Radeon Mobility X600 driver trouble

I have this thread in the software forum, but it's going nowhere so I thought I'd post it here.... it's more of a driver thing. Here's the deal: WinXP MCE, Hp zd8000 laptop, Radeon mobility x600 video. When the PC is booted in normal mode, the resolution can't be changed to over 640x480. If I try to go to 800x600, the screen goes black, and never comes back; I have to reboot in safe mode, uninstall the driver, reboot in normal mode. The only way to get any type of video 'stability' is to disable the video adapter in the device manager, so Windows is forced to use its 'generic' driver and is therefore stuck at 640x480. If I uninstall the driver, and try to re-install it, it loads all the files, but right at the end I get the message 'cannot finish installing new hardware. cannot find the specified file.' I uninstalled all the ATI listings from Add/Remove programs, but ATI Display Driver is still listed. When I try to uninstall it, I get the error 'Application Error. Access Denied' most of the time. Other times, it appears to uninstall, asks me to reboot, and upon rebooting, it's still listed in Add Remove Programs. And sometimes (not always) it has the yellow '!' in the device manager. I know this is a long post, but I wanted to include everything that's happening. If I missed something, here's the thread from the software forum: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=122640
HELP!

hopperdave2000

Oh yeah- there's also a printer driver issue: everytime the PC is booted up, or thumb drive/USB external drive, or a CD is loaded, the printer driver goes thru the install process. There's 2 users on this laptop, the video problem apples to both users, the printer problem just one user. The printer problem is the least of my worries at this point.

 

I just now tried to uninstall ATI Display Driver from Add/Remove Programs again, and got a different error: "ATI Uninstall. Error Initializing".....
Anybody?

 

Another update: After removing the ATI display adapter from the device manager in safe mode, I booted to normal mode. WinXP picked it up and tried to install it. This time it errored out with "Cannot install the hardware. The service database is locked." This is the first time I've seen this one....
I'd like to be able to boot into normal without Windows trying to automatically install the driver. I'd like to be prompted for the location of the driver, like it's supposed to do. The left-overs of the ATI driver that haven't been removed are causing this problem (I'm pretty sure), and I can't seem to get the last few bits of the driver totally removed.... Well, I tried to run the ATI setup.exe, and it gets about 98% thru the install, then stops and errors out to this messgae "Could not install driver. Try to setup your display adapter with a standard VGA driver first". Again, another error I've never seen or even heard of....

 

Dang Hopperdave, I can't find anything that might help you. I would lean towards a hardware problem with the video. The only thing I can think of would be to try a Linux LiveCD and see if you can get the resolution set up right, to possibly eliminate a hardware problem.

Good luck, and when you find out what is wrong with it, I want to know!

E

 

As far as I can tell, it's a hardware problem. I've spent the better part of 2 days on this thing, and I'm admitting defeat. I can't do an OS reload 'cuz it's Media Center XP, and I don't have a MCE install CD. I know it's basically an 'enhanced' XP Pro SP2, but I can't use that either due to the product key being a MCE key. So........ I've finally just disabled the display adapter in the device manager; that way I at least get 800x600 with 16bit color using XP's 'generic' video driver. The thing is, if someone tries to change the resolution or color depth, the PC essentially crashes, requiring a safe mode reboot to disable the display adapter again. At least it's usable now- it started out with a dying HD, and completely jacked up OS and drivers (esp. the WLAN), so I guess I did make a bit of progress; and didn't lose one bit of data! I just hate it when I've been beat! :banghead

hopperdave2000

If anyone else has any ideas, feel free to post 'em!

 

I can't give you a direct link but try this, go here http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894

Mobility Radeon Support > click on Mobility Radeon X600 > then select # 4 (737-1447: CATALYST - ATI Maintenance Utilities) and run the cat-uninstaller.exe

Steve

 

Thanx for the link, I'll give it a shot. I checked the ATI site, but apparently didn't look in the right places.... thanx again Matacumbie

 

I hear that, they seem to make it very difficult to find things.

Steve