just wondering?

[raftero]

background- i did a fresh install of xp-pro, no problems, i then installed the latest ATI video drivers ( 8500 card) which worked fine until i changed the screen resolution to 1280-1024 it failed and got the screen with a whole page of it failed etc. tried an older version same story, went back to the one xp installed and everything worked,screen resolution took , works good and no problems BUT why did this happen? on the previous install i had used the latest driver with no problem. evidently something happened when i installed this time but i don't know what.

[Hobbes80]

have you installed all the windows service packs yet?

[raftero]

yep , sp2 and all up to date. no virus, trojans or spy ware detected either.

[Hobbes80]

were you running SP2 before the rebuild?

[GaryRouth]

I think Hobbes was asking about the timing of the updates as well.

Here's why: the latest version of the ATi Catalyst drivers require that at least Service Pack 1 be already installed. So if you put the newest drivers in immediately after the XP reinstall (if SP2 wasn't "slip-streamed" in already), then the drivers might have acted up.

Now that you have SP2 in, you could try completely removing all ATi drivers, switch to the Standard VGA, then try the latest Catalyst drivers again.

Or - just use the builtin = they're pretty good. They just don't have all the bells and whistles in the "Advanced" settings that the regular Catalyst drivers have.
. . . Gary

[glc]

Also make sure you have the correct monitor definition. Default Monitor doesn't cut it, it needs to be Plug and Play or specific so it won't try to set itself outside its capabilities.

[Hobbes80]

also thinking that sp2 may be incompatible with some of the fun stuff with ATI... all those tools did crazy stuff on my box with sp2 they worked, but some stuff just didn't look right.

[raftero]

well just got back, the sp2 and updates were installed prior to driver,and they also in place on the previous install. glc i think it's p&p but i'll check, and yes gary the built in seems to work pretty well, i just like to use latest, kind of a thing with me (on drivers).

[raftero]

thought the download might have been bad so downloaded it again , the monitor was p&p ati 8500 so that seemed to be ok and still did the same thing, now i cant remove ATI
driver in add remove says error initializing, i reverted back to driver 6.14.10.6462 3/23/2004 and everything works so i'll leave well enough alone i guess for now, would like to get rid of the driver in add-remove though.

[raftero]

took a deep seat and a far away look and went into reg. and deleted it and it worked. i am not too secure in the reg. but what the heck it worked, no more ATI driver in add remove and it didn't ruin the computer.

[glc]

I'm still using the 4.2 Catalyst drivers on my Radeon 7200 - they work fine, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you aren't gaming, there's really no reason to keep up with video driver updates as long as what you have works fine. The only reason I even have 4.2's is my drivers corrupted and I was getting a lot of flashing and screen jumping - and I figured if I had to reinstall them anyway, I'd install the latest at that time.

[raftero]

i'm no gamer, and i will take our advice glc thanks a lot.