I've searched and searched for this (along with pulling out my hair
trying to figure it out), but I can't find a solution.

The problem: I'm trying to install a new Radeon 9600SE in a homebuilt
computer. It's a 2.4 GHz P4 on a (rather crappy) ECS P4VXASD2+
motherboard, 512 MB RAM, running XP Home which was installed as of about
2 weeks ago. The video card is a GeForce 2 MX. Following the
instructions in the Radeon manual, I updated the VIA 4-in-1 drivers, then
uninstalled the GeForce's drivers (they were the most recent drivers on
Nvidia's site as of a week ago, but I don't know the version number),
then powered down to swap the cards.

The Radeon is not recognized as a Standard VGA device, or any variant
thereof (e.g., Standard PCI VGA) when XP boots up. It is recognized by
XP as two different components, a "Video Controller" and a "Video
Controller (VGA Compatible)". The Radeon drivers on the installation
disc refuse to install, showing two different dialog boxes. The first
says there has been an Inf error. The second states that I need to
install a standard VGA driver first.

As far as I can tell, this copy of XP has no Standard VGA driver. I
can't change to such a driver via the Device Manager. I can't select it
through the Add Hardware wizard. I can't get anything to happen. I've
tried Safe Mode. I've tried VGA Mode (from the F8 boot menu). I've
tried pointing the Add Hardware wizard to the Inf on the ATI CD--this
gets me one device recognized as a Radeon 9600SE, but leaves another
"Video Controller" and the system becomes grossly unstable and the ATI
driver installation still fails with the same Standard VGA driver needed
error. (As an aside, I always found it easy to force the Standard VGA
driver in Win98, but it just doesn't seem to exist here.)

If it helps, the driver that is apparently running these "Video
Controller" devices is called vgasave. Also, these devices show up in
"Other Devices," not as "Display Adapters."

I have not as yet downloaded the Catalyst 3.8 drivers (in large part,
because in my Google searches, I found people were encountering the same
problem with them, and finding no answer).

Two basic questions:

Is there a way to install these drivers without having a Standard VGA
driver?
Is there an .inf file or something somewhere in the Windows directory
which is the Standard VGA driver that I could force.

A lesser question, born of my frustration, is, Why the hell do the ATI
drivers care which generic XP driver is running the device before they
are installed? Why is "vgasave" so wrong, compared with this
non-existent Standard VGA driver.

Thanks for any help.



--
Steven Myers
The user's email address has automatically been obscured.
Send email to smyers at sign sonic dot net.