Goddamn Radeon Catalyst Drivers

[BasilisK]

Ok, I've hit a hundred tech forums on the net and no one can seem to help with this problem.

I'm having the infamous Catalyst driver crash problems a lot of you are probably familiar with. When playing games, the program with simply crash and return to the desktop. No freeze-up, no error messages, it just "blinks off". Java in web browsers also causes a browser crash. On occasion during gaming, rather than just crashing, the computer will just restart itself. Usually there are no error messages when it reboots, but on occasion when there is and I auto-send the report to Microsoft, it tells me the crash was caused by the video card drivers.

There are a hundred people in every tech forum who complain of the exact same problems with all Radeon cards, but no one ever seems to have an answer, other than "there are issues with the Catalyst drivers that cause this, there's nothing you can do about it".

I refuse to believe it's impossible to make the card function correctly. Have any of you found a fix for this? I'm sick of not being able to play games because they're just going to crash.

My specs:

Windows XP Home
2.6Ghz P4 chip
ECS 648FX-A board
1.5GB Patriot Cas-2 DDR
420W power supply and sufficient cooling (I know neither of these are the cause)

The card is a 9600XT 256DDR

I sure hope someone here has figured this one out, it's really pissing me off. R:TW is on the way, but I won't even bother buying it if I'm gonna crash every time I play it (as well as every other game I own).

to anyone who has the fix.

NOTE: I'm currently running Catalyst 4.7, and noticed ATI has released 4.9, but there's nothing in the release notes/fixes that even mentions the crash issue.

 

[BasilisK]

That's nice, the Catalyst 4.9 install is loaded with errors and doesn't even work.

EDIT: Fuck, it doesn't matter if I d/l 4.9, 4.8, whatever. I always get an error message at the beginning of installation and it cancels.

 

[hypocrisy86]

That sucks ass,
I never had problems with my 9700 Pro.. i have the 4.9 drivers and all the games run nicely, Doom 3 UT04, etc... you might have a bad card.... orrr.... try the older drivers, i know some people who had those problems and they switched to the older drivers and it fixed most of the problems..

 

[BasilisK]

I get some error at the beginning of installation of 4.9 (the older ones as well) and it cancels. I'm stuck. ARGH. I hate software. Why couldn't it be a hardware problem.....

 

[hypocrisy86]

Do you have any Nvidia stuff running
Sometimes they will mess up others drivers..
Also uninstall all the drivers etc and reinstall 4.9
You need the Catalyst Control center for 4.9+
Get it at ATI's site..

 

[BasilisK]

That's the problem I'm having. I CAN'T install new drivers. I've tried every one from 4.9 back to 3.10, every single installer crashes after giving me a registry error code (when I don't have any problems in the Windows Registry), 0x8004707, two or three times then another error "islayer.dll could not be found".

There's no nVidia ware on the disk, and I already tried uninstalling all ATI drivers (which caused me to have to use a system restore, because I can't install ANY drivers....)

This just sucks.

I'm wondering if that budget ECS board isn't coming back to haunt me. The BIOS are fully updated. It may just be a piece of shit. The GeForce card I had before this Radeon had the EXACT same problems. It's been this way ever since I build the system, so it may not even be a card issue.... But then again, I went around the tech boards again yesterday, and 50 million people are having this same problem with islayer.dll, registry error 0x8004707, and the installers, and of course no one has posted an answer.

Software can suck my ass..... *sigh*

 

[Karmic]

Might be the mobo. Dunno.

Have the latest drivers for it?
And may I say, when it froze/rebooted for me, and came back with the video card as the reason, it was my graphics card that was broken. The fan had stopped working. Dunno really, if it was the only factor.

 

[DE]

Use a driver cleaning program to thoroughly remove your current driver, then install the new version.

 

[hypocrisy86]

Wait we forgot bout something
Two other video card companies

1.XGI -V8 Duo Ultra dual GPU 16 pipelines
2.S3 graphics .

 

[BasilisK]

I've done all the driver cleaning, BIOS updates, Registry Mechanic (0x8004707 is a registry error code), etc, hasn't done a thing.

I was thinking today... I built a buddy of mine an EXACT replica of my system, with one exception: The motherboard. He's never had one problem, and mine has never worked right. My punishment for buying a crap-ass budget ECS mainboard.

I have an ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe in the mail, we'll just see if that fixes me up.

If you pray to your gods, throw one in for me!

 

[hypocrisy86]

I've done all the driver cleaning, BIOS updates, Registry Mechanic (0x8004707 is a registry error code), etc, hasn't done a thing.

I was thinking today... I built a buddy of mine an EXACT replica of my system, with one exception: The motherboard. He's never had one problem, and mine has never worked right. My punishment for buying a crap-ass budget ECS mainboard.

I have an ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe in the mail, we'll just see if that fixes me up.

If you pray to your gods, throw one in for me!

Good choice man,..
Except i'm getting an 925EX chipset in January, which has 1,066Mhz FSB
But yea... nice mobo choice..
Oh i'm getting the 3.73ghz 2mb cache cpu..

 

[DE]

Asus tickle my balls right good and proper make no mistake.

 

[DE]

Out of interest, why go P4 if you're buying in January? A64 will be nicely matured by then, with PCIe sexiness.

 

[BasilisK]

Asus tickle my balls right good and proper make no mistake.

A fine quote

From what I've read about that board, it's gonna be exactly what I need. I'm not going to upgrade the cpu or anything for a while. I just wanna get the damn thing running right.

 

[hypocrisy86]

Out of interest, why go P4 if you're buying in January? A64 will be nicely matured by then, with PCIe sexiness.

P4's will be full 64-bit when i actually get a pc.
I do lots of applications which from Anadtech reviews say Intel is good for..
I do like AMD and they are better for gaming but they don't have as much high of cache..

 

[DE]

P4's will be full 64-bit when i actually get a pc.
I do lots of applications which from Anadtech reviews say Intel is good for..
I do like AMD and they are better for gaming but they don't have as much high of cache..

P4s will never be 64bit Intel will make a 64bit CPU aimed at the desktop market, sure, but it won't be called a P4.

 

[hypocrisy86]

P4s will never be 64bit Intel will make a 64bit CPU aimed at the desktop market, sure, but it won't be called a P4.

Right now for your info the 3.6ghz 1mb is 64-bit but not enabled, just like the Extra 4 pipleines are disabled on the X800 Pro OEM's.
Look at the LGA775 chip and you'll see.

 

[Thanatos]

The GeForce card I had before this Radeon had the EXACT same problems. It's been this way ever since I build the system, so it may not even be a card issue....

There you go, Mr Dumbass