Hutch

Yes, but since installing SP3 I have lost connection with my laptop and am still trying to restore it. Thanks for reminding me - I had forgotten about the list of Advanced Startup options Yes, this where I obtained an alternative set of drivers from.

No, I have never ever uninstalled the onboard video drivers whenever I have retrofitted a video card, not in this case or previously. When I originally fitted the Radeon 9250 a year ago I didn't uninstall the VGA drivers and it was running perfectly up until the moment when the hard drive died a couple of weeks ago. Again, I have never done this previously. The only time I have uninstalled a video card driver is when I have updated to another driver. Yes, but without success. The ATI installer package only appears to want to install the whole CCC suite. Whenever I try to run the setup for just the drivers, I get a 'Severe' error message that says: "Setup did not find a driver compatible with your current hardware or operating system." And this is from the disk supplied with the video card!

I'd have to try and rig an external USB LAN to access the internet, and the system is so unstable now that I doubt it would work.

I've already previously tried these without success. Even I'm beginning to wonder if it's the card now, although the Windows error messages suggest otherwise.

Between involuntary shutdowns, I've managed to copy the Hardware IDs for the Display Adaptor: PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5960&SUBSYS_59601002&REV_01 PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5960&SUBSYS_59601002 PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5960&CC_030000 PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5960&CC_0300 I'm mildly curious about the PCI prefixes as this is an AGP card.

I've just finished installing SP3 and have refitted the video card. Curiously, the Hardware Update Wizard didn't appear this time when the pc was first rebooted but seems to have automatically installed Window's own Radeon 9200 PRO Family driver. Unfortunately it's once again doing exactly the same as before - corrupted and unstable graphics, the display going blank and the computer shutting down. If anything, it's now even more unstable than before. I then attempted to update the driver to Radeon's own from the video card's disk, rebooted again and it's started-up in Safe Mode. There's an Invalid Display Settings warning that says: "The currently selected graphics display driver can not be used. It was written for a previous version of Windows and is no longer compatible with this version of Windows. The system has been started using the default VGA driver." Once again the problem seems to be caused by the driver, not the video card itself. Has installing SP3 now made the situation worse???

Thanks again! I'm just in the throes of loading SP3 now, then I'll refit the video card.

OK, thanks for that. I've just downloaded SP3 and am installing it even as I speak. Regarding the instability, I'm pretty sure that the original OS wasn't even SP2, let alone SP3, and yet the video card installed and ran without issues a year ago. When I obtained the computer s/h a year ago, after first installing the video card I then loaded SP2 because the pc didn't have USB2.

I'm just waiting for the download of Service Pack 3 to complete then I'll install it and refit the video card. Then I'll be able to let you know about the Device ID. The only anomaly I had encountered whilst previously attempting to install the video card was a warning about the driver being unsigned, but this is nothing out of the ordinary so I went ahead and overrode the caution. Besides, this occurred when originally installing the software for the video card and all went OK back then.

Hi, thanks for your input. No, I've checked the BIOS and there is no option for the OS.

Two steps forward and one step back . . . . I duly refitted the video card yesterday and powered-up, and was instantly right back where I was a few days ago: corrupted and unstable graphics. Once again, following the system crashing, the MS error message blamed the instability on the Radeon 9250 driver (rather than the device itself). I removed the video card once more today, rebooted and all was well again - but only after reinstalling the SiS VGA drivers. This puzzles me somewhat as I can't think of any reason for the drivers becoming uninstalled - I wouldn't have thought the Radeon 9250 video card drivers would have replaced the SiS VGA drivers. So what do I do next??? I have just reinstalled Service Pack 2 which, from memory, includes drivers for the Radeon 9250. I suppose I could refit the video card once again(!) and try installing the relevant drivers from Windows XP SP2.

OK, I've successfully performed a Windows XP Repair, and reinstalled the SiS VGA drivers again. But this time the video performs exactly as it should do! Dragging objects across the screen is performed smoothly and with complete stability. I suspect that the VGA drivers hadn't correctly installed during previous attempts. Next I will try refitting/reinstalling the video card and will report back with the outcome. Thanks for your patience and perseverence!

Yes I have, but I'm going to try again (without video card installed)

The computer has 2Gb of DDR333 RAM. I have removed both memory modules and cleaned their contacts. I have replaced one module and rebooted in VGA mode. There was no difference either way (neither better nor worse) to the video performance - still jerky. I removed the first module and reinserted the second module and rebooted in VGA mode. Same result as before. The only thing I haven't tried is to swap the memory modules between their respective sockets.

I have removed the video card from the pc, enabled VGA Mode on startup and, yes, it does boot without any problems. The graphics are still very slow and jerky when dragging an onscreen object but otherwise appear to be reasonably stable. Prior to originally installing the video card about a year or so ago, video performance was a lot smoother than it is now. I only added the video card when I decided I wanted to run Photoshop on the machine. So I'm guessing something's not quite right with the VGA driver now.