Sapphire hd 5450 not recognized, HELP  

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dsperber said:

jc836 said:

You need to go to the AMD/ATI support page and get the earlier CCC package. Use the 13.251.0.0 version. That is what I am using on my HD5450.

This is inaccurate. There is no reason to use a 2013 Catalyst driver version, and even 14.4 is inappropriate.

The driver for the HD5450 is the current 14.12 Omega, which is compatible with and usable for all AMD cards HD5000+. I have 14.12 installed on two machines with an HD5450 and it works fine.


Now, to the problem at hand...

What kind of monitor are you using? What type of cable connection from monitor to the HD5450?

Were you using the same hardware in your previously installed environment? Same machine as you've now installed Win7 Ultimate on?

And things were working perfectly previously? And what was that previous system... also Windows 7, or WinXP, or what?

I tried yours but work, again the black screen show up.
1-Monitor-Monitor Type : Samsung SMS19A100 - 19 inches
2-I for forgot the cable name. the cable is with screws
3-Yes, environment and machine is the same.
4-things were perfect in windows 7 32 bit untill i moved to 64 bit.
5-the previous windows was windows 7 32 bit

I have the following questions and comments. The history of this machine is unclear. Please answer the following.

(1) Was it 32-bit Windows 7 that you were running previously? Or was it 32-bit Windows XP or Vista?

EDIT: sorry, I didn't see your latest post indicating it was 32-bit Win7.

(2) Did you build this machine yourself and install 32-bit Win7 yourself, or did you buy the machine pre-built with 32-bit Win7 version pre-installed from the vendor?

(3) If you bought the machine pre-built, did it come with the HD5450 already physically installed and present or not?

If not, then you must have originally been simply using the stock built-in Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500 which comes on that Gigabyte G41M-ES2l motherboard for your video in Windows. You were thus using the motherboard's VGA connector to connect to your monitor with a VGA cable, as there is only a VGA connector on that motherboard. There would be no need for AMD video drivers for the HD5450 on that 32-bit pre-installed Windows system, since you had no HD5450 physically present yet.

Since I believe the Samsung SMS19A100 monitor is only 1366x768 resolution, it's not clear if you were therefore running with the default Windows built-in MS-provided VGA video driver (in VGA mode) or an Intel video driver (in VGA or SVGA mode). But however it was done I'm going to guess this monitor was being operated in VGA mode, and at 1366x768, and "successfully".

(4) If the HD5450 wasn't present initially in your machine, then at some later time you must have bought it and installed it in your already operational 32-bit Windows system.

If you did add it later you no doubt probably just moved that end of the VGA cable currently connected to the motherboard's VGA connector over to the HD5450 VGA connector, and that's all you did. And magically things still worked just fine, and you were satisfied. You probably never knew you even possibly needed Catalyst video drivers for the HD5450, at least to take full advantage of its capabilities.

I'm going to guess that even in the absence of an installed Catalyst video driver for the HD5450, that you were simply continuing to operate the monitor in 1366x768 VGA mode, which again still worked successfully.

(5) Or, if you did add the HD5450 later, did you actually also use the Sapphire-provided driver CD which was probably provided in the box, to install Catalyst drivers from that driver CD into that 32-bit system in which the HD5450 now lived?

Or did you NEVER use that driver CD to install Catalyst at all into your previous Windows now using the HD5450, and yet things were still working fine? You may not have known it but you were actually using the built-in MS-provided vanilla generic VGA video driver present in all versions of Windows. This generic VGA driver can support ALL video cards/chips, and ALL monitors, because all video equipment is required to be able to run "properly and minimally acceptably" in VGA mode.

(6) If you didn't have Catalyst installed previously in your 32-bit windows even after installing the HD5450, then when booted normally to that 32-bit Windows environment Device Manager would have shown "VGA compatible adapter" for the HD5450 (same as it does in your 64-bit Windows with no Catalyst driver installed, or when you boot to safe mode and no video driver gets loaded).

Only if you had actually successfully installed Catalyst in that 32-bit Windows system would Device Manager have the device name changed to now show "AMD Radeon HD5450" or something like that. Do you remember which it showed when you last had your 32-bit system running?

(7) I have been unable to find any official Samsung online documentation or specs for your SMS19A100 monitor, so it's probably an old monitor. But from unofficial online posts about it I believe it has a maximum resolution of only 1366x768.

The monitor certainly runs properly in what is known to be generic non-driver VGA mode, as we can see from several states in the now installed 64-bit Win7 environment:

This is confirmed by the fact that you see BIOS output on the screen when you boot. This is VGA mode.

And also you had "normal operation" (even using the HD5450, but still running in VGA mode since you didn't have Catalyst installed yet) when you recently completed your 64-bit Win7 install. Without Catalyst installed, the MS VGA video driver built into Windows operates the display adapter and monitor in VGA mode.

And also you see "normal operation" when you boot this 64-bit Windows in safe mode (which bypasses the loading of the currently installed Catalyst driver, whatever version it is). Again, without Catalyst installed and/or activated, the generic MS VGA video driver kicks in and operates the display adapter and monitor in VGA mode.

And also note that that prior to your recently installing Catalyst into your just installed 64-bit system, the just-installed 64-bit Windows was still using the built-in MS-provided general VGA video driver and obviously operating completely normally, in 1366x768 resolution and in VGA mode.

It's only when you now try to boot Windows normally AFTER INSTALLING CATALYST (to support the HD5450's SVGA capabilities) that Catalyst is trying to switch the monitor from VGA mode to SVGA mode, and which I speculate is just not possible with this very old 1366x768 monitor.

==> And I am speculating that it is this attempt to switch the monitor from VGA mode to SVGA mode as Windows desktop initializes and the Catalyst video drivers get loaded and initialize, which is causing the screen to go dark.

(8) I am speculating that is this old 1366x768 VGA-only monitor which is your "culprit". Its resolution of 1366x768 might just as well run in VGA mode anyway (although small laptop screens which are also 1366x768 can, in fact, run in SVGA mode).

I believe if you invested in (or had access to, just for an experiment) an inexpensive newer monitor that gave you either 1600x900 or 1920x1080 resolution (and was therefore guaranteed to support SVGA mode), that you would be back in business. And anyway, things would look much more "gorgeous" than they would at 1366x768.