So I bought the HD2600 XT but...

[hungledink]

... the picture seems terrible!!!

I have installed the card and drivers, which I had to download as the disc that came with the card seems to be faulty. I am running the card using the DVI-HDMI dongle that came supplied on a Samsung 26" HDTV as my monitor, but the picture is awful. All the colours seem blurred and too vibrant.

I think that I must be missing some configuration files for the dongle as when I check in my device manager I have an UNKNOWN PCI DEVICE which appears to be connected to the dongle (it disappears whenever I remove the cable).

I could run it using the DVI to VGA donle but the point of me getting this card was so I could watch HD content.

Does anyone have any advice/ideas as to why I am having this problem?

Thanks.

[kayfam]

you need to install these 2 drivers located here: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/hdmiaudio-xp

[hungledink]

Thanks for the input. This didnt seem to have any effect unfortunately.

Does anyone have any other ideas?

[Heywould3]

do you have your card set to the proper resolution. most lcds like 1366x768 but check to see what the native resolution of your 26" tv is. if you dont have 1366x768 you might have 1360x768. give that a try.

[hungledink]

After playing about with the settings I have managed to enable the DVI-VGA socket and have this displayed on the same Samsung TV. The picture using VGA is some much clearer than the DVI-HDMI option.

Is this to be expected or should the HDMI option look better?

The resolution I have it set too is 1360*768

[Constant Gardener]

I have a Sapphire HD 2600XT with the supplied dongle attached to the lower DVI connector. I used drivers from AMD/ATI: "7-10_xp32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_53250.exe" and the HDMI audio from the CD. WinXP detected the attached Panasonic TV and set itself correctly to 1920 x 1080. I get a wonderful picture and sound.

The "UNKNOWN PCI DEVICE" makes me wonder if perhaps the Samsung dongle is different from the one that should have come with your video card, or maybe your HDTV is not recognized by XP. Maybe there's a Samsung update for Windows.

[Heywould3]

After playing about with the settings I have managed to enable the DVI-VGA socket and have this displayed on the same Samsung TV. The picture using VGA is some much clearer than the DVI-HDMI option.

Is this to be expected or should the HDMI option look better?

The resolution I have it set too is 1360*768

make sure that when connected vie the dvi dongle the resolution is still 1360/1366x768 each connection will have its own resolution setting. and imo they should look the same. make sure that the native resolution is actually 1366x768 and not 1020x768 also. if its 1024x768 then thats the proper setting.