Odd refresh rate setting problem with Aston - ATI RADEON

marshall · Joined: 18 Oct 2002 Posts: 14

This is pretty weird. (I am referring to the monitors On-Screen Display to determine the refresh rate I am getting). I am using Aston 1.9, Windows 98SE, Duron 850, 256M DDR, Shuttle AK38N VIA KT33 mobo, KDS VS-7E monitor.

Aston worked fine with the Nvidia cards I was previously using.

I recently purchased a Powercolor 64M ATI Radeon 7000 AGP card. I am using the latest Catalyst Drivers. Initially, I could not get the card to set the refresh rate above 60 Hz. Here is what I have been able to determine.

If I install the drivers in Explorer, I can set any refresh rate for the monitor, no problem (let's say I set it to 85 Hz). If I then Shell swap into Aston, it will keep the 85Hz refresh rate, or let me set anything else. If I put the system into suspend mode, it will wake up still at 85 Hz.

However, if I reboot the system, it will start at 60 Hz. The ATI taskbar Icon will not allow me to set the refresh rate above 60 Hz in any mode. It will allow me to set the refresh rate to 56 Hz in some modes, but I did not try this. Multires (www.entechtaiwan.com ?) will say it is setting the refresh rate to 85 Hz, but will not change it. Screen Settings - Display Properties - Adapter displays a refresh rate of 85Hz, but the monitor is still at 60Hz. ATI's Displays tab shows the refresh rate at 60 Hz also. As above though, swapping to Explorer works. I would like to run 85 Hz at 1024x768, 800x600, and 640x480.

Currently, I have the following two options:

1) Live with a 60 Hz refresh rate when I boot to Aston.

2) Boot to Aston at 60 Hz, shell swap to explorer, change color depth (it will now show refresh rate already at 85 and will change it). Swap back to Aston. Set refresh rates for 800, and 640x modes to 85Hz, hope I don't have to re-boot again anytime soon.

Anyone else having this problem? Anyone know a solution?

BTW, I will probably be returning the card (got it refurbished, and one of the capacitors looks like it's about to go), but it just uses generic drivers, and I would like to get another Radeon, if anyone knows one that works better with Aston?

Thanks in advance!!!

The_PC_Mechanic · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 6:03 am Post subject:

Hi there!
I've had great success with all the various Radeon cards under Aston. That doesn't mean you don't have a problem. First of all, there could be an issue with the card itself - you say it's a recon and may need returning. That's the first test. Secondly, you should make sure you have the absolute latest set of drivers from the manufacturer's web site.

OK, so if that stuff doesn't work, the next thing you have to check for is a video utility that initialises when you boot - ATI is notorious for this. You might have to remove the ATI app from the RUN section in the registry. Under some circumstances, the ATI app doesn't recognise Aston as a shell, and drops to default. Removing the app and using the OS to define the resolution sometimes does the trick.

Have a look at all of this stuff, and then drop on by if you are still having problems!

Regards,

marshall · Joined: 18 Oct 2002 Posts: 14

Thanks PC mechanic, I suspected something similar. I no expert on the PC, could you provide more details, additional questions below:

Also, I upgraded to DirectX 9.0 (but I was having the problem before and after), FWIW.

The_PC_Mechanic · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 6:41 pm Post subject:

Hi there!
my guess is that the ATI resolution app (not the driver) is the problem here. I've a feeling it doesn't recognise Aston as the shell - or to be more specific, it's looking for explorer.exe, and when it doesn't see it loaded, it drops back to the factory default.

So, the best thing to do here would be to disable the app from starting - this way, it shouldn't affect the resolution on boot. Open a RUN command, and type "regedit" (no quotes). Then navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and see if any ATI programs are listed there. If they are, click on one of them, and then go to the tool-bar and click Registry>Export Registry file and save the key (making sure you use Export range>Selected Branch from the options at the bottom). Repeat this for each of the ATI keys (and make sure you save these keys to a safe place - you might need them again) Once they are all saved, click on them one at a time and hit DELETE.

Now repeat the whole procedure for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Then you can test whether this works by rebooting. If it does, you're almost home free. I say almost because you still don't have the capability to change resolutions on the fly. This can be taken care of with an app that a lot of my tech friends LOVE - It's called WIRM, and can be found at http://www.prometheusuk.freeserve.co.uk/wirm/files/wirm2.zip - Right clicking this app's systray icon brings up the main menu with a single click from there you can select any resolution that your monitor/display adapter can support, bring up the windows display properties dialogue. Oh, and it's free.

Regards,

marshall · Joined: 18 Oct 2002 Posts: 14

Hi PC_Mechanic,

Some intial stuff that MIGHT help - ATI hasn't gotten back to me yet, but from the ATI knowlege base articles -

http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/3955.html Unable to change refresh rate in Windows XP when using a non-DDC monitor

http://mirror.ati.com/support/infobase/4072.html DirectX Applications are limited to 60 Hz in Windows 2000 and Windows XP

However, both of these are fixed by running the latest ATI display drivers (which I am), and neither answers the question "why am I having the problem with a DDC monitor under Win 98? (and why are you not having the problem?)"

The_PC_Mechanic · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:32 am Post subject:

Hi there!
It sounds like you have your own opinion of what's going on - I guess you have more information available to you that you couldn't post here. Whatever the reason, I hope you get it all working properly.

I brought this up with one of the developers, and he's going to run some tests with the same card. I'll let you know his findings.

Regards,

(BTW, playing with the run section of the registry is not a recipe for disaster. Even if you wipe that part out completely, you'll only lose a few programs that start on boot. Provided you take sensible precautions, you'll be fine. It's actually a good place to become familiar with, as it's the place you look when diagnosing boot errors, virus infections, and other mysterious startup behaviour)

marshall · Joined: 18 Oct 2002 Posts: 14

marshall · Joined: 18 Oct 2002 Posts: 14

Ok, I just tried the registry edit and survived. Got rid of the two services. Didn't help anything, but at least I don't have so much "bloat" in the system.

While I was there I got rid of Task Scheduler. Thank You!!! I've been trying to kill that for years.

Just learning that was worth this whole escapade.

Thanks again!

marshall · Joined: 18 Oct 2002 Posts: 14

Ok, I have some (mostly) rhetorical questions for anyone following this thread:

1) If this IS an Aston problem, why is it occurring in Explorer, after exiting Aston the problem is fixed and then re-booting from Explorer to Explorer again, it re-occurs.

2) If this IS NOT an Aston problem, why does swapping in or out of Aston make it go away until the next re-boot.

3) Since I am using the generic drivers, why wouldn't the problem occur on any other ATI based card?

4) (For me to answer). The problem did not exist with my TNT2 card, but appeared when I installed the ATI card. Will the problem go away again if I install the TNT2 card again?

5) I understand Aston is not a household word yet, but lots of people are still running Win'98, and many people use the ATI reference drivers, and Win98 users are more likely to buy the 7000 series cards, so . . . Why haven't I heard of anyone else having this problem?

6) What might be unique about my system that would cause this, and where do I start looking for a fix?

Thanks again for all the assistance.

The_PC_Mechanic · Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 8:05 am Post subject:

Hmmm - there's a lot here, and it's late. I'll sleep on it and try for a "considered opinion" in the morning.

Regards,

marshall · Joined: 18 Oct 2002 Posts: 14

Well, more new questions than answers unfortunately.

Sad

I gave up on the Radeon. However, when I re-installed the TNT2, Multires did not show any resolution choices. I did a full re-install of the driver and it worked fine since then.

In other words, Add/Remove Programs ATI Radeon Control Panel and Radeon driver, selected default VGA driver and rebooted, swapped cards, installed Nvidia driver, re-booted, changed to standard VGA driver, re-booted, installed Nvidia Driver again, re-booted.

I tried triple installing the ATI drivers as above, but it didn't work.

I also noticed that I couldn't print from any windows apps. Microsoft suggested a bad win.ini file and I checked and the file was 63K instead of 8K with a bunch of machine language garbage in it. I replaced it with an old backup and printing works fine.

Perhaps the bad file was affecting the video card.

The_PC_Mechanic · Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2003 10:26 pm Post subject:

Ahh, it's the problem known in technical circles as "buggered up". Fortunately, it sounds like you've nailed the problems down. It's amazing what a failing or failed piece of hardware can do - I've even seen a faulty mouse take down a system!

All the best!!!

marshall · Joined: 18 Oct 2002 Posts: 14

Just wanted to add some closure to this post in case others are reading this with a similar problem.

First, I have not tried any of the settings below. I pulled the ATI card out of the system for return, and haven't gotten a replacement yet.

Secondly, the refresh rate problem was in no way related to Aston. It's an ATI card/driver issue with all apps. ATI implies that it is fixed with the latest drivers and/or only occurs with Win2k or WinXP, but l and others had similar problems with latest drivers and Win98. Of course it's also possible (unlikely) that something with the card itself prevented the drivers from loading correctly.

Third, the win.ini file problem which kept me from printing as best I can tell is unrelated. The backup file that I went back to was created AFTER installing the Radeon card, and I was still using the "bad" win.ini file AFTER going back to the TNT2 card.

Now for the 411 on the refresh rate problem:

There are tons of posts on www.Rage3d.com about my problem with Radeon 7000 and 7500 cards. A search on refresh brought up 645 posts.

I noticed much less on the Radeon 9000 forum and most of those were Win2K or WinXP problems.

Here's something useful that might help:

Rage3d has unofficial drivers for all the Radeon cards, but I don't know if this would help or not.

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33669081 Information on registry keys that seemed to help the most people. Note that you could damage your hardware if you don't change both sections of the registry.

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33698833 (registry change that helped some users.)

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33630320 (links to software http://www.pagehosting.co.uk/rf/ for Win2K and up, and http://www.pagehosting.co.uk/rl/ for all Windows versions).[/url]

The_PC_Mechanic · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003 8:04 am Post subject:

THank you for reporting back and giving us those links. It's useful to have information like this from people who've been through problems like this!

Thanks again - now will you stay for coffee in the "Other" room?

marshall · Joined: 18 Oct 2002 Posts: 14

Just wanted to add something here - I gave up on the ATI card, now running a FX5200, but . . .

I recently upgraded to Multires 1.45 which has support for command line scripting. The new version has the ability to hide certain resolutions by specifying them in the [options] section of it's .ini file. This works fine in Explorer. It does not work in Aston. It sometimes works in Aston if I shell over to explorer and back, or if I boot into Explorer and then shell into Aston.

I posted this here - http://entechtaiwan.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=857 and the multires folks said the program is not dependent on Explorer, FWIW.

So again, I am seeing a problem in how Aston handles graphics components compared to Explorer.

Of course, the problem may not be with Aston and just a coincidence that the ATI drivers and Multires are both graphics apps.