Installing/uninstalling ATI MMC - at my wits end.....

[John D.]

Yep, just about ready to shoot myself.

I am having an incredibly difficult time with installing/uninstalling software for my ATI 9600XT AIW. The card came bundled with MMC 8.8 and the corresponding version of Catalyst/drivers. When I first installed the card and software on my PC (I’m running Windows XP, SP2, 3.2ghz P4, 1gb RAM) back in November 2004, it more or less worked fine, except that the “system test” utility reported that my soundcard’s clock accuracy was not within the “Acceptable” +/-2% range. Other than that everything worked fine. Also around that time, I installed a Panther XL joystick. The drivers for this stick, however, were not compatible w/my Audigy 2 ZX soundcard, so installed another older Creative Labs soundcard so I could use it’s parallel port for my Panther XL. The port worked, but I had issues with both sound cards functioning together so I removed the older card. The weird thing was that even after the card (and stick) were removed, Windows would tell me (on reboot) that it had ‘found new hardware – Panther XL joystick” and so on. I would have to cancel out of that window when it popped up. I thought it odd, but it didn’t seem to be causing problems so I didn’t worry about it.

Then a month or two later I upgraded the ATI MMC software to 9.03 and the corresponding Catalyst drivers. Everything was still more or less fine, and that weird Panther XL installation message was gone (yay). But then I discovered a problem with trying to set up AVI recording presets – no matter what codec I would use when mapping a preset, it always defaulted to a 0.01 framerate (!) to make things worse, when I would try to capture with that framerate (just to see what would happen), the PC would freeze and I would get the Blue Screen of Death.

I went back and forth with this for a while, reinstalling, uninstalling (always with 9.03) till I finally went onto the ATI website one day back in May or June and downloaded all the latest stuff, MMC/Catalyst 9.08, the latest Remote Wonder software, etc. etc. All seemed fine…until I tried watching live TV through the Multimedia software. I noticed that the video was stuttery, jerky, as if it was playing back at a very low framerate. After reading some answers about it here I decided it was because of my most recent upgrade, so I uninstalled 9.08 and went back to 9.03, which fixed the stuttery video but then left me once again with the 0.01 framerate phenomenon…so finally, in total frustration, I went back to 8.8 which is what came bundled with the card.

The absolutely BIZARRE problem now is I’m once again getting the weird “new hardware found “ message when I reboot, saying that Windows has found new hardware (Panther XL joystick), which I always have to “Cancel” out of, not to mention at every reboot, a window pops up saying that “Installshield is completing installation/maintenance on Remote Wonder II” – and this window pops up like eight times in a row, one after the other, before the PC finishes booting up. Totally bizarre. Then, if I’ve rebooted, and I try to use the ATI DVD player, I have to go through the DVD initialization wizard…every single time I reboot. And then when I try to use the Catalyst control center, I’ll pull it up and it will get stuck on the “Library” Screen. Trying to switch to TV or DVD results in a “MMC has encountered and error and must close” message. Of course it doesn’t close, but that message will keep popping up until I close Catalyst control center.

Friends and neighbors, this is ridiculous. I have never seen such problems, even back with Windows Millenium (buggy as all get-out, that OS) . The way I see it at this point, I have several main “symptoms” pointing to a major software issue:
1) Installshield keeps telling me it is installing the Remote Wonder software every time I reboot – and that message pops up over and over, like eight times
2) ATI DVD Decoder asks me to go through the initialization process every time I reboot
3) MMC says it needs to close when I try to use Catalyst Control Center to open TV or DVD
4) Windows XP is back to telling me that it’s “found new hardware” – my Panther XL joystick – on reboot, even though the stick hasn’t been attached in months – and this problem is obviously related to the ATI 8.8 reinstall.

So that’s it. As of right now, my 9600XT is more or less useless except to drive the monitor, and that’s not an acceptable state of affairs for me. I have absolutely no idea where to go from here. With every uninstall/reinstall, I have cleaned out the ATI entries in both the system32 and drivercache folders, emptied the Windows Temp directory, emptied the Prefetch folder, used RegSupreme to clean out my registry, and deleted all the ATI folders off my hard drive. This is in addition to using ATI’s software uninstall utility. (I have also deleted everything I could find related to the Panther XL joystick, as that is obviously tangentially related to the ATI software issue). None of these measures has fixed the problems.

I need to know what might be the cause of this bizarre set of issues, and what I might be able to do to resolve them. I’ll be posting this both on the ATI forum(s) and on the Windows XP user forums. With the grace of God maybe some kind soul out there can get me out of this mess.

p.s. This isn’t really relevant, but I thought it was telling that since I first installed my Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZX Platinum card/module/software, I have had a grand total of ZERO problems with it. Zero. The card works and the software works, all as described/intended. All superbly. I know that a video card and a sound card are two different animals, but that’s not the point. It’s a matter of quality. This Audigy2 is a solid product, through and through. Why the hell can’t ATI take a cue from Creative Labs……

[Nelson37]

Welcome to the wonderful world of ATI upgrades!!

First, there is a complete uninstall procedure listed at Rage3d.com. Pretty close to what you have done, but I recall there are some individual files which have to be manually deleted.

Have you tried going back to a system restore point?

Also try physically removing the ATI card and powering on with no video card in the system, then power off and replace the card. If you have a generic VGA card, install then un-install this, then go back to the ATI.

Somewhat in ATI's defence, this is not just a driver install. It is video drivers, capture drivers, capture software, DVD and video players, and interface with sound card. Licensed third-party MPG encoder/decoder, Guide Plus, etc., etc.. Lots going on, and all must work together.

Not a good idea to add a second sound card to this mix. Not impossible, just not a good idea.

[thecoalman]

Not a good idea to add a second sound card to this mix. Not impossible, just not a good idea.

I'd imagine that's the problem...... anyhow there was a complete uninstall utility available on the ATI website at one point. Not sure if it's still available. If I remeber the procedure correctly you run that and make sure to delete the ATI folder in C: drive. Restart the comp which should now give you a display using the default windows drivers, don't stare at the screen I think the default frequency is 60hz. From there reinstall. If that doesn't work try the complete manual uninstall procedure mentioned above which in your case may be required. From a post I saw when researching this myself "Welcome to ATI driver hell!" :P

Here's a link if you can't find it, it's under utilities. They have the page framed so I can't give a direct link to the page.: http://www2.ati.com/drivers/cat-uninstaller.exe

[edsmith77]

John D.
I have the same card that you have but thankfully, I have not had an iota of the problems you have had. However, I have had to remove (clean out) and reinstall it a couple of times. Not terribly difficult, just annoying to have to do it.
For an aside, I know I have read some place that the 9600 and Audigy sounds cards did not play together very nicely. In spite of the quality of the Audigy card, there are some problems with the ATI and Audigy resource utilizations. I stopped using my Audigy card and went to an old Sound Blaster 128 PCI card and no more interference and in fact it got rid of that annoying inaccuracy +/- 2% notice.
My system specs are very similar to yours so, I do not think it is horsepower type issue. It is an interferrence issue with drivers and system resources. The TV quality on my system is very good. No jitters just rock solid video.
I have even had good luck redfining the capture presets to my own specs. I have not tried the latest MMC versions. I am still on 8.8. To me if it aint broke, I see no need to fix it.

In the past, on an older machine, I once had that same "new hardware" found notice. Only mine was for a Raid Controller. Which I never ever did have but on each boot there it was. The only way I found to get rid of that notice was a complete OS reinstall (coupled with a reformat of C, ugh......

Ed.

[Nelson37]

Side note - the joystick error is almost certainly NOT related, at least specifically, to the ATI card. Recommended solution for that problem - a complete uninstall of both sound cards. It is most likely a resource conflict between the two. You may need to Re-Install the card and software in order to Un-Install it. After removing both, pick one and re-install it. Then add the joystick. Again, you may need to Install, Un-Install, then Re-Install the joystick in order to solve the problem.

These are not my rules, I do not make'em up. I just do what works.

Getting two sound cards to work in one PC is the sort of thing guys like me do for a good time. Not recommended for the average user.

[dj4monie]

A couple of things -

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/cat-uninstaller.exe - download this and uninstall everything.

If you don't have your video card connected to your sound card internally, do not go beyond CAT 5.5 ATI made the switch from analog to digtial support for audio. Obivously if your not using a digital input this will present problems with clicks and pops in your sound, jerky video and audio sync problems.

I'm using MMC 9.08 I set the set it to record the ALMS race at Lime Rock on the 4th only for it to record the file and somehow corupt it. It won't playback on any player I have and its WMV.

If I run into another problem I'm going to go back down to 9.06 and let them figure this out. I don't use Cat Control because of its buggy nature also. I don't need as I don't play that many games on here anyway.

But that is my suggestion. Go back to earlier driver builds and MMC and that should solve your problem.

Good Luck

[dj4monie]

John D.
I have the same card that you have but thankfully, I have not had an iota of the problems you have had. However, I have had to remove (clean out) and reinstall it a couple of times. Not terribly difficult, just annoying to have to do it.
For an aside, I know I have read some place that the 9600 and Audigy sounds cards did not play together very nicely. In spite of the quality of the Audigy card, there are some problems with the ATI and Audigy resource utilizations. I stopped using my Audigy card and went to an old Sound Blaster 128 PCI card and no more interference and in fact it got rid of that annoying inaccuracy +/- 2% notice.
My system specs are very similar to yours so, I do not think it is horsepower type issue. It is an interferrence issue with drivers and system resources. The TV quality on my system is very good. No jitters just rock solid video.
I have even had good luck redfining the capture presets to my own specs. I have not tried the latest MMC versions. I am still on 8.8. To me if it aint broke, I see no need to fix it.

In the past, on an older machine, I once had that same "new hardware" found notice. Only mine was for a Raid Controller. Which I never ever did have but on each boot there it was. The only way I found to get rid of that notice was a complete OS reinstall (coupled with a reformat of C, ugh......

Ed.

Also ATI cards don't like the Audigy cards one bit and you usually have nothing but problems with them. I have stuck with and going to stick with my SB Live! OEM has any upgrade isn't going to make that much difference in sound quality and I can't turn it up in here anyway without somebody complaining....

[lordsmurf]

ATI does not like Audigy cards (nor do many other pieces of hardware, including a few other capture cards), and then having multiple audio cards is the problem. I tried that once, that was a mess.