OT: Need XP Pro Help badly!

[calimus@techography.net (calimus@techography.net)]

Jeff,

Ok, here is the bad news.  ATI Radeon cards and WinXP do not play=
 together at all.  There is an Experimental driver floating out=
 on the net somewhere, I used it once and it worked.  Figuring=
 that ATI would get their collective asses in gear and fix this=
 problem, I didn't keep a copy of the driver which is way out of=
 my Geek Charactor.

So basicly, unless you can find the experimental driver that used=
 to be offered right from ATI's site, you are basicly screwed.  I=
 would reccomend 2 things to solve your problem.

1. You want to keep the ATI card, dump Xp and use Win2k, it's=
 that simple.  All Xp is, is Win2K with a Tonka Toy interface=
 anyway.  Sure there are a few neat features, but nothing that=
 would make me switch.

2.  Dump the ATI card and go pick-up a Nvidia GeForce 4 440 Ti or=
 better.  I can tell you now that you won't dislike the Nvidia=
 cards and they have a bit better hardware support for OpenGL=
 anyway.

If there are any other questions you have, I'd be more then happy=
 to try and answer them.  Oh, before I forget, rather then blow=
 the whole drive away to get the ATI vid card settings out, Do=
 this, is works, boot into safe mode and remove the card from the=
 device manager.  This will save you some time if you dump the=
 card and keep XP.

William


At 03:43 PM 12/22/02 -0800, Jeff Toomasson wrote:

>I've been trying to load up the drivers for my video card (ATI=
 Radeon 
>7500) after wiping the HD clean loading up XP Pro and it hangs=
 during 
>restart while it's supposedly running "system testing"=
 (according to the 
>ATI install program). The XP Pro logo comes on and the little=
 status 
>indicator freezes on its third pass.
>
>I've tried going through ATI's tech support but not really=
 finding 
>anything there. I haven't tried MSN yet, but that's my next=
 stop
>
>The card came with the PC when I got it from the guy who bought=
 my M3. 
>He's actually a tech there and this card could be a beta (could=
 explain 
>why the device manager cannot ID it.)
>
>Another kick in the stomach is that he also gave me an AIW 32MB=
 card but I 
>just noticed that it doesn't have the normal 16-pin interface=
 port that 
>older cards have so I can't test it with that one...
>
>I'm running a Sony VAIO 1.3GHz P4 with 256MB RAM so there=
 shouldn't be any 
>problems there.
>
>Any help would be greatly appreciated!
>
>Thanks, Jeff
>
>
>
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