HD4650 agp drivers won't install

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So this is weird. Not long ago, I installed a new Sapphire HD4650 into an old AGP machine, and everything about the installation went like clockwork. Uninstalled the old drivers, installed the new drivers from CD, disabled the onboard graphics, and everything was good to go.

This week, I did the exact same thing on a different machine, but it seems that no matter what I do, I cannot get the 4650 driver to install. Attempts so far have included:

1) Use the install CD that came in the box: Installs codecs and .NET framework. Doesn't install Catalyst Control Center or the actual driver; "no matching hardware found."

2) Uninstall all ATI software/drivers, reboot, and try to add card through the Found New Hardware wizard: System recognizes "unknown VGA card" but can never locate a driver. If I specify where the driver is manually (on the install CD), it tells me the driver contains no information about the unknown VGA card.

3) Download older Catalyst Control Centers and/or Hotfix drivers (version 9.10, 9.9, 9.8) and install manually -- same problem as in #1.

4) Download really old CCC/Hotfix version 9.6: Installs CCC fine, but will not install drivers; "no matching hardware found."

5) Reset BIOS to defaults and/or reseat CPU: Same problems

6) Asked Sapphire for correct driver: "We don't have any ourselves, try downloading CCC 9.9"

Two important things: Yes, the card is slotted properly, and it powers on, its fan spins, etc. Also, the OS apparently DOES recognize that there's something in there, it just won't say what.

Motherboard is an ECS 865G-M (not deluxe) if it makes any difference. Haven't found any available motherboard or BIOS updates that look like they do anything.


Last thing ... when I uninstall the ATI software, it always gives me the option to "uninstall all ATI software/drivers (recommended)" or "uninstall all ATI software/drivers including chipset software. (advanced)" I have been hesitant to try the second one, because I'm not 100% sure it won't wipe out something I need. Any recommendations on any of this? I am starting to get fairly frustrated, because it doesn't seem like I'm doing anything wrong here.
 

montolia

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Just bought the AGP Radeon HD 4650 card. Installed the windows Vista drivers from CD (even though I'm using Windows 7). Seemed to be going fine, said I needed to reboot. Windows 7 boot up screen shows up, but just before Windows7 starts the monitors go blank (no signal). Can only get the monitors to work in Safe mode.

Motherboard: AOpen AX4SG Max II
 
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capt_taco, I have exact same problem with my GIGABYTE ga k8nsc 939 motherboard installing DIAMOND ATI Radeon™ HD 4650 AGP 512MB GDDR3 Video Card Bus Type: AGP | Part Number: 4650512A . I have done all the same setups you have tried only to be left with Windows 7 64bit using "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter"
 

montolia

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I was able to solve both problems (but ended up with two more):

1) One Screen going blank in Windows -- The HD4650 didn't play nice with my viewsonic monitor. The digital connection would work in the BIOS screen, or when using the Standard VGA Graphics Adapter, but would not work when using Windows 7 with the drivers it came with (or any downloaded drivers). BUT, I was able to get it to work if I used the included Digital --> Analog connector.

2) Both Screens blank at startup -- Both my monitors (My viewsonic and my HannsG) did not work at windows startup. The reason is apparently because I had two users applied to windows. Apparently both monitors did not receive signals from the HD4650 card while displaying the logon screen. So to get around this, I had to guess where the user button was so I could log onto windows. I eventually just deleted all other accounts so it would boot straight to windows without the logon prompt.

3) ATI driver removal uninstall is a Piece of Sh*t. Apparently the problem I was having was that even though I uninstalled the previous drivers using their add/remove programs uninstaller, it was leaving parts of the software on my computer... And, this messes up the correct software. To fix this I had to run a program called "Driver Sweeper" to remove all the left behind ATI software. Follow the instructions on their website (It has to be run in Safe Mode). Once I did that, booted into Windows, Deleted my user accounts, installed their software, and applied the Digital--> Analog converter, everything worked fine... almost.

4) If you are using the AGP version of the card, it's important to note that ATI's website sucks. The driver software that they take you to is for PCIe. I don't believe this will work for your card. I did try using the AGP 4000 hotfix drivers, but that didn't work either. The only drivers I got to work was the ones that came on the CD.

In the end, my computer kept having blue screens while booting up, and something (probably the card) wouldn't allow Windows to refresh or calculate the Windows Experience Index. I decided to return the card. I will never buy an ATI card again. I love their AMD processors, but I've never had such a bad experience with any piece of hardware as I did with this Radeon HD 4650 AGP card.
 
un-install all existing VGA drivers first, then reboot
Turn off all antivirus and security systems
Disable the windows firewall
Then load the driver software :hello: :hello:
I am thinking that will solve the issue.

This sort of worked. Or at least something similar did.

Removing the old ATI drivers didn't work, so I went ahead and uninstalled the driver for the onboard graphics adapter. That didn't work, so (going by the made-in-China advice of the motherboard manufacturer) I went into the Device Manager and also started disabling all the video devices there.

Whoops. In my haste, I got a big scare by accidentally disabling "Vgasave," which is Windows' emergency VGA driver if it detects neither a plug-in card nor an onboard adapter. So Windows would still load and function like normal, only my screen would go dark immediately after the Windows boot screen. Normally you can fix this by booting in Safe Mode, but of course my machine would hang up during the boot process for Safe Mode, so I had to try a number of convoluted fixes that I don't even want to revisit in order to get the video back.

Finally, with no drivers for either ATI or the onboard adapter installed, my system STILL wouldn't recognize the 4650 as anything besides an "unknown VGA device" that it couldn't find drivers for (Trying to install any of the ATI drivers that came with it would lead to a device not recognized error). Finally, after about my 20th unsuccessful attempt at disabling the onboard graphics in the BIOS -- my motherboard had a non-standard BIOS without a real option to disable graphics, of course -- I did a CMOS clear without the card in place, booted and shut down, reinstalled the 4650, booted up again, and it miraculously recognized it. I'd done several CMOS clears before with the card in place, but for some reason it wouldn't recognize it any of those times.

For whatever reason, it works fine now and I have to say I'm happy with the results; it really has rejuvenated that old machine.
 

Kuzuya

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Well i tell ya i got a hd4650 but it was an xfx and it has made me question ati and xfx as companies well basicly i have an older machine with agp and it has a geforce 7600 gs in it but one of the circuits or something is fried because it gets lots of pixel errors for different games so im lookin for a new card for some improved performance the the card was a paper weight i mean sure it install and ya it was kinda cool over clocking and benchmarking to max fps but it didn't play a single game....i mean even diablo 1 it would make a loud high pitch tone i mean i tried every game i could think of and all of the would lock up or crash...i tried every driver i could find and ever agp fix there was so i call the tech support dude and tell him there must be something wrong with my drivers because can't play any games with my new card that even my old card could play....the guy says "you should just use your old card if it still works" i was in shock the balls of this guys i mean he called himself tech. support i mean how much do they pay these monkeys reading lines from a tech program i mean WTF!!! well i would be weary of buying this card because of the poor support for drivers .....
 
Hey, I remember this. MAN, was it a pain in the ass to deal with that card. It's become pretty well-known that drivers for the new AGP cards are spotty at best. Not to mention that older machines sometimes just plain don't want to recognize a new card without some serious prodding.

It's like ... you can almost always get these AGP cards to work eventually, but be prepared to spend a couple evenings fighting with it. And also be prepared for none of the recommended fixes to work, and when you've tried them all and are ready to pull your hair out, the fix that finally does work is something completely asinine that you would've thought was totally unrelated. And also that no two machines are going to be alike; for some reason, you can do the exact same thing on two old P4 machines and get completely different results.
 

dj_molecular

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I know this thread is old but i felt the need to post this info somewhere. I have seen nothing but never ending posts online about issue with the HD4650 AGP. Especially in Windows 7. I tried everything and anything over the span of 4 hours. From running a bare bones, setup to putting in a behemoth PSU and updating every driver possible on my system with no luck. Ive tried almost every catalyst package out there. Even the latest 11.6 Hotfix for all AGP cards failed giving me a BSOD. Never once would Catalyst actually install the HD4650 drivers. And alot of the times it would not install the catalyst control center either. Was always stuck with "Standard Display Adapter" in the device menu. Ive tried every possible fix and suggestion out there with no results. My final working result came from looking at trouble shooting posts on many message boards with just AGP cards in general. And dont quote me on this but a poster mentioned legacy support ended in Catalyst 10.12. Then i heard someone else say the manufacturer of their card told them to use catalyst 10.12. I was game so i tried yet another suite and failed miserably yet again with no results. Would not install the drivers period.

I tried one last thing. and heres what works. Run 10.12 catalyst and after it extracts to the temp dir then quite the installation. Head over to device manager and goto your adapter and choose update driver software. Then choose "browse my computer for software" Then use the option "Let me pick the drivers" followed by "Have Disk" option.

Then direct it to this file. C:\ATI\Support\10-12_vista32_win7_32_dd_ccc_ocl\Packages\drivers\Display\W7_INF\CL109808.inf Then scroll down the video cards listed until you get to the very first hd 4650 listing and choose that one. Then install anyways when windows says it might not work. Re boot and now the driver is in place and listed as a HD 4650 and displaying proper resolution etc. There another INF file below that one but i never even had to use it or even try it.

Now thats done grab that latest 11.6 Hotfix for all Radeon AGP cards from AMD. Extract and install but when installing YOU MUST CHOOSE "CUSTOM" install. Then make sure you deselect "Install drivers" (you already have one that works). Basically just install the control center ONLY. If you install driver it messes it up again. When finished reboot. And now you have a working 11.6 catalyst control center for your hd 4650 in windows 7.

Ive only posted this because info is REALLY limited out there for these cards and there issues. Ive seen where people have returned the card. I did not wann go that route so i didnt give up and i really hope this can help some people.
Sorry its not more detailed but im not into writing up stuff. I only signed up to post this info only. But for a few details of my specific situation is as follows.
MSI Board, Intel Chipset, AGP x8, 550 watt PSU and Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit edition. I dont know if this will work on the 64 bit edition but this definitely worked for me finally on the 32 bit version.
 
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