Vista - Vista displays incorrect video driver...

This is quite possibly the strangest problem I've ever had with a computer. I recently upgraded an ATI x1950PRO to an ATI HD 2600XT. Initially, the HD 2600 worked perfectly fine, dx10 installed with no problems. After a Catalyst driver update, I suddenly noticed that I had lost dx10 support in Crysis, Hellgate, and other games.

Here is where it gets strange: EVEREST and the Device Manager correctly detect my HD 2600. Dxdiag says dx10 is installed correctly. But the vista display settings menu lists the adapter type as an x1950PRO, but the adapter string as the HD 2600XT.

Sounds like a registry issue, right? I've reinstalled the drivers, rolled them back, used Guru3D Driver Sweeper and DriverCleaner.NET to clear out the old ATI drivers before installed the new ones, and gone through and manually deleted all ATI keys in the registry before reinstalling the drivers again. Nothing has helped. Any help you guys could give me would be greatly appreciated.

This might be a silly couple of question but in Display Settings... does it itdentify more than one Monitor?

Is the X1950 only option in the drop down list?

It all seems odd to me

it identifies both monitors (I have an acer and a dell), but both are displayed as "x monitor on Radeon x1950PRO." those two monitors are the only options in the dropdown menu. it seems very odd to me as well...and of course im wayy past the 90-day free support limit, and ill be damned if i pay the 59.99 or whatever it is that M$ is charging for tech suport these days.

Try Reinstalling the Monitor Drivers if you havent already.

asky, you got me all excited because never in a million years would i have thought of that...but no, it didnt work. this is absolutely the most mind boggling problem ive ever had with a computer.

Go into device manager and remove/uninstall the new card. When vista reboots it will detect the new card and reinstall this way.

yeah...tried that too. didn't work. im starting to think im screwed until i reformat, which i wont have time for until summer.

Hey look at the bright side. It's the perfect excuse to go buy that 40 foot HDD monitor you've been wanting.............

hah...40 ft is longer than my entire house.

update!

it happened again. except its even more strange this time. i had my hd 2600xt in there after the reformat, and it was fine. then i went back to the x1950pro for a couple days (testing it to sell it). that was fine. went back to the hd 2600xt. still fine. so i go out and buy an hd 4850...aaannnnd...it shows up as an x1950pro, same as before. windows update has a catalyst 8.6 i can install, and it will *usually* show up correctly as the hd 4850...but if i try to use ATI's drivers (like 8.11 that just came out)...it shows up as the x1950pro. the big problem here is that it disables all dx10 functionality in games. im about to tear my hair out. for whatever reason, there has to be something from the x1950pro that is hiding in the registry somewhere...and when i start installing new drivers, it comes out and messes up the hardware detection somehow...anyone have any new ideas?