Advice installing Gigabyte Radeon driver?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

A quick question that some kind person might be willing to answer:

I bought a used Gigabyte Radeon 925128 video card, but the seller
couldn't find the original install CD or manual.

Dropping this into a fresh XP install, card comes up as default
vga, haven't exposed this to the net yet till I get protection.
The old XP cd doesn't seem to have a driver for this card and
there is a warning about this in the device listing.

So I tracked down
http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Support/Driver/Driver_ATIRADEON9250.htm
that appears to be the right driver (76+ megabytes!) and have that now.

But I've searched the www.giga-byte.com site for any installation
instructions, to avoid my doing something really stupid, can't find it.

The driver_ati_radeon_2kxp.exe unpacks itself into a folder and I find
five different setup.exe at different levels in this, and I find
three different .inf files, fourteen .ini and nine .cab files.

But what I don't find "here is how to install this so you don't screw
it up and call and bother us with a support call."

I understand there is probably toasting a new BIOS in the video card
included in that, probably don't need to go that far unless necessary.

Mostly just looking for a pointer or a little instruction on which
parts of this to use to not make a mistake.

Thank you
(Is it just me or do companies not usually seem to put install software
or even sometimes instructions for using their drivers on their web site
even thought they put all their updated drivers there?)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Don Taylor From: wrote:
> A quick question that some kind person might be willing to answer:
>
> I bought a used Gigabyte Radeon 925128 video card, but the seller
> couldn't find the original install CD or manual.
>
> Dropping this into a fresh XP install, card comes up as default
> vga, haven't exposed this to the net yet till I get protection.
> The old XP cd doesn't seem to have a driver for this card and
> there is a warning about this in the device listing.
>
> So I tracked down
> http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Support/Driver/Driver_ATIRADEON9250.htm
> that appears to be the right driver (76+ megabytes!) and have that now.
>
> But I've searched the www.giga-byte.com site for any installation
> instructions, to avoid my doing something really stupid, can't find it.
>
> The driver_ati_radeon_2kxp.exe unpacks itself into a folder and I find
> five different setup.exe at different levels in this, and I find
> three different .inf files, fourteen .ini and nine .cab files.

Don't the folders have names?

Judging from the size that sounds like it's go the whole suite, which would
include the control panel, DVD player, Media Management Console, and the
driver setup. Not sure what the '5th' one would be unless there's more than
one driver included.

>
> But what I don't find "here is how to install this so you don't screw
> it up and call and bother us with a support call."
>
> I understand there is probably toasting a new BIOS in the video card
> included in that, probably don't need to go that far unless necessary.
>
> Mostly just looking for a pointer or a little instruction on which
> parts of this to use to not make a mistake.
>
> Thank you
> (Is it just me or do companies not usually seem to put install software
> or even sometimes instructions for using their drivers on their web site
> even thought they put all their updated drivers there?)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 02:01:12 -0500, Don Taylor From:
<dont@rdrop.com> wrote:

>A quick question that some kind person might be willing to answer:
>
>I bought a used Gigabyte Radeon 925128 video card, but the seller
>couldn't find the original install CD or manual.
>
>Dropping this into a fresh XP install, card comes up as default
>vga, haven't exposed this to the net yet till I get protection.
>The old XP cd doesn't seem to have a driver for this card and
>there is a warning about this in the device listing.

.... and you don't really want any driver that would've been
on the XP CD either, as those (for the hardware they
support) are at best no newer than card chipset manufacturer
offers, and at worst are stripped-down drivers with low
functionality.


>
>So I tracked down
>http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Support/Driver/Driver_ATIRADEON9250.htm
>that appears to be the right driver (76+ megabytes!) and have that now.

The best thing to do is not use MS or the manufacturer's
driver. Download the newest regular (non-beta) driver from
ATI.

>
>But I've searched the www.giga-byte.com site for any installation
>instructions, to avoid my doing something really stupid, can't find it.


Installation instruction-

Set it back to standard VGA/generic (driverless, there
should be no video drivers appearing in Add/Remove
Programs).

Install newest version of DirectX, available from Microsoft.

Run the driver file downloaded from ATI.
It'll make a folder called %root%\ATI\%driver name\.
For example, the folder will usually be in C:\ATI\

It makes a backup copy of the driver there, proceed to
install the driver.

That's all, reboot the system.



>
>The driver_ati_radeon_2kxp.exe unpacks itself into a folder and I find
>five different setup.exe at different levels in this, and I find
>three different .inf files, fourteen .ini and nine .cab files.

Run "install" or "setup".
Actually I would not install it, far better to only use the
better driver first rather than dealing with multiple
drivers where there might be remnants of the prior driver
left behind. ATI has never been good about installing or
uninstalling drivers, making it even more useful to avoid
changing drivers until you get the hang of it... and even
then the installer (or especially uninstaller) may not work
right and you are left hoping everything will be ok
regardless... which it usually is but is annoying
nonetheless.


>
>But what I don't find "here is how to install this so you don't screw
>it up and call and bother us with a support call."

Try ATI's (newer website) driver first, it may work fine.
I almost forgot to mention that it's good to disable
antivirus first.



>
>I understand there is probably toasting a new BIOS in the video card
>included in that, probably don't need to go that far unless necessary.


Huh? No leave the bios alone unless/until you find a
specific reason you need to change it... most people never
do, it's just that online you will find more kids and
overclockers that are trying to turn a $100 card into a $300
card or are trying to determine why games won't run right
if/when nobody admits their hardware/driver/software/etc has
the bug causing the problem.

>
>Mostly just looking for a pointer or a little instruction on which
>parts of this to use to not make a mistake.
>
>Thank you
>(Is it just me or do companies not usually seem to put install software
>or even sometimes instructions for using their drivers on their web site
>even thought they put all their updated drivers there?)

Often there is a readme file with the driver.
Generally though, the best generic attemp is to first make
sure the OS is up to date, and with video and sound that
means particularly the DirectX version. ATI's website often
lists the minimal, oldest DirectX version any given driver
version will need in the online document for that specific
driver.

Otherwise it's "meant" to be rather straightforward, you
just run the file you downloaded and you keep in mind where
it stored the backup- the ATI folder. As mentioned
previously, the "Setup.exe" or "Install.exe" files when
preset are always the ones to run for the core driver
installation... with the rest often being simply some of the
files the driver installs elsewhere and uses transparently
from the users' perspective.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

kony wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 02:01:12 -0500, Don Taylor From:
> <dont@rdrop.com> wrote:
>
>
>>A quick question that some kind person might be willing to answer:
>>
>>I bought a used Gigabyte Radeon 925128 video card, but the seller
>>couldn't find the original install CD or manual.
>>
>>Dropping this into a fresh XP install, card comes up as default
>>vga, haven't exposed this to the net yet till I get protection.
>>The old XP cd doesn't seem to have a driver for this card and
>>there is a warning about this in the device listing.
>
>
> ... and you don't really want any driver that would've been
> on the XP CD either, as those (for the hardware they
> support) are at best no newer than card chipset manufacturer
> offers, and at worst are stripped-down drivers with low
> functionality.
>
>
>
>>So I tracked down
>>http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Support/Driver/Driver_ATIRADEON9250.htm
>>that appears to be the right driver (76+ megabytes!) and have that now.
>
>
> The best thing to do is not use MS or the manufacturer's
> driver. Download the newest regular (non-beta) driver from
> ATI.
ATI drivers included on the Windows XP CD *(and Windows 2000 CD) are
extremely stripped down indeed. Aside from no memory hogging catalyst,
even the basic functions are crippled or running in limp mode.

> Try ATI's (newer website) driver first, it may work fine.
> I almost forgot to mention that it's good to disable
> antivirus first.

> Huh? No leave the bios alone unless/until you find a
> specific reason you need to change it... most people never
> do, it's just that online you will find more kids and
> overclockers that are trying to turn a $100 card into a $300
> card or are trying to determine why games won't run right
> if/when nobody admits their hardware/driver/software/etc has
> the bug causing the problem.

Always a good idea to disable the antivirus. Even if it doesn't prevent
a problem, with the size of driver installs, a huge catalyst engine, and
all of the other goodies that come bundled with ATI cards - your AV
scanning every single file and change during the install will slow the
install down to a crawl.

Where I will disagree is, you might want to hang on to some of the stuff
included with your Gigabyte driver. At 76MB it's probably got a whole
suite of utilities *(DVD player, over clocking, TV capture if your card
has VIVO) that ATI may or may not have up for your card on the website,
or may only have 'update' versions of that still require those to be
installed. It's worth investigating to see what each one is & to what
extent full versions are available from ATI. Just don't install the ones
marked ATI driver & Catalyst & Hydravision (if you use multimonitor
features) in the Gigabyte pack. You can get more current ones from ATI.
If you can get current versions of everything else from ATI, by all
means use ATI's, but I expect that you wont be able to find more than
update versions for most.

If for some reason they didn't give you overclocking utilities with it
you can use ATITool from http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/
I wouldn't push it too far, but most of them have some give for
overclocking before you get artifacts. There is no softmod/bios for
the 9250 to turn it into a better card - so I'll save you the trouble of
looking for one, it doesn't exist.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

kony <spam@spam.com> writes:
>On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 02:01:12 -0500, Don Taylor From: <dont@rdrop.com> wrote:
>>I bought a used Gigabyte Radeon 925128 video card, but the seller
>>couldn't find the original install CD or manual.
>>
>>Dropping this into a fresh XP install, card comes up as default
>>vga, haven't exposed this to the net yet till I get protection.
>>The old XP cd doesn't seem to have a driver for this card and
>>there is a warning about this in the device listing.

>... and you don't really want any driver that would've been
>on the XP CD either, as those (for the hardware they
>support) are at best no newer than card chipset manufacturer
>offers, and at worst are stripped-down drivers with low
>functionality.

Thanks to the clear advice from you nice folks, drivers installed,
computer working, no problems. user happy. Thank you.