resolution going nuts

philly5118philly5118
edited July 2004 in Hardware
i restart my comp after installing AVG virus software and my resolution is at 600x480 and at 4 bit. i cannt change it. go to the display options and it still has the ooptions listed that i normally can go to, but it will attempt then come back to where it was.

its really pissing me off. i hope someone can help. i had a problem before and it couldnt find my ATI driver and i ended up having to do all this **** to get it back and reinstalling or updaing a catalyst. or something.

i know when i turned on the comp it gave me some message like it couldnt load drivers or something

PLEASE SOMEONE HELP! i alrady ran virus detection, and nothing came up

PLEASEEE

thanks

Comments

  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited April 2004
    Just so you guys know, he IMed me last night because something screwed up his drivers initially, and I had him install mobilemod and the cat 4.3s. I guess today they went nuts again, so I had him install AVG to check for viruses. Since it didn't find any, I'm thinking one of 3 things is the problem:

    -Corrupt windows install
    -Bad RAM
    -Bad HDD
  • philly5118philly5118
    edited April 2004
    yea dude, thanks again for that yesterday, ah i hope someone knows what the prob is!! :(
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2004
    What does Device Manager say for Display Adapters and Monitor?

    Include driver version and date.

    BTW - what you describe sounds like you could be stuck in safe mode - is that possible? Also, do you use System Restore? A recent restore point might bail you out.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    Geeky1 wrote:
    Just so you guys know, he IMed me last night because something screwed up his drivers initially, and I had him install mobilemod and the cat 4.3s. I guess today they went nuts again, so I had him install AVG to check for viruses. Since it didn't find any, I'm thinking one of 3 things is the problem:

    -Corrupt windows install
    -Bad RAM
    -Bad HDD

    AND\OR:

    Video card came a tib unseated.

    Monitor cable is bad or not connected tightly at computer end, or corroded connector, or bent control pin(s) on cable connector that goes to computer port for card.

    Video card overheating, possibly fan failure on video card HS, if any.
    See if fan is spinning on video card, use a flashlight and look, with case open and computer on. May need a flexing auto repair inspection mirror on a rod, or a dentist's mirror to inspect fan-- I carry a dentist's mirror (cheap one from a flea market) on a handle in my field kit. If not, fast card's GPU will go nuts a short time after booting, but after being off for a long time will work for a short time (maybe up to an hour to an hour and a half depending on how cool case is and how hot things are in case). When card exhibits problems, XP will drop res and color levels to compensate. LOOK AT fan power connection if off, see if loose or disconnected.

    AGP bus OC'd beyond what card RAM and\or GPU can take without overheating. Try locking it in BIOS to base rate for that card (If agp, try 66 MHz for bus rate which probably will force it to AGP 4 but have a chance of it working for now at slower rate.).

    BIOS set to bad voltage value for card, or BIOS set to run PCI first instead of AGP, card will be run at slow rates if so possibly (seen many boxes do that).

    Yeah, knowing what card this is would help, cleaning dust off of the computer innards carefully and with ESD safety used might also help as far as hardware goes.

    COMBOs of the above will also do this, have run into many combo faults including these things.

    John D.
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited April 2004
    John, he and I forgot to mention- it's an Emachines Laptop with the IGP320, so it's not likely overclocking-related :)
  • bicnarokbicnarok
    edited June 2004
    Check that there´s a IRQ allocated to VGA in your BIOS
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    I recommend using the Catalyst 4.6 for mobile chipsets, located at ATI's website:
    http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/winxp/igp-xp.html?type=xp&prodType=igp&prod=IGPXPdriver&submit.x=18&submit.y=6
  • MedlockMedlock Miramar, Florida Member
    edited June 2004
    Geeky1 wrote:
    Just so you guys know, he IMed me last night because something screwed up his drivers initially, and I had him install mobilemod and the cat 4.3s. I guess today they went nuts again, so I had him install AVG to check for viruses. Since it didn't find any, I'm thinking one of 3 things is the problem:

    -Corrupt windows install
    -Bad RAM
    -Bad HDD
    Run Memtest.
    Check your HD with something... I think chkdsk will work. I dunno cause I never use it.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    Geeky1 wrote:
    John, he and I forgot to mention- it's an Emachines Laptop with the IGP320, so it's not likely overclocking-related :)

    Ok, one possibility down-- good, as I use a process of elimination most often to isolate. Since this is an ATI, one of the things that come to mind is that ATI has this tendency to distribute OEM DirectX, tuned to the device that is in plae when the original CD is installed. If a recovery is made that does nto include the original driver set first, with the custom DirectX, sometimes these cards break in strange ways. I suspect that this may partially apply to Mobile chipsets also, and Mobile chipsets also use a BUNCH of main system RAM if not adapted to cards with onboard memory. So, you can have strange things happen where apps get pended when the embedded chip drivers want more buffer space in main RAM, and this can include a game with parts pended, or any high-media app also.

    RAM settings, slow speed speced RAM, and RAM amount can have real strange interactive effects with embedded graphics chips as the embedded chips have limited GRAM speed buffers in them. Partially this is due to GPU chip demands for buffering and partly this is due to design and system load factors. It is more likely for the app to end up hung or pended\swapped to HD\paged to pagefile.sys on HD than for the drivers to break first, with an embedded chip.

    Visually, the effect is the same with both a driver break and an app break, except that with an app pend and resume to active RAM, you can get zero other errors asd Windows is doing what it is programmed to do when RAM load gets tight. If Widnows encounters a very high video and limited available RAM situation, what is most likely with an embedded chip is to have a no-error hang due to an app pend or multiple pended threads within an app for a multithreading game. The fix is more and faster RAM in this case. A limited RAM card can get similar things, and that is one reason why for older and newer boxes, gaming wants more real main system RAM for high media apps than for business apps that are not high media and why games run exclusively on a box allow for faster gaming.

    If you are getting stop errors in XP or 2000, look at hardware first, and then for apps that break RAM access rules, including drivers that do so. If you get zero error hangs, look at software first, and then drivers and software, is the rule I use. Typically, using that base rule, I can zero in on problems a lot faster than with always applying drivers to latest first. Laptops also hang more with high media and high res and high or true color simply becasue of video driver buffer needs overruling app run effectiveness, but problem is main system RAM resources and speed of RAM more often than drivers with embedded chip video.

    I realize that the problem here is not a laptop, but same problem appears with embedded video chips on value grade boxes. RAM is limited, typically slower than on a high end box. I used the laptop because things can get more extreme there, and have similar effects to what is happening with games on any value box whether or not it is a desktop, mid-tower, mini-tower, or a laptop.

    ATI also throws in a lot of extras, like the links on Taskbar that link to apps that are more often than not running in standby (pended) or actively monitoring and partly loaded. Killing off the start-on-Windows-start will help some also, to make a machine more stable with high-media apps running as the freeup of not running too much as implicit base load apps that could be partly always on or fully on can toss a PC over the resource limit brink.

    This could be the bundle of straws that (when loaded onto camel all at once) together combine to break the camel's back situation, not a pure driver-most-often-faulty situation or a one bad game app situation. Test to see if this is resource loading surge problem, is to kill off or disable as experiment thing anything not critical to video, audio, and system security, see if same app breaks a lot less often. I use msconfig in 98, 98SE, Me, and XP to do this, as you can switch things off and then back on using msconfig-- I use msconfig generically here, XP has a more recent version of this than does Me, for example.

    Cliff's form of lesson: With embedded video, I tune first, then, look at ddrivers and DirectX, with a card video with lots of RAM available on card, I look at drivers first.
  • RikardosRikardos Bristol
    edited July 2004
    I am getting exactly the same problem for my computer - it works fine apart from the resolution, which sticks at 640 x 480 and in 4-colour bit mode. God knows if anything's changed in it (not to my knowledge) but it says that I can't access the ATI control panel due to a problem with the drivers. I've reinstalled the latest catalyst drivers (which were working fine for about a month before) and DirectX 9.0b but the same thing keeps going on.

    When I go into dxdiag the Direct3d acceleration tab is greyed out so I can't change it.

    Specs:
    1GB DDR3200 RAM
    Athlon XP 2800+ processor
    120GB Hard drive
    Radeon 9700 pro
    Audigy 2 Platinum Pro
    Asus A7N8X motherboard

    If anyone can find out a solution to this I would be very appreciative!
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited July 2004
    Rikardos wrote:
    I am getting exactly the same problem for my computer...
    Have you tried using the driver removal tool for ATi and then reinstalling the drivers? :)
  • SqueakSqueak School: Seaside Ca; Home: Victorville Ca
    edited July 2004
    For one until recently ATI has been very lazy with their drivers, so keep removing and updating the drivers, but if you had any anti-virus software running during the install of the catalyst drivers, that could have caused the error you are experiencing. ATI cards really dont like alot of anti-virus software, why I dont know but its like a bad ex :) Try uninstalling your anti-virus software and reinstalling the drivers.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    For one until recently ATI has been very lazy with their drivers
    Until about two years ago.
  • SimGuySimGuy Ottawa, Canada
    edited July 2004
    Catalyst still has teething pains, even though we're well into Series 4 (Hint: OGL performance & VPU Recovery). :)

    If a fresh Windows install & the latest IGP Catalyst drivers don't solve the problem, you've got a hardware malfunction or conflict somewhere.

    I take it you've all ran through the Foolproof method of removing ATI's Catalyst drivers (I just upgraded from the 3.7's to the 4.7's tonight and used this method to ensure the cleanest upgrade to the new Catalysts).

    Is this an M5305 E-Machines laptop by chance?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    SimGuy, I stand corrected. Good advice. And yes, come to think of it, VPU Recovery did cause me a major problem one day. But apart from that, in my last ATI card installations - ATI, Sapphire, and PowerColor 9500P/9700Pro softmods, 9700Pro, 8500LEs, 9600SE, and 9800SE, I've encountered no other problems to my knowledge with Catalyst drivers.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    It's weird, because despite all the problems that a preponderance of people seem to have. I never had them.

    OpenGL works wonderfully, temporal AA works great, I have no problems with VPU recover..
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    Thrax wrote:
    It's weird, because despite all the problems that a preponderance of people seem to have. I never had them.
    OpenGL works wonderfully, temporal AA works great, I have no problems with VPU recover..

    Come to think of it, the only problem I had with VPU was that I did not enable it after installing a new card in an upgraded machine.
  • SimGuySimGuy Ottawa, Canada
    edited July 2004
    Yes, ATI's OpenGL implementation may work wonderfully and reliably and perform well, but it's still not as fast as NVidia's OGL implementation (they simply have a better driver for it, hence why you'll see NVidia cards perform better than their ATI counterparts in OGL titles).

    AFAIK, ATI is rewriting their entire OGL driver from scratch and should be shipping it with a future version of the Catalyst series that may debut around August 3, 2004, but that hasn't been confirmed yet by any official parties.

    Temporal AA rox so far, but I wish they would release the new ATI Catalyst Control Centre already! :)

    But I digress...
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