ATI Mobility Radeon x700

[jacktorrance]

ATI Mobility Radeon x700 - Driver Problem

Hi All,

I have a Sony Vaio BX297XP with an ATI Mobility Radeon x700 graphics card.

I have installed the RC build of Windows 7 as a second OS on the machine.

I am finding it incredibly difficult to solve the display driver issue that I have.

Currently in Device Manager my display adapter is listed as:

Standard VGA Graphics Adapter

I believe that, since this is occuring, any ATI graphics drivers that I try to install aren't recognising the x700 as my graphics card and so are failing to update any drivers.

At the moment I'm stuck with the standard Windows display drivers which limit the resolution of the screen and disable graphics acceleration etc..

If anyone has an idea of how to solve the problem I would appreciate feedback. I wondered whether it would have anything to do with updating chipset drivers etc...but since I've never had to do that before (and since I am still using XP on the laptop) I didn't want to start messing things up.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Thanks/

edit: I should add that, on my first install of Windows 7 I used Windows Update to install an 'ATI Technologies Inc. driver update for ATI MOBILITY RADEON X700' - once installed, after rebooting the screen was completely black and there was nothing I could do to get the picture back. I tried booting in low-resolution mode and safe mode but neither helped. I wondered whether it was because I had the screen set to the highest resolution possible before installing and rebooting the drivers.

 

[jacktorrance]

Update:

Luckily, late last night (and I probably should've done this before), I accessed the recovery partition for the vaio that I'm using. Within that partition was 2 video folders, one containing ATI drivers for the card and the other for graphics acceleration.

I at first tried to install the drivers as normal but no luck, so ran them in compatibility mode (xp SP2) and they installed fine.

On rebooting I then tried to update to the latest Catalyst drivers using the Mobility Modder application. I did this update through the device manager - drivers were installed but incorrectly so I've returned to the previous working drivers.

Just gotta find a way to upgrade now.

 

[airmanslacker]

I recently installed Windows 7 RC and am using an Radeon X700 AGP card and found a way to get the card to work. I don't have full capabilities, (like AGP acceleration or fast write or Smartgart) but the screen is not boggy and slow anymore. The main reason for that, I believe is due to insufficient drivers for my motherboard for this version of windows, so I cannot use it to it's full potential. I'm not sure if it would be the same for each card, but I can't imagine it being much different. Here is how to get yours to work.

1. Download the latest drivers for XP for your card and run it in XP SP3 compatibility mode. Install everything and restart the computer to make sure everything on that end is settled in. You should now have a folder in C:\ATI\Support for the version of Catalyst you installed. We'll call this folder "X".

2. Go to your device manager. Your Radeon should still be sticking out like a sore thumb. Right click and select "Update driver software".

3. Select "Browse my computer for driver software", then "Let me pick...", then "Have disk", then "Browse"

4. Go to "C:\ATI\Support\X\Driver\Driver\XP_Inf" and it should find the .inf file (at least with mine it did, but it was version 8.12 of Catalyst). Click "open", then "ok" and then select your card on the next screen. Proceed through the rest of the installation procedures, and restart.

5. Enjoy!

 

[mikm]

Radeon X700 Mobility

HI,
I had the same problem. After 4 hrs messing around, I simply went to Device Manager and reinstall driver , then let Windows 7 find the driver online and it found it!

Try it!

 

[jacktorrance]

Thanks for your replies guys.


@ mikm - did you have the problem originally that, the drivers contained withn Windows Update would present you with a black screen once rebooted?

I am interested in your solution - I have drivers installed currently and the screen is working fine, but I can't get AERO to display (card is 256mb Mobility x700), all other specs meet minimum requirements.

I don't want to mess up my system by reinstalling the driver if you weren't in the exact position that I am at the moment.

Cheers!

 

[dusk]

I also have an X700 running but other than you with almost full functionality. Using an external monitor blacks my notebook display out.
But I have full acceleration and Powerplay which can even be changed in the Win7 power sheme. Enabled me to get almost identical power draw as in XP. 9,8 Watt Idle
I installed the catalyst 9.4 beta win7 32bit dd cc driver. Which means I extraced them moddet them with the modding tool - I can't find a link for - and it worked fine. But this external displays stuff is a major problem if one always want to use two displays.

My X700 is PCIe on a Intel 915 pm chipset. Its a Samsung R50 Notebook.

I would try this beta driver if were you.

 

[airmanslacker]

I'm using an ABIT UL8 and use an AGP slot. Not that new so there is not really any support past XP. It's not a mobility X700, but you would think it would work. I may try to beta driver out to see how it works.

 

[broccauley]

I have a 256MB Mobility Radeon X700 in my Acer laptop. At first I had the "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" problem as well, but then I went to Windows Update and the ATI drivers from there worked perfectly with full Aero support.

I have since mobility modded the Vista Catalyst v9.3 drivers and installed these with no problem (support for the X700 was dropped in the v9.4 drivers - the 9.4s don't work).

I'm not sure if this is graphics-related or not, but I'm noticing much improved video playback performance if compared to XP - HD videos that would previously stutter are now silky smooth!

 

[jacktorrance]

@ broccauley - when installing the modded 9.3 drivers, did you use the setup.exe file to install or did you update the driver using the device manager and navigating to the driver folder?

I have managed to get the driver updated to 8.541.0.0 by using the device manager method but I don't have full Aero support - I'm told that the driver I am using for the card isn't WDDM compatible.

Windows update still displays an available Mobility Radeon x700 update but when I install it I get the black screen problem detailed in my first post.

 

[broccauley]

@jacktorrance - I ran the setup.exe.

Having checked my device manager, I have driver version 8.561.0.0. However, the Catalyst 9.3 release notes say that they have the driver version 8.591. Therefore, I have no idea whether I am running the drivers from Windows Update or from the modded Catalyst 9.3. Running the setup.exe did, however, give me a full Catalyst Control Center and Hydravision controls.

Can anyone confirm whether 8.561.0.0 is from Windows Update or from the Catalyst 9.3?

 

[jacktorrance]

Cheers for your reply.

Whenever I try to run the setup.exe on my machine I get a BSOD. The only way that I am managing to get drivers updated is by using the update driver method through device manager.

Strange problem I've got here and I can't work out the reason or find a solution...!

Just have to keep working at it.

 

[konik]

@ broccauley
No it is not, it is probably just 9.2 version.
You can download last version of modding tool and fix the last working driver for x700(Catalyst 9.3) as I did and it is working!

 

[deepcore]

I also tried all above, but blanc screen. Might be reason Sony Vaio VGN-BX197XP and ATI Mobile X700..

Still struggeling..

 

[manosdoc]

Microsoft Update Catalog

Go with IE8, Type ATI X700, download the latest WHQL 8.56.1.4

Or try from Catalyst.
The driver is fully WDDM 1.0 which is good. Not WDDM 1.1 but fully supported, therefore you should not experience problems.

 

[giggs]

Hello everyone.

I too had a problem with my mobility radeon x700 disply adapter.

When I installed win7 on my laptop everything seemed to be fine with no graphic card driver. But when I updated driver through device manager using windows updater, there was blank display after reboot.

I then tried many things to correct this situation. One of these things was to connect external monitor to my laptop. After reboot my external lcd displayed win7 logon. At last!

Then I accepted a fact that this is the way my laptop will work, as I use it only in my house... until following happened. I closed the lid of my laptop and oppened it after few seconds. Win7 realised that there is another lcd display and the picture appeared.

The conclusion:
After x700 driver instalation try to open-close laptop lid and hope picture displays as it did with mine.

Hope this solves your problem.
giggs

 

[Boudu]

Hello everyone.

I too had a problem with my mobility radeon x700 disply adapter.

When I installed win7 on my laptop everything seemed to be fine with no graphic card driver. But when I updated driver through device manager using windows updater, there was blank display after reboot.

I then tried many things to correct this situation. One of these things was to connect external monitor to my laptop. After reboot my external lcd displayed win7 logon. At last!

Then I accepted a fact that this is the way my laptop will work, as I use it only in my house... until following happened. I closed the lid of my laptop and oppened it after few seconds. Win7 realised that there is another lcd display and the picture appeared.

The conclusion:
After x700 driver instalation try to open-close laptop lid and hope picture displays as it did with mine.

Hope this solves your problem.
giggs

Giggs you are a genius ! I've been trying to solve this one for months ! I closed the lid, pc went into hibernate, I re-opened it and Voila ! Full res, aero, the works. Thanks.

Boudu.

 

[broccauley]

@konik - yes you are right. The 8.561.0.0 dated 01 December 2008 is the version that Windows Update currently installs.

The reason that it didn't work previously was because ATi had changed the installer for the drivers and the MobilityModder would not work with this new installer. There is, however, now a new version of MobilityModder.NET available and I have used this to successfully install the 32-bit legacy Vista Catalyst 9.8 with driver version 8.593.100.0 dated 21 July 2009. These are only WDDM 1.0 though - it doesn't look like AMD/ATi will ever give us WDDM 1.1 support for the X700.

 

[Zlabiroth]

Hello guys.

I own an Asus M6VA with an ATI radeon mobility X700.

And I followed your instructions with the moding tool. Now I have access to the installation of catalyst control center.

But I get an error message each time I try to run CCC.

It's in french but it says "Impossible to load the file or the assembly " " or one of his dependencies. File is missing".

I used the 9.3 version.

Any help is welcome

 

[broccauley]

@Zlabiroth - uninstall your current drivers and try to use th MobilityModder.NET on the newest 9.8 driver and reinstall - these work. Maybe the change in the MobilityModder tool may have caused it not to work any more with the older 9.3 drivers.

Failing that, just use the older WHQL-certified drivers from Windows Update - these work very well!!

 

[Zlabiroth]

@broccauley - Thank you. But in fact, at the beginning I've done what you say : updating the system with windows update and everything went fine.

But I want to control the powerplay setting, and I can't do it without Catalyst Control Center, that's why I'm trying anything possible ^^

Maybe get back to the windows update driver and then, try to modify the last package of drivers to install only the catalyst control center and not the driver.

Will let you know what happens

==================================

Edit :

I dit what you said (use the 9.8 and uninstalling the old drivers) and it worked perfectly !

Thank you !