DainBramaged
January 23rd, 2004, 02:58 AM
Some specs quick.
I have a Dell Dimension 8300 desktop with an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (128 MB) video card. I have all the most recent driver releases and firmware for the hardware in the system, including the system BIOS. I have not cracked the case yet, as I have felt no need to tinker or upgrade.
The problem.
I've been unable to successfully install any ATI Catalyst driver release since 3.9--this includes not only the official ATI Catalyst release, but the Dell-branded drivers as well. During the display driver portion of the install, I receive a "zero display service error" at the end without fail. The rest of the installer completes and prompts me to reboot my system. After this, I can work with windows freely and seemingly without problems. The ATI Options tab indicates that the driver has been updated to 4.1.
However, looking at the SMARTGART tab, it has autodetected a suggested AGP bus speed for the card of zero, or off. If I retest the setting, I still get zero. If I manually switch the setting and reboot, it again autodetects as zero. With releases < 3.9, this tab has indicated that the optimal bus speed that the Radeon should operate at is 4x.
There is a utility to uninstall the SMARTGART portion of the Control Panel, but I fear doing this as I have no clue at what AGP speed my card is operating at past the 3.9 Cats. Additionally, Dell does not allow one to mess with the AGP settings through the BIOS.
I have tried uninstalling the Radeon drivers and the default VGA drivers, rebooting, cancelling the "found new hardware wizard," and going through ATI's setup utility. I have tried using the hardware wizard to manually point to the display driver and manually installing the Control Panel, etc. I have also tried using the device properties through device manager and pointing to the driver this way as well. All roads lead to the "zero display service error."
I have consulted the ATI website, the Dell website and forums, and several other forums via a google search. I have tried everything they have suggested (which wasn't much) to no avail.
I would hate to have to roll back to 3.9s, as the optimizations and bugfixes in future releases are worthwhile to attain. Anyone have any suggestions?
I have a Dell Dimension 8300 desktop with an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (128 MB) video card. I have all the most recent driver releases and firmware for the hardware in the system, including the system BIOS. I have not cracked the case yet, as I have felt no need to tinker or upgrade.
The problem.
I've been unable to successfully install any ATI Catalyst driver release since 3.9--this includes not only the official ATI Catalyst release, but the Dell-branded drivers as well. During the display driver portion of the install, I receive a "zero display service error" at the end without fail. The rest of the installer completes and prompts me to reboot my system. After this, I can work with windows freely and seemingly without problems. The ATI Options tab indicates that the driver has been updated to 4.1.
However, looking at the SMARTGART tab, it has autodetected a suggested AGP bus speed for the card of zero, or off. If I retest the setting, I still get zero. If I manually switch the setting and reboot, it again autodetects as zero. With releases < 3.9, this tab has indicated that the optimal bus speed that the Radeon should operate at is 4x.
There is a utility to uninstall the SMARTGART portion of the Control Panel, but I fear doing this as I have no clue at what AGP speed my card is operating at past the 3.9 Cats. Additionally, Dell does not allow one to mess with the AGP settings through the BIOS.
I have tried uninstalling the Radeon drivers and the default VGA drivers, rebooting, cancelling the "found new hardware wizard," and going through ATI's setup utility. I have tried using the hardware wizard to manually point to the display driver and manually installing the Control Panel, etc. I have also tried using the device properties through device manager and pointing to the driver this way as well. All roads lead to the "zero display service error."
I have consulted the ATI website, the Dell website and forums, and several other forums via a google search. I have tried everything they have suggested (which wasn't much) to no avail.
I would hate to have to roll back to 3.9s, as the optimizations and bugfixes in future releases are worthwhile to attain. Anyone have any suggestions?