Help solving issue with 5870

[ELox]

My specs are in Sig below but I'll reiterate:

AMD 955BE
Asus M4A78T-E
4BG GSkill RAM
Radeon 5870 1GB
Windows 7 pro 64bit
700W OCZ Modstream Pro

What I did:

I uninstalled the Nvidia drivers for my 8800GT, ran driver sweeper, shut down, removed 8800GT, Installed 5870, boot to windows just fine, installed 10.4 drivers.

This is where my problems started. I rebooted and it would come up as far as the starting windows screen and then it would go to a black screen indefinitely. Messed around with all sorts of settings and tried a few other 10.x driver before going to 9.12 which booted up just fine. Ran 3dmark vantage and his the right numbers, plays games fine.

The hardware appears to be working normally but for some reason I can't install any of the 10.x drivers or my computer won't boot past the windows splash screen.

A little research turned up these threads:

http://forums.amd.com/game/messagev...=130425&STARTPAGE=1&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

http://forums.amd.com/game/messagev...=131447&highlight_key=y&keyword1=black screen

I also found an issue that sounds similar to do with out of range on some LCD's, but I tested on my CRT and ran into the same issue so I know it's not the monitor. It's something to do with my having an OEM card I suspect from what I've read and that 10.x drivers not playing well with them. Thinking about flashing my card to update if I could find the right flash and not risk bricking my card.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[haste]

how many monitors are you using?

which port/ports on the card are you utilizing for your displays?

 

[ELox]

how many monitors are you using?

which port/ports on the card are you utilizing for your displays?

Using 1 28" Monitor at 1920x1200. Connects via a hdmi->DVI cable from monitor to card. I also tried running from my 20" CRT VGA cable w/DVI adaptor with the exact same result.

I get a signal on the monitor even though the screen is black on both monitors plugging into primary DVI for both cards and when I switch to secondary DVI I have no signal on either monitor I tested. Can't test the displayport but doubt it would make a difference since there is a signal even though it's black screen on the primary DVI.

 

[haste]

have you tried the HDMI output?

 

[ELox]

have you tried the HDMI output?

Yes I took the cable that works connecting my xbox360 to monitor and plugged that into my card with the same result. Except on 9.x drivers which work just fine.

Thanks for help bouncing ideas around btw.

 

[Tamlin_WSGF]

Uninstall drivers. Before you restart, enter device manager and set drivers to standard vga manually.
Restart.
Right click on the drivers and install them as administrator.

 

[ELox]

Uninstall drivers. Before you restart, enter device manager and set drivers to standard vga manually.
Restart.
Right click on the drivers and install them as administrator.

I'm not sure this is the issue. I'm able to run the install of the drivers and it says it is successful every time (with or without running as admin) but when I boot up after the successful install on the 10.x drivers I get black screen, with 9.x drivers it works perfect. I might try this anyway but it sounds like a fix if I was unable to install the 10.x drivers at all.

 

[Balthazor]

Uninstall drivers. Before you restart, enter device manager and set drivers to standard vga manually.
Restart.
Right click on the drivers and install them as administrator.

An alternative to the 'set drivers to standard vga manually' method is to enter Device Manager, right click the display driver, select Uninstall, and check the box to 'delete driver software.'

This will delete any remnants of ATI drivers, and upon reboot you'll be running the OS native VGA drivers.

This step should be done after normal uninstallation and driver sweeper.

 

[Tamlin_WSGF]

An alternative to the 'set drivers to standard vga manually' method is to enter Device Manager, right click the display driver, select Uninstall, and check the box to 'delete driver software.'

This will delete any remnants of ATI drivers, and upon reboot you'll be running the OS native VGA drivers.

This step should be done after normal uninstallation and driver sweeper.

The reason why I would set it to standard VGA, is that I have noticed that windows loads a driver upon boot after uninstall, even when you choose remove all ATI drivers and software.

 

[ELox]

The reason why I would set it to standard VGA, is that I have noticed that windows loads a driver upon boot after uninstall, even when you choose remove all ATI drivers and software.

I'll give this a try tonight if I can and report back. I'd be pleasantly surprised if this fix works. Thanks.

 

[Balthazor]

The reason why I would set it to standard VGA, is that I have noticed that windows loads a driver upon boot after uninstall, even when you choose remove all ATI drivers and software.

If you delete the driver software via Device manager when you uninstall the Radeon drivers, it should not load any ATI drivers for the device upon reboot. If it does, uninstall in device manager again, and choose the delete software option.

 

[Tamlin_WSGF]

If you delete the driver software via Device manager when you uninstall the Radeon drivers, it should not load any ATI drivers for the device upon reboot. If it does, uninstall in device manager again, and choose the delete software option.

Its faster to just set the driver to standard VGA. Windows can also install some driver though update:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1423668#post1423668

If you force install standard VGA, you block any update upon boot of drivers.

 

[Balthazor]

I guess my point is not to ensure installation of the Microsoft OS drivers, but to ensure that all traces of ATI drivers are removed.

 

[ELox]

PROBLEM SOLVED:

Alright here's what ended up working for me.

Quoted from Guru3d forums

I stopped just short of tossing it out the window when I finally figured it out.


So, here is a breakdown of what finally worked for me:


1) Install whatever Catalyst version that you can that you can boot all the way into Windows with

2) Use the CCC Software tab to determine which ClassID string is used for the 2D driver

(Open CCC, click on Information Center, then Graphics Software)

Here you can see 2D Driver File Path - this is the important part, so drag the slider over to the edge, adjust the stopper at the end of the "Value" line at the top and keep moving the slider until you can see the end of the string.

It will look like this: 2D Driver File Path /REGISTRY/MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet002/Control/CLASS/{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}/0000

The final 4 digits after the forward slash are the important ones, as there will be multiple numbered folders in there, so make note of it. In the case above, it's /0000, but yours may be /0001, /0002, /0003 or higher...


3) Boot into Safe Mode (if you need help booting into Safe Mode, you shouldn't be attempting this fix)

Now, we have to enter 1 registry DWORD and change 1 DWORD value in the Windows Registry, so this becomes a Windows Registry hack...

4) CREATE A RESTORE POINT


**ANY time you work in the Windows Registry, there is a possibility of rendering your operating system useless, so ENSURE you've made a restore point BEFORE proceeding**

(if you need help figuring out how to make a restore point, you probably shouldn't be reading this post and would benefit from taking your card and computer to someone that's comfortable working in the Windows registry)


Ok, now that you've got a restore point to fall back on in the worst-case scenario, let's proceed.


5) Go to the Start Orb and type REGEDIT, hit enter. This opens the Windows Registry Editor. (remember, we're still in Safe-Mode!)


6) Once inside Regedit, navigate to the following area:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000 (or if the last 4 digits in YOUR Software tab in CCC are different, navigate to that folder instead of \0000


This is what it will look like inside Regedit at this specific location.

At the bottom, you can see the exact location you should be at.

At the top right, I've scrolled down a little bit to the first place we need to make a change.

7) Double-click on EnableULPS and change it's value from it's default of 1 to 0 (zero, not "o") then hit OK.


8) Then, right-click in an empty area in the far right, and choose NEW > DWORD (32bit Value)

Name it PP_DisableMCDownLoadFeature and give it a value of 1

It will look like this when done correctly:

NOTE that these two tweaks only need to be done in the folder that YOUR Catalyst Software 2D Driver File Path exists in...mine is 0000, but yours can be in any numbered folder inside the main path of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} ...just remember that BOTH of these tweaks need to be in the folder that's specific to YOUR install.


That's it.

After rebooting, you may install whatever version of Catalyst drivers you like.
SOME cards out there have a different memory controller on them, and for some reason, it polls those 2 specific areas in the Windows Registry for no good reason at all. The one entry that doesn't exist (the one that we created) is more than likely the one that hangs the driver from loading all the way into Windows, as the card is looking for something that doesn't exist.

Psychlone

It looks like a big fix but if you get right down to it, just two simple registry edits and I was able to install the 10.4 official drivers without any problems. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions on this one.

Seems like the problem was caused because I bought the card used and whoever I bought it from failed to mention that this was an engineering sample version of the card and any ES cards have these problems with the recent catalyst drivers. First time I've ever bought a used video card... probably my last haha.