VGASafe makes my head go funny

[Sham B]

Right.

I have the cat3.7 drivers, which have been the most stable ATI offering for some time, but now I
hear that the 4.x ones are looking good, so thought Id give them a whirl.

Every time I uninstall the ATI driver, I get down to VGASafe drivers, which, from what I understand,
is what XP uses when it can find no other suitable drivers that will work without conflicts. Its
XP's way of saying 'You nearly ended up with a blank screen, but I just saved you, clever OS that I
am! .... um.... although you cant really fix the problem easily now, so you're prolly still in a
mess, its just that you get to look at the UI in 640x400 as well this way'.

I get this VGASafe 'feature' even If I tell XP to use VGA drivers at bootup (f8)

trouble is that ATI drivers refuse to install over VGASafe coming up with some 'there is a problem
that prevents these drivers installing, try again with VGA drivers'. so once I get to a boot up
with VGASafe, I'm stuck, the easiest way out is to go back to the installed cat drivers (if I got
there with F8) or a repair reinstall of XP (if I got there by uninstalling the existing cat drivers
and normal reboot) and only then can I install the updated drivers (if I'm lucky). Reinstalling the
AGP drivers for the MOBO doesn't help either, although some web pages seem to imply that's the deep
seated problem behind all this.

Anyone find a way out of this vicious circle that doesnt involve pain and suffering on a grand
scale? ATI drivers with a proper install that don't require a previous driver uninstall (so you can
then roll back if anything untoward happens) would be nice, but hey,that's ATI.

S

 

[patrickp]

Right.

I have the cat3.7 drivers, which have been the most stable ATI offering for some time, but now I
hear that the 4.x ones are looking good, so thought Id give them a whirl.

Every time I uninstall the ATI driver, I get down to VGASafe drivers, which, from what I understand,
is what XP uses when it can find no other suitable drivers that will work without conflicts. Its
XP's way of saying 'You nearly ended up with a blank screen, but I just saved you, clever OS that I
am! .... um.... although you cant really fix the problem easily now, so you're prolly still in a
mess, its just that you get to look at the UI in 640x400 as well this way'.

I get this VGASafe 'feature' even If I tell XP to use VGA drivers at bootup (f8)

trouble is that ATI drivers refuse to install over VGASafe coming up with some 'there is a problem
that prevents these drivers installing, try again with VGA drivers'. so once I get to a boot up
with VGASafe, I'm stuck, the easiest way out is to go back to the installed cat drivers (if I got
there with F8) or a repair reinstall of XP (if I got there by uninstalling the existing cat drivers
and normal reboot) and only then can I install the updated drivers (if I'm lucky). Reinstalling the
AGP drivers for the MOBO doesn't help either, although some web pages seem to imply that's the deep
seated problem behind all this.

Anyone find a way out of this vicious circle that doesnt involve pain and suffering on a grand
scale? ATI drivers with a proper install that don't require a previous driver uninstall (so you can
then roll back if anything untoward happens) would be nice, but hey,that's ATI.

S

Did you uninstall the ATI drivers or remove them with the ATI Software
Uninstaller, S?

There are several different Windows Standard VGA drivers, and it seems
you need to have the correct one (not always the one Windows thinks is
correct, and not always the same one for different cards) running to
satisfy the ATI installer. I've always found that the best way to
make sure you get the right one is to uninstall all your ATI software
and drivers from Add/Remove Programs, uninstalling the display driver
last. Reboot and the right VGA driver should be in place. _Then_ run
the ATI Software Uninstaller (or cat-uninstaller.exe if you had
separate drivers installed) to clear the old stuff off your system.

Alternatively, you should be able to install the drivers manually.


patrickp

(e-mail address removed) - take five to email me

 

[TMack]

Right.

I have the cat3.7 drivers, which have been the most stable ATI offering for some time, but now I
hear that the 4.x ones are looking good, so thought Id give them a whirl.

Every time I uninstall the ATI driver, I get down to VGASafe drivers, which, from what I understand,
is what XP uses when it can find no other suitable drivers that will work without conflicts. Its
XP's way of saying 'You nearly ended up with a blank screen, but I just saved you, clever OS that I
am! .... um.... although you cant really fix the problem easily now, so you're prolly still in a
mess, its just that you get to look at the UI in 640x400 as well this way'.

I get this VGASafe 'feature' even If I tell XP to use VGA drivers at bootup (f8)

trouble is that ATI drivers refuse to install over VGASafe coming up with some 'there is a problem
that prevents these drivers installing, try again with VGA drivers'. so once I get to a boot up
with VGASafe, I'm stuck, the easiest way out is to go back to the

installed cat drivers (if I got

there with F8) or a repair reinstall of XP (if I got there by uninstalling the existing cat drivers
and normal reboot) and only then can I install the updated drivers (if I'm lucky). Reinstalling the
AGP drivers for the MOBO doesn't help either, although some web pages seem to imply that's the deep
seated problem behind all this.

Anyone find a way out of this vicious circle that doesnt involve pain and suffering on a grand
scale? ATI drivers with a proper install that don't require a previous driver uninstall (so you can
then roll back if anything untoward happens) would be nice, but hey,that's

ATI.

I had the same problem with Win2k. Until I installed the graphics card using
one of the the Win2k standard drivers I couln't get it to recognise my card
at all - just stayed with that damned vgasave. Try installing standard basic
WinXP VGA drivers such as S3 Virge using the 'update driver' option from
control panel/hardware/device manager. These should work OK and give you
basic 640x480 VGA screen to work with (you may get corrupted images during
bootup but the final windows screen should be OK). Then use the 'update
driver' option from control panel/hardware/device manager to install ATI
driver from inf file in folder where drivers are stored.

You can then install any other ATI driver over the ones that you have
installed. I have never bothered to uninstall CAT drivers - I just install
new over the old and have never had a problem. I have even installed old
over new without a problem.

Tony

 

[Asestar]

Of course, you can always install 4.xx drivers on top of 3.7's ! No problems
for me so far tough.

However, I like newest Omega drivers, as they enabled me to overclock
9600SE.

 

[Sham B]

hi Patrick

Did you uninstall the ATI drivers or remove them with the ATI Software
Uninstaller, S?

Uninstall. Whatever way I do it (including manual install), the new drivers dont seem to finish
unless I do it as part of anOS reinstall. I think I must have faulty/incorrect standard vga
drivers, so that must be why I keep going down to vgaSafe. I'll try to find a good set of VGA
drivers and retry.

thanks

S