Hello
I've been having major problems with my computer. I've uninstalled the latest ATi drivers from my computer running Windows XP and the card being ATi Radeon 9600 Atlantis 128mb. I uninstalled the latest drivers because the new ones made the game I play most (Soldier of Fortune 2) freeze the computer. I mean totally, no response from nothing. Only thing you could do was reboot. So anyway, I uninstalled the latest drivers, but I couldn't install the older one over it. I was advised by someone to uninstall the ATi software, like the ATi control panel. Now whenever I start the computer, it boots normally, and everything is fine UNTIL XP starts booting. I see the Loading screen for XP,but when the desktop should be starting up, the monitor does not show any image. It's on, and doesn't go into stand-by, but it stays black. I hear the machine loading the program, and I hear the pop sound for "new device found", but how the hell am I going to install it without visual help! I have tried my other 2 gfx-cards. The ATi 9200, which doesn't work, since it uses the same drivers, and the nVidia TNT2, which doesn't work because it still uses SD-RAM.
What am I to do ;'O
I miss being able to browse the forums whenever I want, I miss watching movies on my computer, I miss my mp3 collection and most of all I miss playing sof2!
please help me, you are my only hope.
I want my no-life back :(
When you first boot up the computer, and just before Windows starts to load in, try tapping the "F8'" key ,which usually will give you a boot-up menu.Ã, One of the options should be "Safe Mode".Ã, Use the Arrow-Keys (Up / Down) to move to HighLight the "Safe Mode" option, then press Enter key. After Windows XP loads into Safe Mode, it may ask you if you want to continue with safe mode or select "No" to attempt a System Restore.Ã, Ã,Â
Try to attempt a System Restore. Choose a previous date to when you know your computer was still working good (before you started playing around with installing the new drivers and such).
Then, let Windoze do it's thing, it will restart, let it load normally, and if everything worked correctly, after Windows loads back in and you get returned back to the desktop, the computer may seem to pause for a moment at first, but don't worry, it's just doing some system checking stuff... then, you (Hopefully) will receive a message that the system restore was successful.
If that does not work, then there are other options. You may try booting into safe-mode again (choosing safe-mode this time unless you wanted to try a different System Restore checkpoint), and then try either Rolling Back the drivers (One way is to Right-click on the "My Computer" icon, then select "Properties", "Hardware", "Device Manager", then navigate to "Display Adaptors" open up that list and Right-Click on your "Display Adaptor" name, then "Properties", then "Drivers", then "Rollback Drivers". Then "OK" everything and reboot.Ã, Ã, Whew!
If still not work, try booting into safe-mode again and try UnInstalling the graphic-drivers, then Install the Grapic Drivers you want to use. Reboot.
Hope somthing of that helps.
I'm sorry. That didn't help. I've tried that all. VGA mode, safe mode, restoring... NOTHING. it would seem XP doesn't see me being blind as a problem at all. :/
Thanks for the advice though
Can you get into safe mode at all?
If so, from the Device Manager, you might try to Uninstall your graphics-adaptor device, then upon a new reboot, window's Plug and Play may "Detect new hardware" and then go through installing it automatically, or if not, you can boot once again to safe mode and try:
From the "Control Panal", open up the "Add Hardware" wizard.
Click the "Next" button. Then select "Yes, I already connected the hardware" and "Next", then "Add a new hardware device" on the list (probably at the bottom of list), and "Next", then you can either "Install the hardware that I manually select from a list", then select your graphics-adaptor and specifiy the location of the drivers to install.
If still not work, then... as a last resort, it possible you may be able to Repair Install in an attempt to fix any corrupt/missing drivers and such. Be sure to have all of your important files backed up if possible, as reinstalling Windows over itself is not always guarantee it will work or you may lose some of your files.
If going this route, then put the Windows XP installation CD in the CD drive, then boot up the computer. For detailed instructions of how to do a Repair Install, Click Here. (http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm#How%20to%20Repair%20Windows%20XP%20by%20Installing%20Over%20top%20of%20Existing%20Setup:)
If a Repair Installation is successful, then you may have functionalty restored again and managed to have all of your files still intact (hopefully).
You could remove the harddrive, put it into another comp, install the drivers, and then put it back in the one with no graphics. It would be a last resort if all else fails.
Well, that could be an option for people with money! my current balance in cash is 15 cent, which is 3 times of what I had yesterday. I'm trying to find a way around the problem, I will post if I need more help at the moment.
Also, Barbarian, I don't get any visual even in Safemode. I'm considering putting the repair-disc in, but it messed things and settings up for me, and I need to install all programs again, sure they're still on the HDD, but they're not installed. I've done it once this month already, because some .dll was missing from windows and it didn't boot, but it's not related to this in any way...
A couple of more links that may be of some help? (One guy with same problem was able to blindly enter "Standby" mode, then exit standby mode and got visibility back.)
http://forums.devhardware.com/archive/t-19072
http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4273.html
ATI "Support" pages suggest you may need drivers for your Moterboard/Chipset as well?
http://www.ati.com/support/faq/agpchipsetdrivers.html
or.. possibly changing some CMOS settings settings (be careful though, could mess up the system if doing something wrong):
http://www.ati.com/support/faq/cmosagp.html
Ã, Ã, Looks like an annoying problem to try and fix. You might consider investing in a new graphics-card that is of a different manufacturer that is compatible with your system.
I know you said you're broke, so... you might need to wait till you can afford it. Don't know what else to suggest to you. Good luck.
PS: One last thought (aside from trying the Repair Install attempt), is the graphics card like for a PCI slot? If you had a spare "open slot" that your graphics card could fit into, power everything down, then change over the graphics card to the new slot, then boot up and see if Windows "Plug 'n Pray" works and recognizes the card in the new slot to give you enough functionality to install your original drivers for that card.
hmm, does your graphics card have TV-Out by any chance?
also, now i dunno if this will work, but you could try using a Win95/98/ME startup disk (floppy) and then using it to totally delete your graphics card drivers, this may force XP into thinking that you just have a bog standard VGA card (or make it worse)...
also, if your monitor has an on screen display, try making sure that the brightness and contrast are turned up, i don't think windows can change your actual monitor's settings, but you could try it, it could just be a problem with your monitor rather than your pc...
Not sure if this will be relevant or not, but you never know. My computer recently went belly-up (but we've got a nice new one now ;D). It froze up while I was doing some random surfing, and when I rebooted it, I couldn't get it to load windows, not even in safe mode. It kept giving messages that there wasn't enough memory or it couldn't find certain dll files to load windows. It turned out that the motherboard was pretty fried, but then the computer was getting kinda old. So maybe you might want to check out that angle?
Yes. I've tried most of these things... Well all that are possible. I managed to boot it into safe-mode with my old nVidia Geforce 4200 today, however, I found no traces of ATi whatsoever on the machine, and it still wont boot into XP, even with this card. My dad is taking it to be repaired tomorrow, since I still have a warranty on it. You'll be seeing me less around here, but I hope they fix it soon :'(
well, let's just hope "repaired" doesn't mean "reformat"
Quote from: BOYD1981 on Thu 28/10/2004 18:09:50
well, let's just hope "repaired" doesn't mean "reformat"
Indeed we do. And not only that, but that if they reformat it they'll reformat the RIGHT drive. See I have Windows on D: