Radeon 9550 Extreme Edition, Advice needed

[unseenmortal]

I was supposed to use a NVIDIA Geforce FX5200, but i upgraded to ATI Radeon 9550 Extreme Edition, i uninstalled the drivers for NVIDIA, shut the computer down and replace it with my new ATI Video card, when i started up on windows xp again, the display drivers automatically installed my video card, now on my Device Manager, i could see two stuffs under the display adapters, "ATI RADEON 9600 Series" and "ATI RADEON 9600 Series Secondary", i tried to uninstall it again then installed the drivers that was on the drivers CD and reboot, but there's an error that says that ATI can't start because there were no files, something like that.. so i reboot again, the auto add hardware feature was there again all in automatic and there's those two stuffs under display adapters again.. Is that normal? or how would i solve if this isnt normal.. and there's also one thing, i felt uneasy, maybe i wasnt used to it, there's a vertical white line, like a ghost light line on the left side of my screen, i tried to move the screen from left to right using the options on the monitor but i cant get it out.. some advices for me? let me know.. tnx..

 

[mailpup]

Your graphic display might be messed up because you might have more than one driver installed. When you uninstalled the graphics driver, did you do so under Add/Remove Programs? When Windows wants to install its generic graphics driver after a restart, you should cancel it and install the new driver you intend to install. If you aren't given the opportunity to cancel the installation of the graphics driver after restarting, I don't think you actually uninstalled the old one. For example, if you tried to uninstall it through the Device Manager, that doesn't really get rid of the driver itself. It just disconnects it from the device. Upon rebooting it will just reinstall automatically. That's what it sounds like from your description of the process.

You see two display adapters in the Device Manager because the graphics card has two outputs at the back. You can potentially hook up two monitors. It's normal and that's how it's supposed to be.

 

[unseenmortal]

So are there any ways to fix this? i just uninstall thru the Device Manager not on the Add/Remove Programs. How could i get rid of the drivers and disable the automatic installation of generic graphics driver after a restart? Got tips? tnx..

 

[mailpup]

You really didn't uninstall the drivers when you went through Device Manager. The driver is still in the system and you only disconnected it. When you reboot, Windows automatically reinstalls it as you have seen.

This is the right way: Go to Add/Remove Programs and uninstall all the graphics drivers you find. Some recommend using a third party cleaner, such as Driver Cleaner, to be sure to get rid of all traces of the drivers. Restart and when it reboots, Windows will ask if you want to install a graphics driver. Cancel it. In this case Windows will not automatically reinstall a graphics driver because you actually uninstalled them this time. But you don't want Windows to install its generic driver. That's why you cancel it. Then run the new driver executable. Either double click it or go throught Start -> Run.

Just be careful of one thing. If you have a motherboard with Nvidia or ATI chipsets, don't uninstall any motherboard drivers by mistake.

 

[unseenmortal]

I got a ASUS P4GE-MX Motherboard, do you think it has Nvidia or ATI chipsets? Is the third party cleaner "Driver Cleaner" a safe one? So you mean the first thing that i should do is forget about the device manager, i should just go to add/remove programs, and uninstall the driver.. or use driver cleaner to get rid of all traces of the drivers then just reboot? so that means when its on the desktop again it wont automatically reinstall graphics driver?

I had a mistake, i used to have a nvidia geforce fx5200, what i did is just uninstall them on the device manager and didnt undergo uninstalling on add/remove programs, then i just installed the ati radeon 9550 driver, did that gave me a conflict? how could i fix that? tnx..

 

[unseenmortal]

i was able to do it, using driver cleaner.. but the name of the driver is the same as how it used to before i used mailpup's method.. maybe thats the driver for Radeon 9550 extreme edition.. btw, are there any softwares or websites that automatically checks my system and tells me that if i have the wrong driver for my hardware or something? tnx..

 

[mailpup]

I'm glad you got it working. Ordinarily, you first uninstall using Add/Remove Programs and then as an option use a cleaner to get rid of any remaining remnants. So far, I always just use the Add/Remove when I update my graphics driver. By the way, if you check the ATI website, you can find specific instructions how to uninstall and install ATI's drivers. Why bother? Because updating graphics drivers is a common maintenance item and you will likely do it again in the future.

The name of the ATI driver should be the same as before but the difference is that it is installed correctly now. If you install one graphics driver over the other like you did, yes, you can expect problems.

are there any softwares or websites that automatically checks my system and tells me that if i have the wrong driver for my hardware or something?

Actually, it's the Device Manager. It will show a yellow symbol next to any devices with driver problems.

 

[unseenmortal]

yeah i got that mailpup, it helped a lot. i'll go check the ATI website now for driver details, tnx...