Driver Update - Monitor/Video No Longer Detected

The first think I would do is to verify that the video card is indeed an ATI Radeon X1650, by opening the case and checking it. If it does check out, my next step would be to insure I got the correct version of the driver and Catalyst software for the card, and the OS (Maybe got Vista or Win7 drivers?).

I think ATI also has a utility that can remove all vestiges of older drivers/software. There may still be entries in the Registry that are causing you problems with the new driver installation. I think they also say that some anti-virus or firewall software may interfere with installation.

After complete un-installation of the ATI software, go to control panel and remove the "other devices" before rebooting. Upon reboot, you can dismiss the "found new hardware" wizard and run the ATI installer, or alternately, you can point to the driver in the Found new hardware wizard. If this ends with same result, even after verifying all the above, I guess an Email to ATI support might be in order. Browsing through the Forums at ATI might yield some results as well. Good luck, these kinds of things can be very frustrating! I know, I've been there.

Tom D.

What you say makes sense to me. It is an ATI Radeon X1650 and I do suspect that I got the wrong drivers, though I was directed to them on the ATI site after keying in the relevant info. I'm fearful that all this has messed up Windows somehow. I finally found a link to ATI email support - it doesn't appear anywhere on their main site. I'm going to see what they have to say - I opened a support ticket with them and have received a couple of auto-generated replies in the meantime - and then start the drill you noted. Somehow, I don't have much confidence in ATI Support...

PROBLEM SOLVED. Thanks very much, tdesmit. I followed your instructions, including disabling the antivirus before installing, which I hadn't done before. I think the magic bullet, though, was a tip I got on another site, "...And when booting now do you have the HDTV disconnected so you're just trying to get video back on the computer monitor? That's because sometimes if the HDTV monitor is detected first, older cards will automatically switch to that as the primary and if the resolution is incompatible, well, you'll never get a visible signal to either monitor then." I had left the HDTV plugged into the PC the whole time and when I ran the sequence with it unplugged, everything went smooth as silk. Thanks again.