wits end with mobility 9200 and laptop...please help

Trnzaddict · Mar 27, 2008, 04:53 PM

Hello. I'm posting here b/c i'm really about to go insane, and i need some opinions on what to do before i throw this laptop against a wall. Please bear, this is long. A week ago my gf gave me her hp zt3000 notebook with ati radeon mobility 9200 agp. (xp home sp2) I have the original Aliens vs. Predator, not Gold. Anyway i start, and about 4 seconds into moving around in the game, it freezes,minimizes, and my display goes to 8 bit and says "ati2dvag.dll has stopped functioning properly" So, naturally i went to update the ati drivers......simple right?

I cannot get one goddamned driver besides the official one from hp's site to install , which is 6.14, FROM 2004. I've tried catalyst 5.6-6.5. All's i get is "can't find inf" errors. I've even tried updating the driver through right clicking on properties on the desktop,etc. navigating the the inf.ini manually, and it seems that every other card ati makes is in the inf list except the 9200. I've tried Omega Drivers, 3.6 and when i install that when my laptop boots up the display looks like it's being zapped by incoming voltage, like there's something screwed up with the refresh rate. NOTHING WORKS, and all's i want is to play AVP. Even the mobility modder modded my 6.14 driver, but stilli'm having the same problem.

Can somebody suggest something please? I've searched for a week through forums/threads but everyone gets their driver updates working differently. I know ati stopped support after catalyst 6.5, so why wouldn't my card be listed in previous versions?? Its absolutely ridiculous to go through this to update a video driver. If someone happens to know if the avp functionality has nothing to do with ati then please say so b/c i will leave this alone, as all my other games work fine with the ati driver.

Thanks!

Judas · Mar 28, 2008, 09:35 AM

This is what you have to do:

Go into my computer and then into the C drive, there MAY (we are checking here) be a folder called "ATI".... delete it straight away. This will make life a little easier.

Go to amd/ati's website, download the DESKTOP radeon 9000 series driver (should either be catalyst 6.5 or 6.11, try the later first)

After you download it, run it so that it unpacks the driver (it'll upack to C:\ATI)... when it bring up the screen to proceed with the driver installation, cancel it.

Now on the driverheaven website frontpage is a link to the MOBILITY MODDER
Go into it and it has a farely well detailed explanation of what you have to do to mod the drivers and to continue to install them.

As i said, try the 6.11's first. and 6.5's last if the 6.11's don't install.

**Vikingod** · Mar 28, 2008, 09:44 AM

You may also want to consider using the Omega 6.5's. They work well for my mobility 9000.

Trnzaddict · Mar 28, 2008, 12:33 PM

thanks...i'll try what was instructed, let you know how it goes.

EDIT:Ok, some progress. This is what i'm doing:
Install catalyst suite 6.5.
Get inf error.
Open up mobility modder, modify the inf where the installer xtracted files to.
Restart the catalyst suite, installs driver, but while installing it say the "driver is not digitally signed by microsoft"crap. However it says it's the Radeon 9000 driver. Why does it say that, and not mobility 9200? That's what i have. I click "continue anyway."
Installer finishes, says to reboot.
Computer reboots, but after xp loading screen, the screen stays black and a white bar slowly shows up in the middle of the screen, yet i hear the "welcome" music play. Obviously it installed the wrong video driver.
I opened up the inf.ini, and i see the radeon mobility 9200 listed and a bunch of other mobility 9200 versions like "secondary", so why is it selecting 9000? Even if i was to do this manually, which one would i choose? There's like 8 diff ones.

What do you think?

Judas · Mar 28, 2008, 02:03 PM

No the 9200 is actually considered a 9000 series product..

the reason windows says it's unsigned is due to the driver being modified by the modder... this is nessary and you should just insatll it anyways.

If you get a blank screen.. it's like the driver is attempting a standard resolution that isn't support (you can thank you laptop manufacturer for that)..

anyways what you do is restart the computer... and before windows loads.. continuelly hit the F8 key until you see a black screen with writing on it.

Select VGA mode... this will allow you to get into the laptop (at least is should) and then manually set a different resolution (preferably the native resolution that your laptop uses.... 1280x800 perhaps?)

hit apply, reboot, and the driver should load up properly...

Trnzaddict · Mar 28, 2008, 10:07 PM

Judas, unfortunately i cannot get into my laptop through vga mode. When i try to after installing ccc 6.4,now instead of the white bar i get a blue flickering towards the left side of the screento . Once again though i hear the welcome music. Even moving the mouse around and clicking i can sometimes here the clicking sound from selecting something. The only way i'm able to get into my computer is through safe mode when these drivers are installed.

I try to change the resolution in there but it's already set to 640x480. My laptop deff supports that resolution. I don't know why it just gives me this black screen.

What else do you think can solve this?

I appreciate all your help.