ATI Radeon Graphics 3000 on Windows 10 reverted back to Windows Basic Display Driver

[Richard Hiner]

First of all, I am aware that this is most likely an issue with an outdated graphics card being used on Windows 10 as this is what most of the sites I've perused have told me. At the end of the day, I'll likely purchase a new card but in case I can avoid that, I'd like to.

Now onto the meat of the issue. Last night, seemingly out of nowhere, my graphics card decided to be a jerk and die out, causing Windows to revert to the Basic Display Driver and only allowing me three resolutions to choose from - 1280x1024, 800x600 and 1024x768 which is the recommended display resolution. I've scoured the internet looking for solutions, from doing a rollback (which I cannot do as the option is greyed out), registry edits (which I couldn't figure out for the life of me and didn't want to risk messing things up), to praying to Yog-Sothoth and doing a system restore (which I also couldn't do because, for whatever reason, system protection was turned off and I had no restore points logged). The odd thing about all of this is that the card is still listed in the device manager but in the properties, it says that there are no drivers installed for the device ... while simultaneously showing the version as 22 .19.128.0. I have no idea what to do or how to fix this short of buying a new card.

For greater detail as to anything on my end I may have done, I'll provide exactly what I was doing at the time this occurred. I was playing Neverwinter Nights Diamond Edition with Discord's Web App opened. I received a message, decided to alt-tab out, at which point my monitor suddenly showed 'No Input' but still had sound from NWN playing. So I figure, I'll just hard-reset my PC as I had already tried unplugging and replugging the VGA cable. Once I rebooted, that's when I could only choose from the three resolutions mentioned and shown in the attached pictures.

Any advice / solutions / recommendations for graphics cards (I'm currently eyeing a GIGABYTE Radeon RX 560) would be greatly appreciated! Thanks ahead of time,

Richard.

https://pasteboard.co/GUZeV9W.png

https://pasteboard.co/GUZf5Ii.png

https://pasteboard.co/GUZfcKJ.png

 

[DSzymborski]

Given the age of the GPU, the symptoms, and the fact that it was apparently working fine with Windows 10 before this, I think it's most likely that you're looking at a GPU that is simply starting its death throes. A decade is a good run for a GPU.

As for the RX 560, it's a terrific entry-level card, and if an old Radeon 3000 series (you didn't say which specific one, but they're all pretty slow at this point) was meeting your needs, an RX 560 will meet them easily.

 

[Richard Hiner]

Given the age of the GPU, the symptoms, and the fact that it was apparently working fine with Windows 10 before this, I think it's most likely that you're looking at a GPU that is simply starting its death throes. A decade is a good run for a GPU.

As for the RX 560, it's a terrific entry-level card, and if an old Radeon 3000 series (you didn't say which specific one, but they're all pretty slow at this point) was meeting your needs, an RX 560 will meet them easily.

Ah, darn. I figured as much. Not that it's a loss for me to upgrade or that I'm attached to this card (okay, so I sort of am), but I was hoping to give it some last-minute life support in the meantime. It would be nice to play newer-ish games on decent-ish settings without it being on low, though!

Curious, would uninstalling the device and then reinstalling drivers do anything?

Thanks for the speedy response!,

Richard

 

[b.kakavitsis]

Given the age of the GPU, the symptoms, and the fact that it was apparently working fine with Windows 10 before this, I think it's most likely that you're looking at a GPU that is simply starting its death throes. A decade is a good run for a GPU.

As for the RX 560, it's a terrific entry-level card, and if an old Radeon 3000 series (you didn't say which specific one, but they're all pretty slow at this point) was meeting your needs, an RX 560 will meet them easily.

I think that it could be a problem with the last update from windows. Happened today in 2 PCs in my company, both of them with FX4300 (ATI Radeon 3000). I dont think that it could be a coincidence that both 2 PCs in my company and also Richards PC having the same problem in 24 hours. I am currently trying to find a solution as well, with no luck so far.

 

[theepoc]

I don’t think that The issue is with the GPU dying, because all the pcs at my company that uses Radeon 3000 (7 pcs) suddenly reverted to Basic Display Driver today

 

[eNeutral]

I hit the same problem today as well with an old ATI Radeon HD 4350.

I fixed it by going to Device Manager -> Display adapters -> (my adapter) -> Driver tab -> Update Driver -> Browse my computer for driver software -> Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer -> select the newest driver that is not the 7/25/2017 update. I think it was something like January 2015 and I think the version might have been 8.970.100.9001. Anyway, I hit Next/OK/whatever and the screen went dark a few times and then things were back to normal.

Maybe the problem will come back, but for now this seemed to work. If this worked for you, kindly upvote me.

 

[Richard Hiner]

I hit the same problem today as well with an old ATI Radeon HD 4350.

I fixed it by going to Device Manager -> Display adapters -> (my adapter) -> Driver tab -> Update Driver -> Browse my computer for driver software -> Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer -> select the newest driver that is not the 7/25/2017 update. I think it was something like January 2015 and I think the version might have been 8.970.100.9001. Anyway, I hit Next/OK/whatever and the screen went dark a few times and then things were back to normal.

Maybe the problem will come back, but for now this seemed to work. If this worked for you, kindly upvote me.

Holy hell, this worked! Thank you so much, my man! I hope it doesn't come back for both of our sakes!

 

[fishzz]

The same problem happened to the two computers with ATI Radeon 3000 display card installed in our office today. It took me couple of hours to realize problem is ATI 3000 driver is not compatible with Win10 overnight! Finally I solved the problem by installing a free Chinese PC Desktop Management program called "Lu-Da-Shi", which is part of 360 Security Software Group. This is what I did:

-- Go to Device Manager to delete/uninstall the Display Adapter ATI Radeon 3000;
-- Install the Chinese software "Lu-Da-Shi" http://www.ludashi.com/
-- Run Lu-Da-Shi, then check the Driver, it will find the display card driver is not installed;
-- Let Lu-Da-Shi to install the display card driver;
-- Reboot, now you have everything back to normal.

If you or any friend read Chinese, then try "Lu-Da-Shi"; otherwise, you may try one of these Driver Update Tools (I have never tried myself):
https://www.lifewire.com/free-driver-updater-tools-2619206

 

[fizzygibbon]

I hit the same problem today as well with an old ATI Radeon HD 4350.

I fixed it by going to Device Manager -> Display adapters -> (my adapter) -> Driver tab -> Update Driver -> Browse my computer for driver software -> Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer -> select the newest driver that is not the 7/25/2017 update. I think it was something like January 2015 and I think the version might have been 8.970.100.9001. Anyway, I hit Next/OK/whatever and the screen went dark a few times and then things were back to normal.

Maybe the problem will come back, but for now this seemed to work. If this worked for you, kindly upvote me.

Holy hell, this worked! Thank you so much, my man! I hope it doesn't come back for both of our sakes!

This worked for me too - thank you very much!!

 

[maclaytodd]

First of all, I am aware that this is most likely an issue with an outdated graphics card being used on Windows 10 as this is what most of the sites I've perused have told me. At the end of the day, I'll likely purchase a new card but in case I can avoid that, I'd like to.

Now onto the meat of the issue. Last night, seemingly out of nowhere, my graphics card decided to be a jerk and die out, causing Windows to revert to the Basic Display Driver and only allowing me three resolutions to choose from - 1280x1024, 800x600 and 1024x768 which is the recommended display resolution. I've scoured the internet looking for solutions, from doing a rollback (which I cannot do as the option is greyed out), registry edits (which I couldn't figure out for the life of me and didn't want to risk messing things up), to praying to Yog-Sothoth and doing a system restore (which I also couldn't do because, for whatever reason, system protection was turned off and I had no restore points logged). The odd thing about all of this is that the card is still listed in the device manager but in the properties, it says that there are no drivers installed for the device ... while simultaneously showing the version as 22 .19.128.0. I have no idea what to do or how to fix this short of buying a new card.

For greater detail as to anything on my end I may have done, I'll provide exactly what I was doing at the time this occurred. I was playing Neverwinter Nights Diamond Edition with Discord's Web App opened. I received a message, decided to alt-tab out, at which point my monitor suddenly showed 'No Input' but still had sound from NWN playing. So I figure, I'll just hard-reset my PC as I had already tried unplugging and replugging the VGA cable. Once I rebooted, that's when I could only choose from the three resolutions mentioned and shown in the attached pictures.

Any advice / solutions / recommendations for graphics cards (I'm currently eyeing a GIGABYTE Radeon RX 560) would be greatly appreciated! Thanks ahead of time,

Richard.

https://pasteboard.co/GUZeV9W.png

https://pasteboard.co/GUZf5Ii.png

https://pasteboard.co/GUZfcKJ.png

I was able to revert to previous driver and got the high resolution back. It's by AMD dated 1/13/15 version 8.970.100.9001

 

[jcarper]

I've been following this thread hoping for a solution, have tried three different older drivers, uninstalling, reinstalling, etc. to no avail. I am getting this error:

Windows cannot identify this hardware because it does not have a valid hardware identification number. (Code 9)

This is an an integrated ATI Radeon 3000 on an older PC that runs just fine otherwise:
SYX-760GM-E51
AMC Athlon II X2 250 Processor 3.00 GHz
RAM: 6GB (5.75 usable)
64 bit OS, x64-based processor

Any ideas for a remedy?

 

[dnvrdave]

I hit the same problem today as well with an old ATI Radeon HD 4350.

I fixed it by going to Device Manager -> Display adapters -> (my adapter) -> Driver tab -> Update Driver -> Browse my computer for driver software -> Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer -> select the newest driver that is not the 7/25/2017 update. I think it was something like January 2015 and I think the version might have been 8.970.100.9001. Anyway, I hit Next/OK/whatever and the screen went dark a few times and then things were back to normal.

Maybe the problem will come back, but for now this seemed to work. If this worked for you, kindly upvote me.

 

[havedampton]

This just happened to me also. I booted into my linux OS and the display was fine. I don't think it's a hardware issue, as it happened at EXACTLY the same time as a windows display adapter update I can see in the logs.

STUPID FREAKIN' WINDOWS!!!!! At least give me the ability to roll back!

 

[havedampton]

Hi,
I tried the following procedure just now and it worked!
1. Download drivers 13-1-legacy_vista_win7_win8_64_dd_ccc
(Drivers for ATI Radeon 3000 / Windows 8 64bit)
2. After unpack drivers to root folder, go to device manager and choice manually select from the .inf driver´s list
Browse for driver software on your computer -> Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer,....
3.Have Disk... and browse to Packages/Drivers/Display/folder with .inf and use one of them
4. Select model and install...
5. OK

 

[ericbrux]

For the ATI Radeon HD 3450 on Windows 10, this appears to be a problem with driver v22.19.128.0 dated 7/25/2017. As mentioned above it appears that Windows Update is updating the driver and mucking things up. I fixed the issue by rolling back the driver to v8.970.100.9001 dated 1/13/2015. No reboot needed. Not sure if Windows Update is going to try to update it again.

 

[mattreba]

Given the age of the GPU, the symptoms, and the fact that it was apparently working fine with Windows 10 before this, I think it's most likely that you're looking at a GPU that is simply starting its death throes. A decade is a good run for a GPU.

As for the RX 560, it's a terrific entry-level card, and if an old Radeon 3000 series (you didn't say which specific one, but they're all pretty slow at this point) was meeting your needs, an RX 560 will meet them easily.

I have the Radeon HD 3000 integrated into my Asus M4A78LT-M motherboard. I have been running Windows 10 for over a year and sometime between when I last used my computer on Nov 21 and yesterday Nov 27th I too have reverted to the Windows Basic Driver.

 

[ty.wilkins84]

Thank you SO much eNeutral for the solution! I woke up in the morning and my screen was a mess... My client is passing away from cancer and this could not have come at a worse time for her or I. There is so much work to be done and there simply is not enough time.

1. The "rollback" option was grayed out
2. I downloaded legacy files, with no luck
3. Couldn't change any resolutions to fix it
4. I changed all settings on my new Samsung monitor
5. Called to have computer repaired, but "it will take days" as I was told

You have no idea how much you have helped me or this family in need. Thank you for posting this. I hope something fantastic happens to you real soon.

PS
AMD may have forever lost a customer due to this stressful event

I hit the same problem today as well with an old ATI Radeon HD 4350.

I fixed it by going to Device Manager -> Display adapters -> (my adapter) -> Driver tab -> Update Driver -> Browse my computer for driver software -> Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer -> select the newest driver that is not the 7/25/2017 update. I think it was something like January 2015 and I think the version might have been 8.970.100.9001. Anyway, I hit Next/OK/whatever and the screen went dark a few times and then things were back to normal.

Maybe the problem will come back, but for now this seemed to work. If this worked for you, kindly upvote me.

 

[hardwarefanatic]

I hit the same problem today as well with an old ATI Radeon HD 4350.

I fixed it by going to Device Manager -> Display adapters -> (my adapter) -> Driver tab -> Update Driver -> Browse my computer for driver software -> Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer -> select the newest driver that is not the 7/25/2017 update. I think it was something like January 2015 and I think the version might have been 8.970.100.9001. Anyway, I hit Next/OK/whatever and the screen went dark a few times and then things were back to normal.

Maybe the problem will come back, but for now this seemed to work. If this worked for you, kindly upvote me.

 

[hardwarefanatic]

Thank you a million times!!! Your solution worked for me too.
I was mystified when I stepped away from my computer for a few minutes and returned to find my screen resolution had changed to the lowest setting all by itself. I was prepared to give up and buy a new computer! It's funny that I gained a small education in the latest graphics cards in my search for a solution to this problem.