ATI 9600 Video card problems w/WINXP

Winxp tells me in my device manager that I have 2 video cards the exact same kind. Radeon 9600 and the next one listed is Secondary. I can't seem to get The Sims 2 to play on this system even though it tested out as being WAY over the specs. Also, it thinks there are 2 monitors here when there is not. It doesn't have onboard video either. It thinks I have one video card that is PCI and the other one is AGP. Plus when I try to disable the secondary, and uninstall it, windows says new hardware found "Secondary." I'm at a loss of what to do?!

 

make sure all drivers are up to date. the ati 9600 i have on the wifes machine shows primary and secondary also so i'm not positive but i do believe it should be that way.Hope it helps

 

Yea.. newest drivers... just frustrated. It also thinks I have 2 monitors too. Is that normal?

I just really want to know why The Sims2 goes all fuzzy screen on me after a few minutes of game play. It's bizarre.

 

it gets fuzzy after youve been playing for a few minutes? only sims2 or all games?

 

Haven't tried anything else. Just tried this game. It's a whole "new" to me system. So I'm hoping perhaps its just the game? I'm not really sure. The install was totally fine though, and I uinstalled and reinstalled it. So I thought perhaps it wasn't the game, that the video card was flipping out on me.

 

could be a heat issue with the card . could try to open the case and set a fan blowing right on the video card see if it goes longer without getting fuzzy

 

well by fuzzy i meant.. like what you would see on a tv where you don't get that channel? I meant like actual lines on the screen. Fuzzy snowy... etc.. its unplayable watchable.. forced to reboot.

 

the read on the secondary card is nornal i do believe, but i dont know about the monitor

 

windows xp detecting ati radeon 9600 with two monitors is normal just update your drivers and see if that helps in getting sims 2 to work.

 

My drivers are dated 9/2005

Shouldn't these be the latest?

 

try looking in your bios and see if your video is set to pci or agp ive seen on some boards that if you install a agp card and the bios is set to pci it will show 2 cards hope this helps

 

You may also need to check and make sure the card is seated right when it does it again shut down and check and see if the card is hot to the touch
hope this helps

 

Checked the BIOS it is set for AGP... and I have fans all over the place in my case so it isn't hot to the touch. I am thinking I either need to reinstall xp or get a new video card.

 

If going to get a new card get an nvidia geforce video card (i've got an geforce fx 5700 le) and windows doesn't show two monitors with it.

 

Well, too bad we can't decide what the problem is. Going to go ahead and reinstall windows xp this upcoming weekend. If STILL a problem.. then I'll get the nvidia card just mentioned.

 

best bet is just to reinstall the video card driver =P make sure you completely uninstall that old one(s) whatever tho