This thread is created to offer suggestions for remedies for performance issues and installation problems a few may experience every now and then. Here are a few that I know of. 1. Use programs like Driver Sweeper or Driver Cleaner after you've uninstalled your Cat drivers. 2. Uninstall method 1 for manual uninstall of drivers. 3. Uninstall method 2 for side-by-side configuration is incorrect error. 4. If you've tried any combination of the above and it hasn't worked I suggest that you remove your pagefile (create no page file). Goto Advance System Settings, Advance tab, Performance Settings button, Advance tab, Virtual Memory-Change button. Select the hard drive using pagefile and select no page file. Hit the Set button then hit ok hit the apply button. Reboot as instructed (using win7) Then re-create your pagefile. Next Rebuild your indexing (if you use it). Type indexing in start's search box. Click on Index Option. Select the Advance button. Then select Rebuild button. This could take several minutes so leave the computer idle. (using win7). Only use methods like this to fix a driver related problem. Once the driver related problem is fixed discontinue use of these type of methods. All you need to do from then on out is to use the ATI Catalyst Install Manager found in Uninstall Programs (Win7) or Add or Remove Programs (XP) Keep in mind that these are suggestions so you perform them at your own risk.
proper procedure for driver sweeper is uninstall drivers, then reboot into safe mode then run driver sweeper, then reboot. you'd be surprised how many people dont reboot into safe mode and then complain that there is still an old residual driver. the only other thing that ive used before is fixing crossfire glitches. a while back i had a random texture pop-in with all my games (mainly borderlands and mw2) and found out that crossfire wasnt working (no activity on gpu 2) even tho ccc had crossfire enabled. to fix this, i did the following: uninstall ati drivers, then reboot into safe mode and use driver sweeper to remove all traces of ati drivers. shut down computer and remove second graphics card. reboot into windows, install the drivers for the first card. shut down computer, reinstall the second graphics card into the hard drive, but do not connector crossfire cables. boot into windows and wait for windows to finish installing the drivers for the second gpu. then reinstall the ati drivers again over it. shut down computer, attach crossfire cables, reboot into windows. it should now prompt you to activate crossfire. enable it, and reboot. this fixed the random texture issue i had.
Ive found the opposite of this method working for me. If i install a driver package after cleaning out i get more issues then overwriting. Currently i have installed hotfix for greyscreen overwritten with french 8.700 and 10.2 whql on top of that. When i do this it only updates necessary software. For example the standard catalyst pack doesnt include avivo i think and some other things. I think the overwriting problem was solved sometime last year after 9.11 drivers. It was a issue all through 2009 drivers, even on my previous 4000 card. But i think overwriting actually works now and makes up for more stability. Alot of stuff are needed for the pc graphics to work, i have amd chipset so i need usb and sb nb filter drivers also. They are included in catalyst install. When i uninstall everything i loose them, and if i uncheck them they sometimes become uncompatible if i upgrade display driver. So im going to continue installing over the top of previous drivers until i find issues. So far clean install gives more issues for me, if i start out with hotfix for greyscreens i get more stability with other driver packages. I used the driver sweeper method for a long time, but its getting pretty boring and theres so much i need to reinstall. Sometimes it gets pretty buggy after safemode uninstall. I actually believe the new catalyst install manager is fixed.
If you insist on using Driver Sweepers follow the instructions in the below link: http://www.addictivetips.com/window...tomatic-driver-installation-in-windows-vista/ Windows 7 by default will re-install any older drivers it finds in its CAB files as soon as you uninstall as it thinks we are all noobs. You need to stop this happening because if you use driversweepers when a driver is installed it can create a real mess.
But catalyst install manager is supposed to overwrite or atleast make sure they are not used of any previous older versions of any type of driver not found when it is checking the hardware. Leftover drivers are just stored as backup i think, but not in use if install manager doesnt think parts of them are needed. "My theory atleast." Otherwise installmanager should delete. But there have been some big issues with overtop install before. But at some point i think this might have been fixed. Atleast i dont have any more issues when installing directly. We can´t just assume that this problem is there forever. Lately i had more issues with uninstalling previous and reinstalling new, installing over the top is more stable. Last time i had issues with overtop install was in the switch from 9.11 to 9.12 drivers, that really messed up. I think the code might been totally reworked between those. But now on 2010 releases it seems much more compatible to write over. For example i got much better performance when installing 9.12 whql and 9.12 hotfix directly after. 9.12 whql so microsoft signed it and hotfix was then recognized as an update after that. It really speed up when installing stream. Same thing now. I start with 10.1 hotfix for the greyscreen then continue with full 10.x french drivers with the new nb filter and usb filter drivers and finish of with 10.2 whql. Tried my theory by sweeping away everything and installing 10.2, and installing 10.2 nb/usb. Didnt take long before crashing, my other recepy works flawlessly without crashing. I think something gets kept from 10.1 hotfix that makes sure i dont get crashes and i get the latest nb and avivo etc from french 10.x, my own little mix of catalyst driver package and everything is updated to the latest but still kept as microsoft whql.
It's completely fine to overwrite drivers my man, I do it all the time. I only use the above method if I ever need to go back to a driver. ATI's install manager won't let you update an older driver over a newer one.
Yes it can be problematic to go back from a new driver to a previous driver if the date is older on the driver you are trying to install. Something else worth a try is rollback option in device manager. Just choose rollback on display driver. Rollback seems to delete the current driver also. I did that a while ago instead of using driver sweeper i just rolled back to previous driver and installed the package i wanted "of course this probably makes control panel unusable, but thats easy to uninstall", if the dates match install the package you want. If it gets buggy reinstall control panel. This might work and did work for me once. It was a method i used for a long time before i found out about driver sweeper.
I also am going to stick with the install on top method, for a while anyway. I'm tired of uninstalling/sweeping etc. But ATI still recommends removing first: http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/GPU57RemoveOldGraphicsDrivers.aspx. And of course they say nothing about driver sweeping or registry cleaning.
Yeah im also gettings tired of troubleshooting drivers and checking if everything is working. I just want a stable system, im no overclocker. Usually installing over the top makes all drivers work. Btw, anyone know if the motherboard integrated drivers package on ati website, is that bundled only for onboard gpu or does that apply to motherboards with amd chipsets etc also? I havent tried installing that package, because im unsure. But if it does include chipset drivers also, i might go for that package next time. Right now everything is ati/amd in my build, motherboard is asus. Chipsets are amd, cpu amd and gpu ati. Regular catalyst package doesnt include those driver. Almost all require catalyst install manager to install them. Thats why i use french at the moment, because it has a new nb filter driver.
A person should normally just uninstall their Cat driver using it's uninstall program. As the 1st and foremost method regardless if there is a problem or not. For the majority of users out there this works just fine. If a person is experiencing problems then the suggestions posted here could offer them some ideas. But when you can't even uninstall old drivers then install new drivers then one must troubleshoot the problem (using msconfig to disable startup programs is one example). It's with hope that the ideas posted in this thread will help alleviate the problem. The 1st thing a person could consider is to make sure there is no conflict between drivers. That may also include the removal of MS Visual C++ and .netframe works, reboot then reinstall .netframe works (for example). There maybe other suggestions as well. So in this case what you want fixed is the ability to be able to uninstall old monthly drivers, reboot and install new monthly drivers without issue like everyone else. If you still can't do that without issue you haven't fully fixed the problem yet. Sure, installing over top can work but ultimately, it shouldn't be the only method to update drivers.
You shouldn't have to "sweep" every month. You should only do that if you are experiencing any problems. However, you should be able to just use CCC's uninstall, reboot then install the current month's drivers then reboot again. The only time you have to manually delete drivers or use those cleaning programs is when you have a problem.
Heres one for graphical probs, these are also optimal performance settings for vantage, other benches etc. in ccc: smoothvision hd AA: use app settings, wide tent mode, set in game smoothvision AS: app settings, set in game catalyst ai: advanced mipmap: performance wait for vertical refreshff unless app specifies AA mode: adaptive AA Open Gl: triple buffering ON Hope this helps, works for me when im having difficulty with graphics, its a good starting point. Cheers
O no, not the same discussion again! The whole driver sweeper thing is bull.... As stated above and many many many times before, only use it if you have serious problems with installing a new driver. If a new driver installs like it should, then you can be sure that your pc uses all the newly installed files, as the driver package is made to work as a whole and not to use a random mix of files it finds on different locations on your hd.
