XFX One +Plus 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5450 Aero Issues

Try to re-install windows if you have the opportunity :)

I'll give the repair a shot soon, but I have class tomorrow so I can't stay up unfortunately. As for the link you posted, well, it just says that you can enable or disable different visual effects through the Performance Options. I posted a screenshot of what my Performance Options look like, and they are missing a lot of the options I should have. It also says you can move the radio button and check the check boxes through the registry but that's not a difficulty I'm having.

@RoasterMan, I really want to avoid having to reinstall all my programs and set up my settings. I would honestly rather unplug the damn graphics card than do that. I'm due for a real upgrade one of these days, anyway, if I had the money.

Alexeon said:

I'll give the repair a shot soon, but I have class tomorrow so I can't stay up unfortunately. As for the link you posted, well, it just says that you can enable or disable different visual effects through the Performance Options. I posted a screenshot of what my Performance Options look like, and they are missing a lot of the options I should have. It also says you can move the radio button and check the check boxes through the registry but that's not a difficulty I'm having.

@RoasterMan, I really want to avoid having to reinstall all my programs and set up my settings. I would honestly rather unplug the damn graphics card than do that. I'm due for a real upgrade one of these days, anyway, if I had the money.

Yeah totally reinstalling at this point is not needed. Try the repair install and report back to us when you can.

So I just tried to do the recovery install and it failed. It said that this version of Windows isn't compatible and it restored my previous installation. So, I'm back where I started, but with a lot of temp files from the upgrade to delete. I used the same DVD Microsoft sent me when I bought this copy of Windows, so I have no clue what the problem was. I'll probably uninstall the graphics card this weekend unless anyone else has a good idea.



UPDATE: I uninstalled the graphics card, uninstalled its drivers, and reinstalled my nVidia drivers and I kept getting the same issue with Aero not being enabled and my options missing. Just when I was about to give up, though, I thought to check DisplayFusion. I have that installed so I can have a taskbar on my second monitor and different wallpapers per monitor - is that feature so complicated that it wasn't available natively? But I digress. DisplayFusion has a Monitor Settings section in its preferences, and in there, I found that DisplayFusion detected a third monitor being hooked up which neither Windows Display Settings nor nVidia's GeForce Experience detected. I disabled that monitor and WAM!, Aero immediately came back and my Performance Options show up like they should. I have no clue why this worked out like it did, but well, there you go. I may try to reinstall the graphics card and seeing if that simple fix applies there, too, but to be honest, I'm not sure if I want to. I know its not much to go on, but when I ran the Windows Experience Index as part of the troubleshooting I did with the graphics card and without, I got a score of 4.1 with the card and 4.5 without it (using the onboard graphics card.) Is that a misleading score? Would a graphics card separate from the motherboard really cause my PC's capabilities to go down like that? I don't know if this update will bump my thread back up, but since I have that pending question, if it doesn't I will bump it with an extra post. Once that's all done, I'll close the thread properly.

Polite bump. I could not find a set of forum rules, so forgive me if I am breaking them.

Alexeon said:

Polite bump. I could not find a set of forum rules, so forgive me if I am breaking them.

Sorry, dealing with so many threads sometimes these get skipped. Its perfectly ok to bump and remind me. Let me look over your update and I'll get back to you in a bit.

Cool, thanks. Take your time, I don't plan on reinstalling the card today anyway.

So if Im reading it right, you had a 3rd monitor in the settings and once you removed that, everything is fine?

As far as your WEI rating, Im not sure why you would get a better rating with your onboard graphics. The video card you have should perform better.

I would say reinstall the card with that extra monitor "gone" and see what happens, assuming Im reading it right. Worst case scenario you can uninstall it again. Maybe try a different pci slot if you have it.

I only have the one slot, but yeah, I'll try again. The monitor only showed up in the settings for DisplayFusion, not Windows or nVidia, but somehow Windows bought it wholesale. I was able to move my mouse cursor far far far to the left, beyond the last physically present monitor. Maybe I'll get a better score with Aero actually working and without that other monitor, although I ran both WEI tests under the same conditions (no Aero, extra monitor, etc.) Well see tomorrow morning.

Alright, so I ended up being very busy this last month and I never got a chance to reinstall the graphics card. In fact, I just gave up with it. I didn't want to close the thread until I had some sort of answer but that's where I'm at now, so I will now close the thread and distribute my thanks. Thank you all for your help.


EDIT: Several months later, I figured out the issue and have installed my graphics card. The problem was that sometimes, when I make changes to the display drivers (updates, etc), DisplayFusion starts detecting an extra monitor under its Monitor Configuration settings. All I had to do was disable the extra monitor on there and everything started working just fine. Figures its a simple fix once I finally found the issue. Just posting here in case someone in the future has a similar problem and finds my thread through Google or something.