Vista - Catalyst drivers break Aero

I have an ATI Radeon X1600 Pro video card.

The Aero GUI worked with version 7.7 of the ATI Catalyst video drivers.
When I tried versions 7.8, 7.9 and 7.10 (the latest, released a few days
ago), Aero stopped working. It defaults to Vista Basic.

Vista doesn't even properly recognize my card. Using the 7.7 drivers, the
card got a rating of 4.3 or 4.5. Now, with the latest drivers, it's
registering as a 1.0.

Is there any way of getting the drivers to work properly? I'd rather not
roll back to 7.7 since the newest revision fixes a bunch of gaming issues.

I've sent a request to AMD's ATI support for help as well.

I think it's pathetic that three driver versions have come out since the
last time the GUI worked properly and no-one's seen fit to fix it. Or to
even post a work-around on the support site.

You should check with your computer mfg to see if they list recent drivers.
Some times a mfg will do a few things (hardware) differently and the result
is what you're experiencing. You could try moding the drivers--read here....
http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool/


"Paul in Toronto" <swampyfern@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:EE68AC2C-837C-4B92-B745-7AA85721D46C@xxxxxx

"Paul in Toronto" <swampyfern@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:EE68AC2C-837C-4B92-B745-7AA85721D46C@xxxxxxOK. I've got a 1650.
Do you have JUST the drivers installed, or did you install the whole
package?
I've upgraded through each of the various version of drivers. Just the
drivers. I'm currently on 7.9 and Aero works fine.

But...

When I first installed the ATI card I installed the whole Catalyst package.
Among the problems I encountered were poor performance rating numbers and
some sort of trouble with Aero. I don't recall exactly what. Aero DID
work, but there was some problem. May have been trouble moving windows or
getting them to appears.

Anyway, someone on m.p.w.v.general said they'd had similar problems and
fixed them by uninstalling everything then just installing the drivers.

Worked for me. So, I never install any of their utilities. Just the
drivers.

- Bill

"Bill Leary" <Bill_Leary@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:E8AFD623-6680-4244-8BD9-86E59F36EA9C@xxxxxx
I tried it both with the whole CCC package and just the drivers. Same
result both ways. Vista refuses to properly use the video card. The only
driver that works (drivers and package) is version 7.7.

AMD support hasn't responded to my request for help, and it's been over a
week since I contacted them.

My next card is going to use the nVidia chipset.

"Paul in Toronto" <swampyfern@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:3F566D0A-782A-4C9B-A7F9-29FE9C935890@xxxxxxI'm running 7.9 dated September 10, 2007 on an ATI Radeon X1650 series in an
8X AGP slot.

Just the drivers, no CCC package.

If I bring up the driver details via the display settings it reports Driver
Date: 8/21/2007 Driver Version 8.411.0.0
All of this on an AMD Athlon 64 3800+. 2G of RAM.
Except for when I loaded the full Catalyst package, I've had no trouble with
this card.

As I recall, you're using something else, right?

- Bill