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SEVERE Catalyst problem

Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 1:28 pm
by madhatter
hi mates

i would start with a recommendation: catalyst 10.8, Radeon HD 4650 and windows xp dont mix (and i dont feel like trying this out with windows 7 anymore)

installed 10.8 over 10.6 on my win xp x64 sp2 and got a fancy BSOD for my efforts
sheit happens i thought, pushed F8 and restored older config
reinstalled 10.8 and this time around i got 640x480 4bit mode after reboot
installed 10.7 and so far so good

next up i installed 10.8 on win xp sp3 and got 640x480 4bit again
at this point i was certain this was the worst FUBAR driver release ive ever seen
i tried to install 10.7 over it and nothing changed
10.6 (which was there in the beginning) also changed nothing
whats more, i got the message that there was no ATI product present
this almost convinced me that my radeon was broken, but i know thats bull now since its working fine under xp x64 with catalyst 10.7
i resorted to F8 again and restored last good config
seemed all healed at the user selection screen, but a few seconds after login the screen becomes a total grainy mess where everything but the mouse is rendered as colorful noise (in 1280x1024 though) and i cant do anything since im as good as blind
tried to get things right in safe mode, but catalyst absolutely refuses to be reinstalled or uninstalled in safe mode

im totally out of ideas
what do i do now?

Re: SEVERE Catalyst problem

Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:24 pm
by Major_A
Any time you install a new driver for your GPU (ATi, nVidia, Intel, AMD, SiS, etc...) you should always uninstall the on that is present first. In your case it sounds like there were remnants of an old driver causing problems. There is a free program out there to clean up traces left behind that I'd also recommend you use when you update your drivers.

Link to Driver Sweeper

Install new drivers in this order and see how it works.
1) Uninstall old drivers and restart.
2) Ignore/skip the found new hardware prompts. Run driver sweeper and restart if prompted.
3) Install new drivers and restart.
4) Should be good to go with the issues solved.

Try this and report back if you get the chance.

FYI, I'm running 10.8 in Windows XP SP3 x86 with a HD 5450 without incident.

Re: SEVERE Catalyst problem

Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2010 8:30 am
by madhatter
k, lookin good now
i removed ATI display drivers with driver sweeper in safe mode
then i could finally run windows normally and installed 10.7
control center wasnt working so i uninsntalled the whole package again and did another sweep after reboot
then i installed 10.6 just to be sure and it seems fine so far
think im done with this bull for a while...

thanks a lot

Re: SEVERE Catalyst problem

Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2010 9:20 am
by Major_A
Glad it's working again. Didn't bother checking to see if the 10.8 suite would work?

Re: SEVERE Catalyst problem

Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2010 9:45 am
by madhatter
hell naw, man
never did any silly workarounds when installing drivers before and had little to no issues
i did that with 10.8 on 2 OS (got 4 OS on this machine) and both almost went KO
i see this as a sign from the god of hardware that this offering doesnt please him
whats more, ive had it with drivers and reboots for a while
maybe ill be in a better mood when 10.9 comes out...