New video card, weird lines on bootup

[NotGood]

Hey everyone. Warning: I'm not PC savvy.

I recently bought an ATI Radeon X1600 Pro 512 MB AGP

When I turn my computer on with the new video card in, I get a bunch of blue and red vertical lines (mostly blue). I left it on for about 20 minutes, but nothing changed.

Everything works fine when I put my old video card in, an ATI 9600 (I'm using that now).

I updated my motherboard chipset, like the booklet suggests but that didn't help. I even tried doing a full system restore. I have no idea what to do, or what could be causing the problem.

My monitor is relatively new too. In my uneducated opinion, the monitor should work just fine with it, could it be the problem though?

Here are my other specs, let me know if I'm missing something important:
Win XP
Pentium 4 2.53 GHz
1 GB of RAM

If anyone has any suggestions, please fire away.

[Annon]

Silly question but does you Video card require a power cable from the video card to mother board?

Your power supply may also not be strong enough to deal with the video cards requirements.


Updating your drivers may also help, did you get an install disc?

[iownuall123]

i agree, same thing happened to me, just update your video drivers

[NotGood]

No it doesn't require power cables.


When I try to install the CD that came with the card, I get an error saying something about using a VGA adapter driver..

After looking that up on google, I tried to switch to VGA mode with F8 when booting up but I still can't install the CD.

So that's my next step I guess.. how do I use a VGA driver if the F8 thing doesn't work?

I'm feeling a lot more optimistic 

[quaxo]

You need to completely uninstall the original drivers you were using with your 9600 before installing the X1600. That's why you're getting the error message about installing the card first with the default VGA driver.

[NotGood]

I uninstalled the driver (and everything ATI related) from Add/Remove Programs but it still isn't working.

When I reboot my PC, "ATI - Software Uninstall Utility" keeps showing up in Add/Remove. I tried uninstalling that, and then using the CD both before and after rebooting.

Googe search shows that I might need something like Driver Cleaner, but it isn't free. I can't find a free alternative, is there one?

Thanks guys, I appreciate all the help!

[BC_Programmer]

Google search shows that I might need something like Driver Cleaner, but it isn't free. I can't find a free alternative, is there one?

I have Driver Cleaner Pro, and It's freeware. I found one on Softpedia with a quick search:


http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/Other-DRIVERS-TOOLS/Others/Driver-Cleaner-Professional-15.shtml

[NotGood]

Thanks BC.

BUT, I still can't get passed the VGA driver thing.

When I uninstall the ATI driver, it requires a restart (I tried without restarting, too) to completely uninstall.

When I restart my my PC, it automatically installs the drivers I think. It's a vicious cycle. How do I stop that?

[BC_Programmer]

hmm- so it is installing the windows default drivers? Did you check every ATI-related item in the list?

It was a while ago, but I had to go through a similiar process to get my Radeon 9250 to install after replacing my Radeon 7000. I was successful, but it was a huge pain. Now I don't have to worry about it since Nvidia's installations are much better

[NotGood]

Yeah I checked every ATI item.

And it is installing the default drivers.

I tried downloading the new driver off of ati.com, and pointing the New Hardware wizard to that, but it still installed the old default 9600 one.

I tried disabling Plug and Play in msconfig, and it does stop it from installing the drivers, but when I try to use the CD I get a different error... which I can't remember right now. I'm tired

On another forum I read about someone having a similar problem, and he had to install a PCI card and use that while he installed his drivers.

I'll give it another shot tomorrow, I don't want to mess with that tiny screw one more time tonight. 

[BC_Programmer]

Oh-- I think I remember how I did it.

I ran driver cleaner Pro- then it wants to reboot. I do so, but instead of allowing it to actually reboot, I shut it off, and
place the new ATI card in the computer. Since there aren't any drivers for either card installed, XP should boot and use the standard VGA driver for it, at which point you can install the new drivers for your new card.

Hope that helps! It worked for me

[NotGood]

I can't delete one of the dll files for the driver, because it's in use (with driver cleaner, or going to the file itself and manually deleting it). This is in safemode.

If I'm not in safe mode, all of the dll files recreate themselves a few seconds after I delete them. Grrrrrrr!

Also, according to Driver Cleaner, there's some registery stuff that seems like it recreates itself too. I don't know anything about deleting stuff from the registery.

[NotGood]

Well I was finally able to install the new drivers. I'm not sure why it worked this time. I have both the x1600 and 9600 drivers still installed.

But I'm still getting the weird lines on bootup (I tried uninstalling the 9600, etc etc). Oh well, atleast I bought a cheap video card. 

[N4646W]

Are you sure your card does not require a power connector?  Mine has one, as did my 9600 1300 and 8500.  My 8500 gave me the same problems, until I used the power connection. 

[Kurtiskain]

Same here with me 9700 Pro, it takes a FDD connector to power the GPU

Might pay to re-read install instructions again...

However this being said if the extra power connector isn't plugged in the card wont boot at all, but instead comes up with a big box saying:

"HAVE YOU MADE SURE YOU HAVE CONNECTED THE POWER CONNECTOR TO YOU RADEON 9700" (Not shouting, that's the exact message in red and black)

Anyways hope you sort it...

Kurtis