Can't Install Radeon 9600SE Because No Standard VGA Driver in XP

[Steven Myers]

I've searched and searched for this (along with pulling out my hair
trying to figure it out), but I can't find a solution.

The problem: I'm trying to install a new Radeon 9600SE in a homebuilt
computer. It's a 2.4 GHz P4 on a (rather crappy) ECS P4VXASD2+
motherboard, 512 MB RAM, running XP Home which was installed as of about
2 weeks ago. The video card is a GeForce 2 MX. Following the
instructions in the Radeon manual, I updated the VIA 4-in-1 drivers, then
uninstalled the GeForce's drivers (they were the most recent drivers on
Nvidia's site as of a week ago, but I don't know the version number),
then powered down to swap the cards.

The Radeon is not recognized as a Standard VGA device, or any variant
thereof (e.g., Standard PCI VGA) when XP boots up. It is recognized by
XP as two different components, a "Video Controller" and a "Video
Controller (VGA Compatible)". The Radeon drivers on the installation
disc refuse to install, showing two different dialog boxes. The first
says there has been an Inf error. The second states that I need to
install a standard VGA driver first.

As far as I can tell, this copy of XP has no Standard VGA driver. I
can't change to such a driver via the Device Manager. I can't select it
through the Add Hardware wizard. I can't get anything to happen. I've
tried Safe Mode. I've tried VGA Mode (from the F8 boot menu). I've
tried pointing the Add Hardware wizard to the Inf on the ATI CD--this
gets me one device recognized as a Radeon 9600SE, but leaves another
"Video Controller" and the system becomes grossly unstable and the ATI
driver installation still fails with the same Standard VGA driver needed
error. (As an aside, I always found it easy to force the Standard VGA
driver in Win98, but it just doesn't seem to exist here.)

If it helps, the driver that is apparently running these "Video
Controller" devices is called vgasave. Also, these devices show up in
"Other Devices," not as "Display Adapters."

I have not as yet downloaded the Catalyst 3.8 drivers (in large part,
because in my Google searches, I found people were encountering the same
problem with them, and finding no answer).

Two basic questions:

Is there a way to install these drivers without having a Standard VGA
driver?
Is there an .inf file or something somewhere in the Windows directory
which is the Standard VGA driver that I could force.

A lesser question, born of my frustration, is, Why the hell do the ATI
drivers care which generic XP driver is running the device before they
are installed? Why is "vgasave" so wrong, compared with this
non-existent Standard VGA driver.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Bilar Crais]

Thanks for any help

Try extracting them, then go into the device manager, find your display
adapter, and add them manually after you click the update driver
button. Point it to the appropriate .inf file.

 

[Steven Myers]

Try extracting them, then go into the device manager, find your display
adapter, and add them manually after you click the update driver
button. Point it to the appropriate .inf file.

As I mentioned in my original post, I did try to force an update driver
through the device manager. Although I managed to get a "Radeon 9600SE"
device under display adapters, only one of the "Video Controller" entries
under "Other Devices" went away, and the system became unstable. The
full driver install (i.e., to get the control panel and multimedia stuff)
failed with the same error requiring a standard VGA driver.

The problem is really threefold: first, XP is not placing these two
"Video Controller" entries under display adapters; second, it's creating
two of them ("Video Controller" and "Video Controller (VGA Compatible)");
third, I can't get it to recognize the card as simply a standard VGA
device as the ATI drivers apparently require--and this, because XP either
doesn't have such a driver to install or won't allow it for some reason.

 

[Vellu]

It is supposed to create two display adapters since the card supports two
monitors (I also have R9600SE). Once you get the Catalyst drivers installed
you'll see that in Device Manager->Display adapter there are two entries
"Radeon 9600 Series" and "Radeon 9600 Series - Secondary". So don't try to
delete one the "Video Controller" entries, it is supposed to be there.

 

[Vellu]

BTW, the way I upgraded (WinXP Pro SP1):

1) Uninstalled the previous card drivers
2) Shutdown and hardware install
3) Boot
4) XP detects new hardware and asks to install driver...click CANCEL (finds
two new devices, display controller and display controller (vga compatible),
cancel driver install for both)
5) Installed Catalyst 3.8
6) Reboot

No problems what so ever.

 

[Kent_Diego]

.... The video card is a GeForce 2 MX. Following the

instructions in the Radeon manual, I updated the VIA 4-in-1 drivers, then
uninstalled the GeForce's drivers (they were the most recent drivers on
Nvidia's site as of a week ago, but I don't know the version number),
then powered down to swap the cards.

Removing old drivers can be a problem. Go to http://Rage3d.com and look in
forums for more info and advice. They should have program there to remove
old drivers completely.

-Kent

 

[Steven Myers]

BTW, the way I upgraded (WinXP Pro SP1):

1) Uninstalled the previous card drivers
2) Shutdown and hardware install
3) Boot
4) XP detects new hardware and asks to install driver...click CANCEL (finds
two new devices, display controller and display controller (vga
compatible),
cancel driver install for both)
5) Installed Catalyst 3.8
6) Reboot

No problems what so ever.

This worked for me, so thanks. I'm curious why, though. Why do the ATI
drivers on the CD that comes with the Radeon 9600SE absolutely refuse to
install under the same conditions (with the two Video Controller
devices), while the Catalyst 3.8 drivers I downloaded from ATI's site
work without complaint? That is just sloppy.

Another question if I might: is there an easy way to force the install of
the multimedia center components from the CD (the software wants to
install the driver, and I'm not going there again), or will I have to
download another 25+ megs of stuff from ATI?

Thanks again.

 

[Vellu]

Haven't really tried myself, since I prefer 3rd party media players. But 25
megs of download isn't much at all, right? (Unless you're a modem user)

 

[patrickp]

Haven't really tried myself, since I prefer 3rd party media players. But 25
megs of download isn't much at all, right? (Unless you're a modem user)

I used to download that stuff on a 56K modem - takes an hour or so, but it's
usually worth it. Worth getting a good download manager, though. ;-)

patrickp