whacks

I have a ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 on a Dell Inspiron 9100. I was using the official dell drivers for a few years with few problems; then I switched to the omega drivers for a while with no problems at all. A few weeks ago, I downloaded and installed the latest omega drivers and my computer graphics has become a major headache ever since.

As soon as I installed the new drivers, I found that I wasn't able to watch movie DVDs on my laptop anymore. I could run them and everything, but the graphics were messed up (looks a lot like television static). I get a similar problem when I'm running FIFA 2007 as well.

I was able to fix this problem by installing the official dell drivers on top of the Radeon drivers (or the other way around? one of the 2). Now, I could watch movie DVDs with perfect quality, but when I'm surfing the web and try to scroll down, it becomes extremely choppy. I'm also unable to even start FIFA 2007 anymore; I simply get a "requires hardware graphics acceleration" error.

I've tried a bunch of stuff over the past month with no luck. I've tried retesting all on smartgart (goes to black screen on reboot). I've tried uninstalling all drivers in safe mode and reinstalling the very original dell drivers. I've tried using the mobility modder an dinstalled catalyst 8.2 But no matter what I do, I always get back to one of the 2 above scenarios. Either the web browser is fine and the video graphics are messed up, or the web browser is very choppy, FIFA doesn't start, and DVD movies are fine.

At this point, I don't care about the omega drivers or anything. I just wanna get back to the way things used to be, where I was able to watch DVDs, surf the web and play FIFA without any problems. I'm considering a system restore, but don't want to lose any programs and data over the past month. If anyone has any suggestions at all, I'd be eternally grateful. Thanks.



For anyone interested, here's a log of the various things I've tried today:
106668 = Dell Driver, Created : Wed Aug 17 00:07:39 CDT 2005
98061 = Dell Driver, Created : Thu Apr 7 23:04:57 CDT 2005
83268 = Dell Driver, Created : Thu Aug 12 13:10:36 CDT 2004
75495 = Dell BIOS, Created : Fri Apr 2 13:37:47 CST 2004
71256 = Dell Driver, Created : Wed Dec 31 10:00:54 CST 2003

Uninstalled All
Result: Choppy browser. FIFA won't start (needs graphics acceleration)

Uninstalled All
Installed 71256 driver

Result: Fast browser. FIFA graphics corrupted

Uninstalled All
Installed 71256 driver
Installed 75495 BIOS (already installed?)
Installed 83268 driver

Result: Fast browser. FIFA graphics corrupted

Uninstalled All
Installed 71256 driver
Installed 75495 BIOS (already installed?)
Installed 83268 driver
Installed 98061 driver

Result: Fast browser. FIFA graphics corrupted

Uninstalled All
Installed 71256 driver
Installed 75495 BIOS (already installed?)
Installed 83268 driver
Installed 98061 driver
Installed 106668 driver

Result: Fast browser. FIFA graphics corrupted

Uninstalled All
Installed Catalyst 8.2, using following instructions from http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool/
1: Download MSXML 4.0 from Microsoft. Install.
Step 2 is VISTA ONLY
3: Download the newest desktop drivers from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (or get them from Driver Heaven Downloads). If you are using Windows XP make sure to download .net framework from Microsoft (this is built into Windows Vista so there is no need to install it).
4: Run the downloaded driver, let it extract into c:/ATI/SUPPORT - but cancel the installation once the driver is extracted.
5: Run Mobility Modder - browse to the driver in C:ATI/SUPPORT/ - an example of Catalyst 7.4 would be C:\ATI\SUPPORT\7-4_vista32_dd_ccc_enu_44985 - hit modify. Wait until driver is modified.
6: In Vista, go to C:\ATI\SUPPORT\7-4_vista32_dd_ccc_enu_44985 (Or whatever the driver installation folder was called), and run the SETUP.EXE. Please note you might see a "Driver is not WHQL certified", ignore this, as it is a side effect of the modification.
7: Wait until Install is finished and reboot. Enjoy the new drivers !

Result: On first reboot, black screen with random white images flashing now and then. On second reboot, fine. Choppy browser. FIFA doesn't start; needs graphics acceleration
Trying retesting all on SmartGart. On first reboot, black screen. On second reboot, I didn't get a black screen but the browser/FIFA problems are still there.