Radeon 9550 graphics failure of the cpu upgrade: loss of Aero.

[OldCodger]

I have just treated one of my machines to cpu upgrade from Sempron to triple core Athlon - yes it's old hardware but at the time it was important to be able to use Win98SE in addition to other o/s's.  Hence the choice of ASRock AM2NF3-VSTA mobo and AGP graphics - Radeon 9550.  It was also a cheap route!

 

Recently Windows 7 32bit Ultimate has been added and all was well - Aero et al.

 

However, since the cpu upgrade, the the maximum display resolution available is 1280 x 1024 and no Aero, rather than the maximum 1920 x 1080 as previously.with Aero.

 

Win 98SE didn't complain and Win XP was fine (after Found New Hardware installed about 4 pci host bridges!).  There may be a clue here because Win 7 did similar but after the 4th pop-up, I cancelled believing something was amiss - oops!  Yet have not been prompted since.

 

Unfortunsately, I cannot remember which Catalyst driver was successful prior to the cpu upgrade but have installed/uninstalled umpteen times various versions of 10.2 (and choices of Compatibility mode) but all failed with "Driver Install: INF file not found". At one point, the wretched Catalyst (un)installer even deprived the system of standard vga!  9.1_xp32 which gives full resolution but no Aero (lack of WDDM).

 

It seems very strange that the cpu upgrade should provoke such disruption to Win 7 and not earlier Win versions or any Linuxs?

 

Can any guru suggest a solution (other reinstalling Win 7) and whether cancelling that "new hardware" can be recovered.  I would have expected to be re-prompted on a subsequent reboot?

[OldCodger]

OK, for anyone interested, my surfing has confirmed that my observation was correct - for reasons Known only to MS and nVidia, they decided not to (fully) support the nForce3 chipset (as on my Asrock AM2NF3-VSTA mobos for example!).  This results in the anomaly that multi-core cpus and Catalyst 10.2 won't work together!  However, Catalyst 9.1 does work for resolution but no Aero (lack of WDDM)....

So we have the tease..

Before Catalyst 10.2 installed...

    Standard VGA Display Driver

After (no errors reported but no prompt to restart either)...

    ATI Radeon 9550 / X1050 Series   - (not working Code 43)

After removal...

    ATI Radeon 9550 / X1050 Series (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM)  - (not working Code 43 - but drivers still present!)

Research led to these threads for example -

http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/231596-will-hd3450-agp-work-nf3-w7.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/drivers/5050-microsoft-listened-nforce3-support.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/231810-looking-agp-video-cards-supported-windows-7-32-bit.html

So it is neither the multi-core cpu nor the graphics card but lack of support for the nforce3 chipset!

As a matter of further concern - what exactly does the wretched Catalyst remove when uninstall is selected since just about everything is still there (including reg entries)?

Ironically, on another machine - which already has a dual-core cpu but only radeon 9250 graphics - Catalyst 9.2 works but, of course, no Aero so have installed a "cheat" Aero so purchased another 9550 card to boost that yet, in view of the above, that's was a waste of money too!

Have since persuaded Catalyst 10.2 xp drivers to install and, in conjuction with TrueTransparency and Transbar, have pseudo Aero!

Nevertheless, these machines have been upgraded without any detectable performance boost over the lowly Sempron and a set back to the graphics (even worked perfectly with Media Centre and Satallite card)!

[i resolved, some years ago when these self build projects began (with a then need to perpetuate access to Win98 on multi-boot environments),  - whadda a  mistaka to maka!]

[jaclaz]

Maybe unuseful, but have you tried running CRU?

Some reference:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/171222-getting-1600-x-1200-resolution-on-a-new-pc/

 

jaclaz

[OldCodger]

Thanks, but resolution wasn't/isn't the issue - it's the loss of Aero (ie compositing).

[jaclaz]

My bad , I read this:

However, since the cpu upgrade, the the maximum display resolution available is 1280 x 1024 and no Aero, rather than the maximum 1920 x 1080 as previously.with Aero.

as:

However, since the cpu upgrade, the the maximum display resolution available is 1280 x 1024 and no Aero, rather than the maximum 1920 x 1080 as previously.with Aero.

While you meant:

However, since the cpu upgrade, the the maximum display resolution available is 1280 x 1024 and no Aero, rather than the maximum 1920 x 1080 as previously.with Aero.

jaclaz