Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with ati

Help with my intermittant hdmi sound issues on an ati 3850 card

prodevel — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:20:13 -0800

I've got an Asus p5e3 mobo and an Gigabyte 3850 hdmi setup to my 42" 720p with major sound issues. I've completely undone any overclocking due to this issue. I was running at 3.6 as opposed to 3.0 ghz and had ram running at 1600 as opposed to 1366 mhz. Almost every other time I issue a video request over FireFox and Flash, I get audio but the audio cuts out after 1-2 seconds. It's like the audio can't "grab onto" the connection. It's also now happening with the now free DDO Dungeon and Dragons online client. All game clients previously worked, eg. warcraft, evo online, the sims 3, etc, etc. All native applications seem fine, as lond as they're MS or tight MS integrated apps.

This issue pops up every time I switch sounds from FF to some application. Audio works fine for almost every application except for Firefox which seems to "forget" it's hook into audio.

Sorry, lil tired so I realize the holes. Please ask me to post the pertinent info.

What Kind of External Monitor Can an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 Support?

Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:21:38 -0800

I have a six-year-old Dell Latitude D600 laptop with an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 GPU. I know it's an old machine and an old graphics chip, but I'd like to consider getting an external monitor. What are my options, if any? I've had a hell of a time trying to find the specs for the Mobility Radeon 9000 online, and Dell was useless on the phone. I found this earlier question, but it refers to an IBM laptop and I don't want to make any assumptions.

So I emailed ATI (their Mobility Radeon 9000 webpage didn't seem to have what I was looking for), and they were pretty helpful. This is what they said:

******************************
NOTE: Possible resolutions for an external monitor by VGA connection based on the OEM driver installed onto your notebook system and the monitor resolutions supported:

800 x 600 [4:3]
1024 x 768 [4:3]
1280 x 800 [4:3]

1600 x 1200 [4:3] - Conditional
2048 x 1536 [4:3] - Conditional
******************************

So I think my questions are:

1) How can I find out if my GPU will support those "conditional" resolutions? ATI says to contact the computer maker, but as I've said, Dell has been useless. They also suggested using a program called PowerStrip, but I'll be honest - I haven't figured out how to use it. Tips on PowerStrip or any other utility would be greatly appreciated.

2) Since the chip can only support a 4:3 aspect ratio, and most modern widescreens use 16:9 or 16:10, am I basically out of luck? Or can you still generally buy 4:3 LCD monitors?

If it makes any difference, I have my laptop plugged into a docking station which has a DVI port, as well as a regular monitor port. (The computer itself only has the regular monitor port.) I also currently have the Radeon Omega drivers installed.

And just to toss it in - if you think I can, in fact, run those higher resolutions, and can also find an old-school 4:3 monitor, do you have any particular monitor recommendations? Thanks for any assistance.

P.S. While a newer computer would probably solve all of these problems, I am not yet ready to scrap this one and upgrade. This system is old but it works just fine for my needs (this one potential issue aside).

Can I upgrade the graphics card on my aging desktop?

Fluffy654 — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 08:29:17 -0800

What is a cheap graphics card that is still better than my ATI Radeon X300 and will my old desktop be able to handle a more modern card? I have just bought Sims 3 and have realised that I need a better graphics card. I don't need anything amazing or expensive but my current graphics card is 5 years old and so I think it is time for an upgrade. I currently have the 128MB ATI RADEON X300 SE and am looking for something in the range of £50.

I have a Dell Dimension 5000 and various forums inform me that its power supply might not be sufficient to handle modern cards. Its 305 Watts. Is this true?

ATI Mobility Radeon 4530 driver for XP?

MattScully — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:33:18 -0800

Down (up) grading a new HP DV7T-2000 to XP. The video card is an ATI Mobility Radeon 4530. I have had no luck in finding an XP driver. Does anyone have any experience with this card and have any ideas about a possible driver or workaround?

n00b htpc 3850 dvi to hdmi with audio

prodevel — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:45:20 -0800

I've got a Gigabyte HD3850 w/dual DVI outs and 1 Svid out.I went n00b and got a dvi to hdmi 30ft cable to my 42" LCD TV. Help?! E6850 duo + 2GB all overclocked and running flawlessly. Before you judge, it's only oc'd to 3.6 ghz and the gfx card was oc'd via it's auto tune....

I've got this for what it's worth: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/toms-reference-system,1748.html

Being a replaytv/dvarchive user, I realized that after moving to a new address, I could connect my puter and 42" lcd to each other. I purchased a dvi to hdmi cable @ 35 ft.

No sound. I immediately assualted google and found avforums, et al. again... I've spent nearly 3 hours reading posts and posting 1 other myself.

I'm suspecting I need an ati dvi to hdmi adapter and a long hdmi(-to-hdmi) cable.

Otherwise I would be stuck with the svideo to svideo/component adapter included w/the product.

I would love love love to get the dvi-hdmi cable to work since it's strung. Darn bulky, some are. I'm suspecting that it just might be a one-off, though.

I'm a unix guy but I know my fair share of M$

BTW already tried realtek, ati, bios settings combos........ many, many combos...

Thanks

Three Monitors, One Linux (I know obscenity when I hear it)

SlyBevel — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 00:23:40 -0800

Please help me: Make my triple monitors work in Ubuntu ----OR---- Find a distro that will gracefully handle three monitors. Either one is fine, but this is killing me and I really need to get it done.

I'm currently running Hardy Heron. I used the open source driver for a while, but I was only able to get the two monitors on the first vid card working when I switched to the ATI driver.

I think part of the problem is that I have two cards: Radeon X1600 Pro AGP 8x, Radeon 9600 PCI. So far, Ubuntu is only using the primary card.

I've Googled extensively, and I've tried many xorg.conf tweaks, but none of them seem to get me to where I need to be, ie: Running a current distro of Linux with all three of my monitors functional.

Please help!

Can Omega Drivers push an old video card to widescreen resolutions?

sevenyearlurk — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:24:57 -0800

Will "Omega Drivers" allow my ATI Radeon Mobility M6 card to drive a widescreen display? I use an external monitor plugged into a notebook (Compaq Evo N410C) as my home computer. Lately I've been watching a lot of videos on it, and I'm starting to crave a widescreen LCD to replace my antiquated and space-hogging 17" CRT. But I don't think the video card I've got will drive a widescreen display natively. I have read that the "Omega Drivers" can extend the capabilities of ATI cards. Does anyone have experience using these drivers to push an older video card to widescreen resolutions?

Are the external graphics cards here yet?

IndigoRain — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:51:58 -0800

Questions about external graphics cards such as the Asus XG Station. The only thing keeping me from gaming on my laptop, according to System Requirements Lab, is the crappy Intel onboard graphics card - specifically, the lack of T&L. (When I bought my laptop, it was all I could afford. I still can't really afford a gaming laptop.)

I've read about external graphics cards meant for laptops, such as the Asus XG station. However, searching leads me to previews, and even a few reviews, but I can't find anywhere to purchase it. It was supposed to be released at the beginning of Q2 2007. I've also read in varying articles that it would cost from $500 to sub-$200.

Does anyone have any updated info on when it will release? (I will try contacting Asus as well, but I'm having a hard time finding out how to contact them if I don't already have a product that I need support for.) Or, are there any alternative external graphics cards that are currently available? Searching Google leads me to mentions of ATI making one, as well as some MSI creation, but I've never heard of MSI before. Finally, does anyone have any personal experience with any of these cards?

Its not my biggest fan, so why it screaming at me?

gergtreble — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:50:34 -0800

My graphics card is too noisy! Can i just disconnect the fan? Will that make it catch fire? I recently acquired a ATI Radeon 9600 pro AGP graphics card. And its noisy. The fan makes a hell of a racket.

So as I don't really use this particular computer for gaming. I was wondering If it would be ok if I disconnected the fan?

Or would I be better underclocking it so it doesn't run so hot.

Any ideas? If i was sure it wouldn't go pop I'd unplug it right now.

3D Rage II+ Drivers (or, Can Drivers Be Copied Off Of Another Computer?)

niles — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 12:07:38 -0800

LegacyVideoCard Filter: Can I get video drivers off of the other computer? (or do you know where to get them?) This is an ATI 3D Rage II+ . So there's two computers. For irrelevant reasons, I needed to swap the video cards in the two machines. I was able to grab new drivers for the Radeon card, but I can't find the driver cd, or find drivers online, for the 3D Rage II+. Now, they're obviously on the old computer - is there a way to get them off? I've tried anything that says "ati" from the drivers folder, but I think I need, at minimum, a .inf file. Is there a way to copy drivers to another computer? Both computers are running Windows XP Pro.

Or even better, do you know where I can find them online?

Can I record straight to my iPod?

beammeup4 — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 23:06:18 -0800

Can I record video from my ATI DVR straight to my iPod? I've got an ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 tuner with the ability to record shows onto your computer like a DVR. The software has a number of recording settings, including an option to define your own custom record settings.

Does anyone with this device or an ATI All-in-Wonder know if you can define the video recording settings in a way that it is automatically compatible with the iPod? There is an option to record in MPEG-4, but it records it with an AVI extension that I can't drag into iTunes.

Alt-tab is asking too much! Help me help my computer!

cowbellemoo — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:47:28 -0800

DualMonitorFilter: What am I missing? Two-cards, two monitors to get an extended Windows desktop. What I want: My main monitor plugged into my newest PCIe card showing my main desktop and games, and my other monitor plugged into another gfx card that will always show an extended windows desktop for browsing, iTunes, etc.

What I have:

Windows XP Pro
GeForce 7950GT (PCIe) -- main card
Radeon 9250 (plain PCI)
HP f2105 -- main monitor
Viewsonic VX710

All fitting into this computer (tigerdirect barebones kit links to motherboard)

I've looked up other AskMeFi posts, visited the wiki entry, read the online help, visited the nVidia and ATI sites, but I can't quite get the hang of it (and I was so impressed with myself putting together the kit, too..). My main gfx card has two heads and can display on both the monitors fine, but I want a two-card setup so that my games run at the max resolution of the main card -- 2 monitors on that one card limits it in the games since it's splitting processing power between the two.

I don't know much about the PCI and PCIe architecture, but I gather from just looking at the mobo that I can't have more than one PCIe card in my computer at once -- the smaller PCIe slots that are labeled on the link must just be for SLI or something (I have another newish nVidia PCIe card if that's wrong and I can use those little slots).

So, I'll have to use the plain PCI card to run the second monitor. When I install the PCI card in one of the plain PCI slots, connect the monitor, and boot -- neither displays anything but the PC (apparantly) continues to keep booting with no display. I installed the secondary monitor drivers as well. I went into the BIOS and changed the PCIe card to the Primary Display Driver (instead of setting it to "Auto"), but the same thing happens -- neither monitor shows anything.

Are the nVidia and ATI cards incompatable for this purpose? I assume it's not a software issue since neither of them are displaying. Is the older ATI card not multi-monitor capable? Do I need to find a nVidia plain PCI card that will play nice with my 7950? Is there something else I'm missing completely?

Is my video card's VGA out dead?

mullacc — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 12:54:44 -0800

VideoCardFilter: Is the VGA out on my video card dead? My new PC came with an ATI Radeon X1300 video card with one DVI out and one VGA out. I have two 19" Dell monitors and I'm running WinXP Media Center.

I set it up with the DVI out as the primary monitor and the VGA out as the secondary monitor and desktop extension. The driver recognizes the monitor (it even recognizes the brand/model number) and appears to be controlling it. But, the monitor remains black*. I can even mouse over to and drag windows over to the second monitor, but I can't see what I'm doing over there.

The monitor appears to work fine. I was running the same monitor on my iBook via VGA out without issue. And when I switch the DVI/VGA outs on the PC, which ever monitor is hooked up to the VGA out has this problem.

Is my video card defective? I've reinstalled the driver and scoured the various menus, but I don't see anything wrong. Any ideas?

* - to further elaborate on what appears on the monitor...it remains black but will occasionally "flicker" from black to a "glowing" black similar to what my TV looks like when it's powered on but has no video source. The power button glows yellow as if its on stand-by. I've made sure that analog and not the digital source is selected on the monitor.

Apologies if this is easy Google-able--I wasn't having any luck.

toys not playing well together

tiamat — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 21:44:57 -0800

ATI x850 does not seem to detect LCD connected via DVI (tried a cheap DVI-D and a DVI Dual Link cable). My system is P4 3ghz, 1024mb, running WinXP with an ATI x850 with dual DVI outputs (and one S video I ignore).

I've been trying to use a new Proview 19' widescreen LCD with odd results. . .

When I plug in the moniter to the primary DVI, it does not detect the connection (screen goes to power saving) at boot - can't see POST or the Windows logo booting.

Sometimes, about 1/3 of the time, the LCD kicks in when windows has booted to the login/dekstop screen. It's usually at the wrong resolution.

Most of the time nothing happens - once or twice I got garbage on the screen, a few random lines. I know the computer has booted because I've been able to get in via remote desktop - but sadly you can't set the 'real' display properties via a remote connection, or at least, I can't find a way.

I thought I had the wrong kind of DVI cable, but I tried a more expensive one with all the pins (the Dual Link) and it doesn't seem to make a difference.

When I plug in a CRT via a VGA-DVI adapter the resolution autodetects and the screen works fine. When I plug in the LCD and the CRT with the LCD on the secondary DVI connection the LCD kicks in mirroring the CRT, and seems to work thereafter if I change the settings in Display properties to enable the secondary moniter - but I don't want to have to do that every time I reboot, I only have the desk space for one moniter right now.

It also sometimes works when I just plugin the DVI-VGA adapter on the other DVI connection, with no cable attached, but I couldn't find a predictable pattern for making that work (order of plugging in the cables, before/after boot, etc.) And again, the LCD would usually start at the wrong resolution.

The LCD works a fine at 1400x900 when it works, but I can't seem to make it work predictably.

The CRT works fine 100% of the time, whether I plug it in before boot or after, on either of the two DVI connections, (via it's VGA-DVI connector, of course.

Any suggetions?

I'll be your mirror... or not.

insomnia_lj — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 00:35:00 -0800

I've got a Windows Media Center edition PC hooked up to my television using an S-video cable so that I can play DIVX files, and I'm getting my wallpaper showing up on the television... and nothing else. The main monitor still shows all my apps, however. What gives?! It seems to be treating the television as a second monitor, rather than mirroring exactly what's on my PC desktop, and I don't have any obvious way of either changing this, or of running and controlling my video playing software on this second display. Any advice?! I'm using a ATI Radeon X800 to do this, btw.

Guide Plus+ Not Updating

Otis — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 17:27:59 -0800

Does anyone know if there are problems with the Guide Plus+ TV listings servers? I have an ATI TV Tuner with the Guide Plus+ software and the listings are no longer updating. The past few days I've been getting the following error: "No listings available for your current date, please check your zip code/postal code." I haven't made any changes to the sytem date or zip code and have verified that they are correct. I've also re-installed the software and verified that I have the latest version of the software. An old PC Magazine article talked about changing the listings server URL in the Registry (I'm on XP), but gave no details. Anyone done this successfully?

I need something better than a Trident 8900

b1tr0t — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 19:54:37 -0800

What is the ultimate 2D graphics card? The situation:
I am running a large spreadsheet like application where the cells are updated with fairly high frequency. Each cell might be updated several times a second, and there are 500-1000 cells. The people who write the application were probably good developers but not game developers - they almost certainly didn't make use of any DirectX code that could have made drawing more efficient. Instead, I have to assume that the application relies entirely on the Windows GDI.

I am currently driving two 1920x1200 flat panels with a 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon X600. When I move the application over to a desktop platform, I'm willing to drop down to a single 1920x1200 display, or dual 1280x1024 displays. It would be nice to be able to drive two 1920s at maximal speed though.

Obviously I need Windows XP support (64bit would be nice, but if I have to run a 64bit CPU in 32bit mode, that shouldn't be the end of the world), PCI-Express, at least one DVI port (two would be nice) and lots of memory.

Will the graphics chip matter much?

I would feel very silly spending $1500 on a 3D graphics card, but that isn't entirely out of the question.

Where to find latest ATI drivers?

unrequited — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 13:31:08 -0800

ATI's drivers webpage is down today (probably because of the new World of Warcraft 1.9 patch)... does anybody know where I can find the latest ATI 5.13 drivers WITHOUT Catalyst Control Center (I think it's bloated crap heh)?

Need dual monitors to run on XP

sailormouth — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 13:13:38 -0800

Troubles running dual monitors on xp. Been to ATI site, tried searching Google, searched Ask archives. Video card = ATI Radeon 7000/VE
Monitor 1 = 19" HP 9500
Monitor 2 = 17" HP pavillion mx70
Both monitors are connected through VGA Y-adapter.
I am only getting cloning. I want to extend Monitor 1 desktop on to Monitor 2.
Resolution is set the same on both monitors.

Display Settings:
Monitor 1 shows as primary and extend Windows desktop. Both are greyed out. Identify shows 1 on both monitors.
Monitor 2 I can click as attached. Identify does not show anywhere.

I installed the ATI multimedia package with Hydravision from the cd that came with card. This added many tabs when selecting Monitor 1, Advanced. There is not a Display tabs (which is all the ATI site talks about).
I installed a newer version of Hydravision from the ATI site. Still no change.

Display Adapter driver is ATI.
When I updated the XP driver for the monitor it is reflected for both monitors. So I can either have Default Monitor driver, HP 9500 driver, or HP mx70 driver for both.

I am not sure what else to look at/for.
Suggestions/questions welcomed and appreciated.

GeForce 6600 or a Radeon X700?

nthdegx — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 05:54:36 -0800

I have my eye on a new computer. I have the choice between including a 256Mb GeForce 6600 or a 256Mb Radeon X700. For an avid gamer, I have no idea if the latter is worth the extra £50. Is it?

Looking for Video card

Grod — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:37:15 -0800

What was the hot video card a year or two ago? I'm looking for something cheap to go with a slightly old system I've acquired. [specs inside] To the best of my knowledge the following slots are open:
--One AGP 4x slot
--Three PCI 2.2 32-bit PCI bus slots (support 3.3 V / 5 V PCI bus interface)
--One CNR slot

I believe the system board is: MSI MS-6533G-L, but this is an older PowerSpec and I'm not at home so I had to guess at the model number.

CPU: craptacular Celeron 1.8ghz (I think)

I'd also like a decent sound card.

Features I most want in a video card are:
ability to play last years games
speed

Features I'd like:
video capture and maybe a tv tuner

What should I get?

What video card should I get if I'm not playing video games?

selfnoise — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 17:14:45 -0800

YetAnotherQuestionAboutVideoCardsFilter: I am going to buy a new computer for browsing/photo editing/mp3 playing/excel editing/cd burning. I am _NOT_ going to be playing games on the machine. Does it matter what video card I get? I'm tempted to get an ATI Radeon 9200SE since it doesn't have a fan and I want a quiet PC.

Linux viewing problem

jmd82 — Wed, 04 Aug 2004 21:25:30 -0800

I finally took the plunge into Linux (Fedore Core) and almost everything went perfectly, except for my screen. Using a sony laptop with a ATI Raidon 345m graphics card, which I have found is not directly supported by Sony or ATI. However, any linux techies know how to fix it? I can view stuff, but FC likes to reduce my screen size and if I mess around to make it bigger, then the enlarged screen image burns onto my screen which I'm guessing is not a good thing in the long run. Anyone help or solved this problem in the past? (Also assume while I know a lot about Windows, but know nothing about the functionality of Linux).