Got my AIW 9600 working again... so far...

dnitzer

I posted this in Judas' sticky thread at top, but just in case anyone misses it there - here it is again:

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I saw the note from one poster whose ATI Tech told him to use CAT 6.2 with MMC 9.06.1. So I gave it a try, and after one initial mis-step, I got my AIW 9600 card to work. Here are the steps, and the order in which I did them, that got everything going again. Some of this is old stuff, but just to be clear:


1. Clean out all old ATI drivers and software. First I used the XP Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel. Removed all traces there one by one. Then used Driver Cleaner Pro. Then hunted manually through Program Files and Local Settings to clean out any left over folders. Then finally ran CCleaner, removing temp files, and ran the registry cleaner.

2. Reboot. Cancel past XP's attempt to re-install drivers. Then Run CCleaner once more, to be sure XP didn't try to load anything unwanted. (Thanks to Dyre Straits for that tip). Check the Device Manager to make sure there are no ATI driver remnants loaded anywhere. Do NOT reboot after the second run of CCleaner (so that XP doesn't try to reload anything during a reboot). You want the install process to be faced with a completely clean XP loadup.

3. From ATI site, install these files, in this order:

From CAT 6.2 -- do NOT download the large bundle file.
Instead, choose these individually from the "Low Speed" section.

a. 6-2_xp-2k_wdm_30152.exe -- DO NOT REBOOT even if prompted.
b. 6-2_xp-2k_dd_30152.exe -- Now REBOOT after install.

Allow XP and ATI installer to do their thing on reboot.

Now for MMC 9.06.1 -- again, do NOT download the large bundled file.
Retrieve individual files, and install one by one.

c. mmc-9-1-0-0-dao-mdac.exe -- DO NOT REBOOT
d. atiCDwiz.exe.

(I allowed this one to retrieve the setup file from the ATI site when prompted.)

Again, DO NOT REBOOT yet.

e. mmc-9-06-1.exe -- NOW REBOOT upon prompt.

NOTE: I did NOT download or install the monstrous Catalyst Control Center. Instead, I found the older ATI Control Panel and am using that instead, from CAT 5.9 - again, I downloaded and installed the individual file - no large bundles.

5-9_xp-2k_cp_26409.exe is the file for the Control Panel applet.

So far, everything is working today. Knock on wood. I have done soft and hard reboots, have been capturing, watching TV, and editing videos. The one thing I noticed is that on the first use of the TV tuner, the image hanged for a few seconds. I shut it down, gave it a couple seconds, then relaunched it. No hang this time. Holding my breath for a few days to see if the system is stable. If so, I will ghost it, and most likely return the nVidia and Hauppauge cards to the store.

Good luck - hope this is helpful to others of you still waiting for the fix from ATI. I will be interested in hearing if this works for the rest of you.

dguy

Congrats. Glad to see at least one of us got something going again.

Just curious though (because I have previously followed most of these steps with no luck already), but did you have the other nVidia and Hauppauge cards installed and working already? Perhaps the installation of those cards and drivers somehow allowed your latest attempt of the ATI Drivers to succeed when in the past they haven't ?

Zeph

Where were you able to download a non-9.14mmc? Link?

Dyre Straits

I have my own AIW 9600 working with just the ATI drivers and MMC 9.03. I posted also that I had lost the TV capture ability after upgrading to MMC 9.14. I've been able to get things working again without doing a reformat or even a repair of Windows XP Home.

You can get any of the previous versions of MMC by following the links at the ATI site:

__________________

dnitzer

I did have those cards installed and working, but removed them and their drivers before trying the ATI again.

However, my success might have been short-lived. I turned the computer off overnight. This morning the MMC TV tuner is still working, but just barely. The video is scratchy and the audio is worse, and when changing channels there is some hesitation that hadn't been there before. It seems like the MMC TV tuner app is wanting to crash. What's weird (or telling) is that in Pinnacle Studio 9.4, the TV tuner app and capture are working just fine.

I will update the forum here if this situation changes either way.


UPDATE - several hours later.

The MMC 9.06.1 TV tuner has completely crashed. Black screens when I try to use it now. It had been growing progressively buggy the more I tried to use it: bad video and audio quality, channels hanging, and finally it no longer even recognized my cable channels. The last two times I tried to use it, the screen went completely black and I had to soft reboot the computer.

However, the Pinnacle Studio 9.4 continues to work fine. Good video and audio, it sees and captures input from TV tuner, s-vhs and composite sources. So the card itself is apparently working correctly.

The other MMC 9.06.1 apps are okay, too: DVD player, CD, File Player, etc. Only the TV tuner app has crashed.

Device Manager shows no problems with the WDM drivers (yet) - even after the MMC tuner crashes and several reboots. No exclamation marks, and since Pinnacle is working correctly, I am thinking the individual drivers from Cat 6.2 are probably okay. Going to try moving backwards to MMC 9.03 later tonight to see if that is more stable, as it seems to be working for Dyre Straits.

I have not been able to get my original installation CD to install correctly, but at least the Cat 6.2 drivers have installed and the drivers seem to be hanging in there so far. Now hopefully just a matter of finding which version of MMC to use...

Am going to abandon this thread and limit my updates to Judas's sticky thread so that my attempts and travails are all in one place for any other users to give it a shot also...