9600 AIW Pro WDM issues.

I've got the same problem

I bought an ati 9600 128 aiw off ebay with retail box, manual, cd... for my videophile girlfriend. I installed it in her computer with an abit kx7-333 mb, sound blaster audigy platinum, 256 pc 2100 ram, winxp without service packs. It worked fine without any conflicts in device manager. She used the purple attachment for video in and vga\svideo both worked as did audio. This lasted about 6 months. Then I upgraded her mb to a asus a7n8x-e deluxe while keeping all the other components. Fresh install of winxp, same drivers as before for everything except the mb. Now just like all of you I get the three exclamation marks in device manager on audio, video and whatever the audio crossbar is. I reinstalled the drivers on the cd, unistalled them, installed the newest drivers on ati's crappy website but when I did that an error came up saying my driver version didn't match and I needed to install ati's newest drivers which I had just done. After finding the hidden page with aiw's old drivers I proceeded to install different versions including the one on my installation cd but nothing works. What can we do to fix this? Also when you look at driver details for the messed up components all the drivers used in each one has all the information and is digitaly signed except ativcmc20.cod. What's that?

 

After months... I finally got mine working!!!!

I have been following this thread for months... hoping someone would have a solution. Like many of you I have spent hundreds of dollars upgrading everything but the damn ATI card and uninstalled and reinstalled everything 50 times... all to no avail. I have written to ATI repeatedly and now they simply won't respond to my inquiries.

Last weekend I decided it was time to make it work... or never buy another ATI product again.

I completely wiped my C drive and did a complete reinstall of Windows XP. THe only thing I installed after that was the OEM CD 9600 Pro drivers and MMC package. As usual.. I got three yellow errors on the usual suspects (Crossbar, Rage Theatre, etc).

I was, however also showing yellow exclamation flags for my USB drivers. I did not install them at this point as I was still on the native XP version. [NOTE: This will be important later on...] I deliberately did not do any of the Windows Upgrades since it was the upgrade to XP SP2 that originally killed my card.

I horsed around with ATI for hours. I worked every line item in my BIOS including upping the voltage to the AGP to the maximum value. No matter what I did... no success.

Finally I declared defeat and figured the card was a lost cause. I told my wife I needed to buy a new graphics card... (I think admitting defeat was what the engineers at ATI really had in mind all along.)

Finally I upgraded to XP SP2 (which, as mentioned earlier, was the thing that caused this card to quit working in the first place).

After upgrading to XP SP2, the only thing that didn't install automatically was the driver for the USB2.0. Although still connected, none of my USB devices were working. I went to the OTHER DEVICES folder in the SYSTEM!HARDWARE dialog and clicked on the USB device.

I clicked install driver and selected the radio button to let it search the internet.

Suddenly my computer started beeping over and over again and yellow exclamations started dissappearing left and right.... My ATI WDM drivers all started working. I went out to Windows and the TV application started working....

I have rebooted and restarted and everything continues to work... For 2 days... it is still working fine...

I make no warranties... I make no promises... but I do beleive the problem is related to USB 2.0.

Furthermore... I don't believe the bozo's at ATI have a clue what the problem is and are hoping all of us suckers will just buy the next version of AIW.

I have owned ATI AIW cards since they first came out and have upgraded many times. I have been a faithful ATI customer... but I am questioning my judgement. ATI has been incompetent and non-responsive to this issue to hundreds... if not thousands of customers.

I am not one to foment revolution... but ATI has not handled this situation well and I will be looking for another vendor in the future.

PS: If the info I have provided here helps any of you get your system back on line... let me know!

 

PAUBAR, what mainboard make and model do you have?

 

I have an ASUS P4P800 SE with a Pentium 4 3.0g processor. I have 512 RAM, although have had the same issues when I had a gig of RAM.

 

When the WDM drivers won't load, it's one of a few things:

Motherboard, Memory, the Video Card or some configuration issue with another piece of hardware.

It's NOT The drivers themselves that are the problem.

Try making sure EVERYTHING is set to defaults in the BIOS of the Motherboard. Try the card in a different system if possible. If the WDM drivers won't load in another system, then it's the card. If they do, then it's your motherboard or some confguration in the BIOS or the Memory.

Try a different power supply if you have one to rule out the possibility that may be the problem.

Turn off any unused peripherals on the motherboard like the Parallel or Serial Ports to free up resources.

I've run into this issue in the past wth all three of my AIW's and it's ALWAYS been a configuration issue. I've helped a lot of people troubleshoot through this issue and it's been a bad card a few times.

HTH

 

i did try the new system, new mainboard and what not. i got it working in my p3 866mhz, but it doesnt work in both my amds... and my newest system, amd 3000+ venice @ 3400+ has the exact same problem. my first amd didnt have usb 2.0. i also tried sp2, it didnt work.

when you say you helped troubleshoot, could you list a things to do? other than re-install windows because ive done that 5 or 6 times to no avail...

 

Well, I listed a few things to try up there, like disabling the Parallel and Serial ports along with everything else I said. Make sure you are running the system at stock clocks. Don't overvolt anything, especially the memory. I can see by what you stated that you are overclocked quite a bit.

Try a beefier power supply if you can get one. Remove any extra PCI cards you have installed for the time being. Make sure you are using ACPI so that Windows can allocate the resources on the fly.

 

well, agp/pci is locked, i have a enermax psu noisetaker 420w,(system only needs 350) i originally installed it with ONLY the video card, the same problem was there even on stock clocks..... and the system is 100% stable.

what i would like to know is what to do in the bios, ive set AAS to 64mb, disabled fast write, tried different combinations of agp slot speeds all to no avail...

 

Well, if the card works on one system and not on another, then it's most likely a resource conflict on the motherboard. Try setting Plug and Play OS to No. Did you disable the Parallel and/or Serial Ports?

What motherboards are these that don't work with this card?

 

ive disabled parallel/serial, usb, the second lan port, the onboard sound, tried stock speeds, plug and play os to NO and YES, all these didnt work.

the boards are two completely different ones, one is an asus a7pro (for the old amd thunderbird 1 ghz) and this one is a MSI k8n neo2 platinum (venice s939).
ive also tried various settings of ram slots, nothing.

but i do know that my asus cuv4x-c (intel 866mhz board) works with this card, and in teh past, this card worked on the asus a7pro as well.

this card doesnt have an extra power connector, and ive checked that the extra 4 pin mobo connector is plugged as well.

 

I own 3 AIW cards, all Radeon based:

AIW Radeon (7200 DDR)
AIW 9600 Pro
AIW X800XT

They are currently installed on 3 different chipsets.

The AIW Radeon started out life with me installed in an FIC VA-503A Super Socket 7 mobo with the VIA MVP3 chipset and a few different K6-II processors. The first was a 333MHz OC'd to 448Mhz (4x112MHz) and then a 550MHz running @ 560MHz (5x112MHz). It never had any issues with the yellow bang. Finished life with me running Windows 2000 SP3. It's still a working motherboard/CPU. Gave it to a friend.

It's currently installed in a Dual Socket A mobo, the ASUS A7M266-D, running 2 AthlonMP 1600+ and Windows Server 2003. It has the AMD 760MPX Chipset. 1GB PC 3200 running at DDR266. It is used for EazyShare TV so the kids can watch TV on their PC's. It's never had the problem of the yellow bang once I sorted out which combination of drivers and MMC would work (Cat 4.12, MMC 8.9). ATI was rather impressed that I had it working at all. It's been running for a LONG time now, well over a year. Everything is at stock speeds on that machine.

I used to run into the yellow bangs quite often when it was installed in another system. I had an EPoX 8KTA3+ Pro with the KT133A chipset. I overclocked my Duron 650, Athlon 1.2GHz and AthlonXP 2400+ with that board. The yellow bangs would appear every so often, almost random, it seemed. But, then I noticed a pattern develop, until one day the yellow bangs stuck and nothing I did would solve it. I reinstalled Windows, tried different drivers and so forth. I tried the card on another system in my house and it worked just fine. So then, I started going through BIOS options on my EPoX mobo. I discovered if I over-volted the RAM at all, I could induce the yellow bangs. When you're an overclocker, you run into compnent failure more often and sometimes, it's rather insidious and not obvious. Maybe try some different RAM modules if you have them.

The AIW 9600 Pro was installed on the EPoX 8KTA3+ Pro mobo originally. It was also running on my current main system, which uses another EPoX motherboard, with the nForce 2 Ultra 400GB MCP-T chipset, the 8RDA6+Pro. I have an AhtlonXP Mobile 2500+ running @ 2.31GHz (11x210MHz). The best drivers for it were the 4.12's and MMC 9.03 or 9.06.1. The yellow bang problem never haunted me there, except for the occasional instance. Again, I'm overclocking, so I expect some flakiness to show up until I can sort out the max stable limits on everything. Once I sorted out the max mem frequency and voltage, the problems never showed up again.

It's now living in an ASUS A7V880 with the KT880 chipset with an AthlonXP 2400+ and 1GB PC3200. I use it as a traveling PC for troubleshooting other systems. Onboard sound, NIC and also a PCI Wireless NIC. No problems with the yellow bangs there either. I'm using the 4.12's and MMC 9.06.1, Windows XP SP2

The AIW X800XT is installed in my 8RDA6+Pro. I'm using the 5.8's and MMC 9.06.1 No problems with the yellow bangs. Same processor as listed above. 2GB DDR400 RAM. As for the rest of the components, I have an Audigy 2 Value card installed as the only PCI card in the system. Prior to this card, I was using a TB Santa Cruz. Onboard sound is disabled. I'm using the onboard LAN and the Parallel and Serial ports are disabled. Windows XP SP2.

Throughout all of this, I started with Windows ME for the AIW Radeon in late 2000, moving on to Windows 2000 and then Windows XP RTM and then SP1 and now it's running under Windows Server 2003. The AIW Radeon 9600 Pro started out with Windows XP SP1, then SP2. The AIW X800XT has never seen anything but Windows XP SP2. Obviously, there have been MANY MANY MANY incarnations of drivers and MMC over the years. Several different motherboards have been part of the mix as well, as I've stated.

I've used the same PSU for all of these as well in my main system: Enermax 431W. I've used the same case as well: CoolerMaster ATC-201

The server is using an Antec Case and True-Power PSU. The traveller uses a SuperCase and Allied 350W PSU.

All of these cards were purchased from different vendors. The AIW Radeon was a white box OEM model from a wholesaler. The other two were full retail packages. The only time the problems occured, were due to my own messing around with things.

I realize this is a rather lengthy post, but I wanted to give you my history with these cards. I don't know what else to tell you except that if the card works in one system, then it's more than likely not a bad card. The other 2 motherboards may just not be compatible with that card, or they are doing something funky with the resource allocation. Have you contacted ASUS and/or MSI about the issue?

 

no, i didnt contact them. i think ima do that now.
but i did bios flash and all, updated drivers for mobo and what not.

 

Okay, I'm interested in what they have to say. I hope you can work out the problems.

One more thing to mention is that if you have a different OS to try, like Windows 2000 or something, it'd be worth a shot. If it works in Windows 2K, w/ SP3 or SP4 for instance, on the mobos that don't work with WinXP, then that would point to a BIOS issue since the two operating systems react differently to BIOS's.

I'm not saying that this would be a final solution, but it would give you some ammunition with the motherboard manufacturers if it did indeed work.

Let us know what you hear or if you can try what I suggested.

Peace.

 

hehe, problem is, i only have windows xp pro and windows 98. problem with windows 98 is that it is not supported by the NF3 chipset. i basically have no other OS to try out. i will probably wait till VISTA tho.

 

I don't hold out hope of finding a fix, but I think I can shed some light on this problem, as I have some specs that are quite different from others posted, and may refute many of the "it's not ATI's fault" theorists. I am running Windows 2000 SP4 on an Intel motherboard with the 865PE chipset, Intel Pentium 4 2.80E GHz. I have never overclocked this system, including the motherboard, AIW card, and memory. All of these components have been working together for over a year. This problem started more or less suddenly today after working with few problems for over a year and a half. I have tried several different driver, MMC combinations today with no help.

Any card that fails to work with such a huge variety of motherboards, CPUs, and operating systems can't go around pointing fingers as ASUS or Toshiba or Microsoft.

 

Well, in your case, it's entirely possible that the card failed. But, until you try it in another system, you can't say for sure...

 

hmmmmmmmmmmm.
apparently this particular issue only happens on the aiw 9600 - the 9800 and 9700 and others dont have this problem. odd thing though is that they either dont use alot of power of have an additional connector.

oh well, i hope you guys can still rma the damn card. another guy on another forum kept rma-ing his card every 2 months because the card stoped working after 2 months.... so yeah, i think its a model-related problem.

 

Yeah this is odd I've never had this happen and I've owned a few AiW cards, though this was not one of them

 

I am having trouble with my 9600 AIW yet again myself. I have had it since December of 2003. It's been in 3 or 4 differant setups. It has given me problems every single time. It had been running fine for a while. I just upgraded my motherboard and CPU. I had trouble getting the TV tuner drivers working right last time I upgraded as well of course. This time I am getting the yellow exclamations, with error 10, the device failed to start. I have tried using 3 differant versions of the drivers, besideds the ones that came on the driver CD, but of course NOTHING WORKS. I can sometimes get some of the yellow exclamations to go away. At one point yesterday I got all of them to go away, but it still didnt' work anyway. This card has had me pulling my hair out ever since I got it. I have an ATI TV Wonder VE, and it has also given me problems in every system it's been in, since around July of 2000. I am going to try installing the WDM drivers prior to installing the catylst drivers, as well as trying to disable my USB 2.0 and onboard audio to see if that helps any. The only differances this time are motherboard and CPU. I went from an Intel 865 chipset with a Pentium 4, to a VIA 880pro chipset with a Pentium-D. I've done 3 fresh installs of windows, and get the same problem every time. Anyone that has a good method for getting this stupid thing to work, I'd be happy to hear it.

 

bug ati about it and try an RMA if you still can. its apparently the only thing that works with the 9600 series. all the other series dont have this kind of problem, exception made of some rare 9000 series which is not very widespread today anyways. Im personally trying the RMA, even if i dont like spending 30$ and a month of wait. if it works its definitely ATI that screwed up somewhere on the hardware.