Need a little help...

For whatever reason, I can't update my video card drivers. If I check the version in device manager it says its from 10/26/10. It's an ATI Radeon HD 4800, by the way. If I try to do the whole update through windows it says windows has determined the driver is up to date. So i got to ati.com and download the newest drivers, dated 12/13/10 and for some reason if I choose run, it locks up at the last second of the download. So I clikc save set it to a specific folder on the desktop, and install it when complete. About halfway or so through the install process the screen goes black and doesnt come back, forcing me to manually shut down and reboot. Its not the screen saver :) So yeah a little help would be appreciated before I break out the hammer.

Have you unistalled the old drivers? (Start > Control Panel > Programs and Features ..for Windows7) A good way to check is to start in safe mode and see if the old drivers are still loading. If they are check to see if there is a driver removal tool for ATI. I would also check forums for issues with the most recent version of the drivers you have downloaded. (Just google the "ATI driver -version- problems")

» Edited on: 2010-12-19 10:50:15

I have a Dell laptop, and I had bad conflicts when I updated my video drivers directly from the Ati site. At someone's suggestion, I downloaded the video drivers from the Dell site, and that cleared everything up. I can't imagine any "legitimate" reason for that to have fixed my problems... but you might want to try your manufacturer's website.

Stoat - I had a similiar issue with my Dell laptop drivers, and I think it's because they do something proprietary with their hardware still. When they stopped releasing the new drivers for my laptop I ended up finding a third party program that would 'convert' the standard ATI drivers into some that would work with the Dell. I'm not sure that this is the issue that Reclis is having. To be honest, unless the newest version of the drivers have a feature you can't live without, or a game you want to play doesn't, I wouldn't worry about doing the update. Maybe I'm a bit odd, but I only update my drivers when I need to, particularly if my system is running glitch-free.