ATI AIW 9800 Pro plus another PCI card

[Gabe]

Prior to getting ATI AIW 9800 Pro, I had
Asus GeForce 4 (AGP) + Matrox Millenium (PCI). These worked well
together. After replacing GeForce card with ATI, ATI drivers would not
install - it simply hangs (and have to push Reset button on my
machine)!

I tried all those BIOS settings suggested by ATI Support Rep - 'canned
response', and reinstalling Operating system! I gave up, and took that
Matrox card out and installed drivers and accompanying software.

After installing drivers, I put that pci card back, and on startup, I
get an error message from ATI Control Panel (one of those XP message
asking if I wanted to report the error). Experience with ATI had been
positive one until now Did Anyone out there get multiple video
cards working?

I have: ASUS M/B - VIA KT333 Chipset (with latest AGP Drivers from
viaarena.com), Athlon 1800+, 1G PC2700 DDR, ATI AIW 9800 Pro (AGP),
Matrox Millenium (4M PCI), Sound Blaster Live Value!

Thanks

Gabe

 

[patrickp]

Prior to getting ATI AIW 9800 Pro, I had
Asus GeForce 4 (AGP) + Matrox Millenium (PCI). These worked well
together. After replacing GeForce card with ATI, ATI drivers would not
install - it simply hangs (and have to push Reset button on my
machine)!

I tried all those BIOS settings suggested by ATI Support Rep - 'canned
response', and reinstalling Operating system! I gave up, and took that
Matrox card out and installed drivers and accompanying software.

After installing drivers, I put that pci card back, and on startup, I
get an error message from ATI Control Panel (one of those XP message
asking if I wanted to report the error). Experience with ATI had been
positive one until now Did Anyone out there get multiple video
cards working?

I have: ASUS M/B - VIA KT333 Chipset (with latest AGP Drivers from
viaarena.com), Athlon 1800+, 1G PC2700 DDR, ATI AIW 9800 Pro (AGP),
Matrox Millenium (4M PCI), Sound Blaster Live Value!

Thanks

Gabe

Gabe, this is not uncommon when changing from an NVidia card to an ATi card
or vice versa. The problem is that the uninstall routines provided by both
companies (and they're not alone in this) are woefully inadequate, and the
unremoved parts of the old drivers interfere with the operation of the new.
As well as uninstalling your GeForce card drivers and software before
removing it, you should have cleared out the driver remnants before
installing the drivers for the new card.

You can do this manually; for ATi there are threads on the Rage3D forum
around this and I would presume for NVidia there must be similar advice
available, but it's probably easier to use an app written for the purpose: I
believe the most commonly used NVidia one is called Detonator Destroyer.
Apparently, unlike ATi's cat-uninstaller, it's not provided by the parent
company but can be found on NVidia forums - or possibly pointed to in NVidia
groups.

I don't know, either, how effective it is; ATi's equivalent for their own
drivers seems very effective.

Some people have suggested that both ATi and NVidia find this situation
convenient as it enforces brand loyalty; I wouldn't know. But it is a
common problem and clearing out old drivers and software, preferably before
installing the new, usually seems to fix it.

The problems with installing an ATi card when another card is in the system
are also well known, and the usual solution is to do what you have done:
remove the other card until the ATi card is installed.

HTH patrickp