Is it always so difficult2???

[mxh]

I posted something about this earlier, but it hasn't shown up (usually shows
up right away), so here it is again.
I recently bought a AIW 900 Pro. I've become increasingly frustrated with
this card. I really bought the card for it's TV functions, and that is the
only thing that *won't* work.
When I attempt to use the TV, the splash screen comes up and just sites
there. Nothing happens. The only way to get rid of the splash screen is to
re-boot.

I have installed and unistalled. I uninstalled from safe mode and renamed
all the appropriate OEM.inf files to OEM.in_. I tried upgrading to MMC 8.5
as per instructions at ATI's web site. No Go. After the 4th reinstall and
having no success, I uninstalled everything yet again, DL'd the latest
driver bundle (3.6) and installed that with MMC 8.5. Still having the same
trouble.

I am about to take this card back. It's really gotten ridiculous. Can
someone please point me in the right direction? I'd much rather get this
card up and running than give up.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[J.Clarke]

I posted something about this earlier, but it hasn't shown up (usually
shows up right away), so here it is again.
I recently bought a AIW 900 Pro. I've become increasingly frustrated
with this card. I really bought the card for it's TV functions, and
that is the only thing that *won't* work.
When I attempt to use the TV, the splash screen comes up and just
sites there. Nothing happens. The only way to get rid of the splash
screen is to re-boot.

I have installed and unistalled. I uninstalled from safe mode and
renamed all the appropriate OEM.inf files to OEM.in_. I tried
upgrading to MMC 8.5 as per instructions at ATI's web site. No Go.
After the 4th reinstall and having no success, I uninstalled
everything yet again, DL'd the latest driver bundle (3.6) and
installed that with MMC 8.5. Still having the same trouble.

I am about to take this card back. It's really gotten ridiculous. Can
someone please point me in the right direction? I'd much rather get
this card up and running than give up.

It sounds like you have either a defective board or a driver or hardware
conflict of some sort. Take out everything that you don't absolutely
need to make the machine run and see if that corrects the problem you're
seeing.

 

[Larry]

What kind of system do you have? How much RAM, O/S, etc.?

I'm using this exact same card on an Asus P4T-E mobo (Intel 850 chipset)
with 512 MB of RDRAM running Win2K Pro/SP4. All functions of this card
work fine on my setup.

The first thing I would check is to make sure that all of the devices
for the card were properly installed (Device Manager). There should be
about 6 devices all relating to the AIW card. Make sure that there are
no yellow exclamation point/question marks next to any of these:

ATI WDM Rage Theater Audio
ATI WDM Rage Theater Video
ATI WDM Specialized MVD Codec
ATI WDM Specialized PCD Codec
ATI WDM TV Audio Crossbar
ATI WDM TV Tuner

I believe for MMC 8.5, you need at least DirectX 9.0 and some additional
updated Windows Media codecs (if you followed all of the instructions
posted on ATI's website for MMC 8.5, you would have gotten these already).

I would try and uninstall everything once again (MMC, ATI Control Panel
(if installed), and the ATI display drivers). Reboot your machine.
During the reboot, cancel out any and all of the Hardware Wizard/PnP
dialog messages that pop up. Wait until your machine has finished
booting before doing anything.

Then start with the latest Cat 3.6 WDM Driver (this NEEDS to be
installed FIRST). Do NOT reboot your machine just yet, when prompted
select NO.

Then install the latest Cat 3.6 Display Driver, reboot your machine.

During the reboot, pay attention for any errors or weird dialog
box/messages. Once your system has finished booting, check Device
Manager and make sure that your AIW installed properly and go from there...

It's possible you got a bad board.

Larry

 

[Paul Murphy]

All of ATIs cards are harder than average VGA cards to install because
there's allot more to them. Not just the multiple devices under device
manager but also the fact that their operation involves most other elements
in the machine (soundcard - must be wired into it correctly to transfer TV
sound, storage - saving/playing back recordings and time-lapse TV from the
hard drive, OS - must have all the correct drivers (including those for your
motherboard chipset) as well as DirectX 9 or 9.0a (for the version of MMC
that would have come with your card).

If you follow the comprehensive instructions on ATIs website - WITHOUT
having ANY background applications running (e.g. antivirus & utility
programs etc) when you install it, it should work fine. I've had an All In
Wonder Radeon for about 2 years now and have reinstalled my OS from scratch
many times and the subsequent AIW installation has always worked on a clean
system. Given that you've tried several reinstalls/uninstalls, I'd say
there's something else with the machine that's stopping it all working
properly - yes its possible that the card is dead but I very much doubt it.

A backup of all your data and reinstall from scratch on a freshly
re-partitioned and formatted HDD is the way forward - do you know how to do
this? In this case, the simplest way to get it working is to use the MMC 8.1
CDROM immediately after installing the OS other hardware drivers and directX
on the machine. I'd forget about downloading MMC 8.5, 8.1 is more reliable
and the extras that come with 8.5 aren't worth it in my opinion.

Paul

 

[patrickp]

All of ATIs cards are harder than average VGA cards to install because
there's allot more to them. Not just the multiple devices under device
manager but also the fact that their operation involves most other elements
in the machine (soundcard - must be wired into it correctly to transfer TV
sound, storage - saving/playing back recordings and time-lapse TV from the
hard drive, OS - must have all the correct drivers (including those for your
motherboard chipset) as well as DirectX 9 or 9.0a (for the version of MMC
that would have come with your card).

If you follow the comprehensive instructions on ATIs website - WITHOUT
having ANY background applications running (e.g. antivirus & utility
programs etc) when you install it, it should work fine. I've had an All In
Wonder Radeon for about 2 years now and have reinstalled my OS from scratch
many times and the subsequent AIW installation has always worked on a clean
system. Given that you've tried several reinstalls/uninstalls, I'd say
there's something else with the machine that's stopping it all working
properly - yes its possible that the card is dead but I very much doubt it.

A backup of all your data and reinstall from scratch on a freshly
re-partitioned and formatted HDD is the way forward - do you know how to do
this? In this case, the simplest way to get it working is to use the MMC 8.1
CDROM immediately after installing the OS other hardware drivers and directX
on the machine. I'd forget about downloading MMC 8.5, 8.1 is more reliable
and the extras that come with 8.5 aren't worth it in my opinion.

Paul

Don't always expect ATi's software to work. As Paul Murphy pointed out, MMC
8.5 can be extremely problematic, particularly on non-high end systems.
Possibly that has something to do with EazyLook - people have apparently had
greater success with MMC 8.5 using earlier Cat drivers than with 3.5, the
first driver to support EazyLook. EazyLook is, of course, implemented in
MMC 8.5 and not before; and it would seem to be implicated in reports of
very high CPU usage with MMC 8.5

Even MMC 8.1 can be uncooperative. I could only get the TV/Video In app to
start and close reliably by running the debug monitor suggested on the
Rage3D forum. In my case, I have a VIVO card and, while the TV app
eventually changes to Video In after a few boots, the debug monitor reveals
that it's still trying to start the TV tuner software. FYI a VIVO doesn't
have a tuner, but will handle video input - with MMCs up to and including
7.7, the installer always reliably installed Video In (the appropriate
version for a VIVO) and there was no problem. With the MMC 8.x versions,
ATi would seem to have given up on, or at least are failing in, providing
for all types of Radeons.

patrickp

 

[Paul Murphy]

Sorry - the first sentence should read All of ATIs All In Wonder and VIVO
cards are harder than average...... The "plain" flavoured Radeons aren't
much different to other brands in terms of installation difficulty.

Paul

 

[m]

I posted something about this earlier, but it hasn't shown up (usually shows
up right away), so here it is again.
I recently bought a AIW 900 Pro. I've become increasingly frustrated with
this card. I really bought the card for it's TV functions, and that is the
only thing that *won't* work.

Thanks to everyone for their informative responses. I appreciate the time
you took to respond indepth.
I finally restored a ghost image with just my basic apps on a fresh install.
Then I installed from the CD (MMC 8.1).
Everything seems to work OK now. I have half a hunch that it may have been
WinDVD 4. I'm sure I'll be installing it again, as the ATI DVD player is
kind of bare bones. If it becomes an issue, I'll post back here to make it
known.


Thanks again for all your responses,
Mark

 

[patrickp]

Thanks to everyone for their informative responses. I appreciate the time
you took to respond indepth.
I finally restored a ghost image with just my basic apps on a fresh install.
Then I installed from the CD (MMC 8.1).
Everything seems to work OK now. I have half a hunch that it may have been
WinDVD 4. I'm sure I'll be installing it again, as the ATI DVD player is
kind of bare bones. If it becomes an issue, I'll post back here to make it
known.


Thanks again for all your responses,
Mark

Yes, ATi have stated in their notes for several of their DVD players that
you may encounter problems if you have other DVD players installed on your
system besides theirs. Best to stick to just one player on your system,
whatever it is.

patrickp