Radeon 9600 XT, Video card needs to be shot

VGA Compatible should be your primary as far as I know. What makes you think it's the other way around?

ATI hates me too, it messed up many times not to mention dropped the price of the x800 to the price of the x700 right after I bought the 700...

A lot of people having problems with things locking up and some people said this fixed their monitors. Some people were opening games and waiting twenty seconds until their computer would just freeze, this fixed it for them.

1. From the desktop, right-click on the desktop and select "Properties".

2. Select the "Settings" tab.

3. Hit the "Advanced" button.

4. Select the "SMARTGART™" tab.

5. Set "Fast Write" to "Off".

6. Click "Ok".

7. You will be asked if you wish to restart your computer. Click "Yes".

8. When your computer is done rebooting, open "My Computer" and browse to the directory where you installed the ATI Control Panel. On my computer, this is "C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI Control Panel", so try there if you're not sure where it is.

(Alternative step 8. If you can't find the ATI Control Panel folder, open your "Start" menu, go to the "Find" option, and select "Files or Folders". Then do a search on "ATI Control Panel", without the quotes. If you still can't find it, try searching on the word "Smartgart", again without the quotes. That's not a typo, by the way-- it's "Smartgart", not "Smartgard" or "Smartguard".)

9. In the folder is a shortcut called "Smartgart". Double-click on this to open it.

10. Set PCI Write to "On".

11. Set PCI Read to "On".

12. Set AGP Write to "OFF".

13. Set AGP Read to "On".

14. Click "Ok".

15. You will be asked if you wish to restart your computer. Click "Yes".

16. When your computer is done rebooting, Smartgart will run a few tests, so you may need to wait a minute or so. Once it's done, you will be asked if you want to keep the Smartgart settings. Click "Ok".

That's assuming smartgart fires to begin with. When I originally had problems I came accross those steps or similar, but all the smartgart controls were grayed out on me.

I would just like to say, I feel your pain.

That would have been very helpful; but sadly I only have these options in BIOS, the entire installation of the drivers was so faulty every time that as Retriever II said, SMARTGART never went off; I never got that far -_-

That said; I just fired ATI from working on my motherboard and probably most if not all of my future ones. I will buy future computer parts based on their ATI compatibility.

But for now I'm thinking about getting a Geforce 6600, whaddaya think of this? Same price as my 9600 XT, am I getting what I pay for or is it gonna be steps below what -would- have been grand? =(

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...82E16814135164R