with devcon, the toy i was playing with, you could get a LIST of all the files a driver uses, or with things like DLLSHOW ($$$) , when something changes, you could at least SEE what changed, and try to put the old files back in, the problem would be it is not just files, it is the connections of those files to the drivers.

ex: the new drivers they use files with an added 2 at the end of them, not only are the files different, but the name the driver calls is also changed, albiet slightly. so having the original INF files that installed your perfected system would also be important. (the overwritten MS ones, not just the ones with the ati drivers)

MS ( i think) reversed 2 files, making sure that the SP2 files would not be compatable with the SP1 files, which would insure that the DRM additions would be hard to break , by changing the files back, a person would have to retract BOTH files back at the same time, that is why a rollback is often effective.
but WHO controlls what goes in the dllcache? who controlls what goes in the rollback? well MS, ms determines what will be allowed in all situation. this insures 2 things, it must be used as intended, and the Crap they put in that people do not want, will stay.

if you want to see the Security dongle files, check out the driver manager
http://www.l5sg.com/Products/downloads.html it was freeware.
with this thing, i can remove more than 50% of things, and still have 100% functinality, and 50% faster boot, but its not easy, its like walking on molten lava.
 
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Psycogeek said:
which is some of my point.
you can remove all of the ATI till your blue in the face, and that doesnt re-sync (lets say) all of the ATI stuff with all of the MS media parts that ATI uses.

it also doesnt remove various crypto disk and safe disk (virus like dongle drivers) and DRM files that HIDE in the device list.

it is all there in the drivers, and figuring it all out is harder than throwing it out the window.

course your not using the t-200, but if you looked in the ATI drivers, they HAVE IN THEM winders media parts and pieces. if the winders media parts and pieces changed, ati uninstall wont fix it, and windows re-install wont fix it.
only writing down every version that was there, and setting that all back the way it was would work.
Click to expand...

So, let me ask you this--why is it that people can blow away their OS, reformat, reinstall XP, reinstall Cat and still have their tuner WDMs show up wtih Code 10s in their device manager, as some have claimed? You would think that a fresh install with no previous drivers to contend with would eliminate some of the problems you mentioned. Now, it's still possible there's something in Windows updates that's screwing things up, but it just doesn't make sense. However, I'll try to look into some of those utiltities you mentioned above.

In the end, however, I still maintain that this is far more trouble than it should be! If a card is properly made and the drivers properly written, you should just be able to load and go. The only reason I haven't given up is that I'm holding out hope that I've overlooked something, or that there is some sensible solution (a setting, an IRQ--something!) that will solve this. Instead, it just gets worse, and hope is rapidly fading.
 
In the end, however, I still maintain that this is far more trouble than it should be!

EVERYTHING in computers is becomming that way, tons of poorly written junk, activation, useless "FEATURE" lists that mean nothing to functionality, dissolved support, HYPE out the wazoo, but nothing backing it up.
you would think that people like being lied to and screwed over. hmm could explain some politics :-)

YES indeed after a complet FORMAT of the drive, and re-instlation of the OS, and the drivers, it should NOT have that problem.
but how many people know how much is just Lapped on a OS install, unless they did completly format the drive?

the one thing that i can get to do the CODE10 after a full wipe , is memory settings, which is a NEW POS that i get to deal with this week (extended memory), add in some memory , a audio card that the install of the drivers conflict, some other crasy part that MS will install some sort of driver for on install, and you could be right back where you started again, even with a full format. mabey a Motherboard BIOS change they forgot they had made long ago. Latency for example, know any actual real factual info about this on the web? ohh its a wait state, make it smaller, dont always work.
mabey some memory clocking settings they thought were working, but dont hang during driver init? so did they reset the motherboard bios? did they tear out all the new things they added before? should we ever have to even THINK that way :-(

so its totally possible with just drivers, but i see what your saying, it is as if some BIT on the board was changed, some BIOS on the video card went wackey, or the card just broke.

i had a 9700 and it just broke :-( musta been about 3 months after the warrenty ran out, it was not being run overclocked, it was clean, getting good air, and it just gave up the ghost.
 
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Can you elaborate on these memory settings? IOW, what settings can I try and where to do i set them to REMOVE the code 10 problem--if you can make it happen, how can I make it NOT happen!

(I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by a "NEW POS")

Psycogeek said:
In the end, however, I still maintain that this is far more trouble than it should be!

the one thing that i can get to do the CODE10 after a full wipe , is memory settings, which is a NEW POS that i get to deal with this week (extended memory)
Click to expand...
 
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the new motherboards handle 4gigs or more of memory, if you put 4(or more) in, you only get 3 untill you use "extended memory" that is where there is more BITS to define the memory.
with extended memory and using the KERNAL that supports it, the t-200 driver croaks. i am still working on WHY.

basically the same reason that it was not supported in the 64Bit operating system.

its just one example on how changes in the hardware a person isntalled can change more things. with most peoples code 10 it is probably related more often to WINDOWS media parts and pieces.

POS is a slang term Piece Of Doggy Doo.
 
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