Drivers & Software

[ccimino4]

I'm trying to get an old PC going as a side project. I have an AMD FX-60 and Radeon 3850AGP in an ASrock Dual939-Sata II board. It all works in Windows XP flawlessly. But the GPU drivers do not work, no matter what I try, in Windows 7x64. Can't change refresh rates, no Catalyst Control Panel, nothing. After some digging I found out about these supposed AGP hotfix drivers, however I can't get it (12.3) or AMD's last drivers (13.1 or 13.9) to work. I'm not sure how these INF files work either. I think this is the key I need help with. Each time I get an error saying my AMD drivers aren't installed properly, despite finishing the install successfully. How can I get my 3850AGP to run in 7x64? If you have experience with INF files please let me know.

[drallim]

My guess is you are lacking proper 64-bit motherboard drivers (and hence the AGP interface). The asrock page for your motherboard only lists drivers for XP available, there is a 64-bit version though. Worth a try, maybe win 7 won't notice, hehe.

[mstfbsrn980]

The drive does not start? Not installing? Which one?
Start Menu>RightClick>Computer Management>Device Manager>Display Adapters
Follow this way. Check if the driver is installed. If it is not installed, install it with Device Manager.

[ccimino4]

I've dug around the Internet and used this process:

- Install all components of the driver normally (Catalyst Control Center etc.)
 -> The graphics driver itself will fail - you need to install it manually using the Device Manager!

- Open the Device Manager (right click on Start-Icon in left corner), go to "Graphics Card"
- Right click on the card and select "Update driver..." from the context menu (first entry)
- Click on "Search for a driver on the computer" (second entry)
- Click "Select driver from list"
- Click on the "Device..." button in the right corner
- Select the driver file (*.inf) from the extracted ATI folder. In my case, this was C:\AMD\Support\13-1-legacy_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc\Packages\Drivers\Display\W76A_INF.
There are a few different files, it seems the dialog will choose the right one if you simple select one of them... TRY IT FIRST! Otherwise you could try to read the .inf files (they are just plain text files - maybe you'll find your chipset in there...
- Click on OK, the dialog will now show one or two entries, which should have the name of your graphics card - select one of them
- Click on Next - the screen(s) will go black and flicker, you will hear the device connection/disconnection sounds several times. Don't worry, everythings works as intended!
- The driver should now be ready - restart your system, and you should now be able to control your graphics settings using the Catalyst Control Center.

So browsing for "C7xxxxxxx.inf" files to install them in Device Manager manually doesn't appear to work here.....

[ccimino4]

WOW! I figured it out!

So for those wondering, here's what happened. It ISN'T the GPU, or the drivers. You CAN get a Radeon HD 3850 AGP working in Windows 7x64. So for the Asrock Dual 939-Sata2, the only chipset drivers are for Windows XP. HOWEVER, Asrock apparently later came out with a Dual 939-VSTA board, which is exactly the same. Same chipsets, same everything. On THAT MB page, they have an "AGP FIX" driver (like 2MB) for Windows Vista 64 (close enough, right?). Wipe out the AMD drivers with DDU, install the AGP fix from the ASROCK site, and THEN install your Catalyst drivers as usual via the Setup.exe (probably with reboots in-between). Looks like it's working! I can change my resolution and refresh rates! Going to try some games and clarify that it works!

[mstfbsrn980]

The most of new motherboards do not support Windows 2000-XP. I haven't experienced old motherboards with Windows 7. The number of AGP motherboards with 64-bit support is very limited. Strange creatures in computer history.