Powercolor Radeon 9550 - Black screen after Windows XP Screen on Startup

[Shadowhawk]

Hey, new to the forum, been reading all this talk of 9550 o'cing and all and decided to get one myself for a new system I built. Problem is, I can't get any driver to work with this card. If it doesn't crash during install, it crashes on reboot, with a black screen after the Windows XP startup screen disappears (before it shows Welcome).

System info:

Biostar M7VIZ-SATA motherboard, latest BIOS and chipset drivers (Via Hyperion 5), 1GB DDR 333 RAM, AMD AthlonXP 3000+ @ 2.2Ghz; onboard video on the motherboard, but I can disable the RAM sharing in the BIOS which disables the port. Running WinXP Pro + SP2, but I have tried it on SP1, stock, and on Win2k, no soap.

I have tried jumping thru every hoop on this one, used ATI's catalyst drivers, both the ones that come with the card and the latest from the website, the latest Omegas, etc. - Driver Cleaner in safe mode, install in safe mode, install in vga mode, install standing on my head naked... you get the picture.

I have heard plenty in the last few days of trying that many people had this problem... I also see that many of you have gotten this or a similar card to work... any hints? I'm not a technology n00b, but I could use a step by step walkthru if possible as I'm frazzled at this point.

Maybe I need a replacement card? I don't have another machine to test it in, unfortunately.

Thanks in advance...

[DoomLord]

Hello..

I have a problem just like yours... but my 9550 256 megs (mine is Connect 3D) worked fine on a K600 Chipset board... now that I moved to an K8T800 and AMD64 it just won't run.

on normal Windows XP I had your same problem.. I've gone a little further on XP x64 Edition but still mayor problems.

I've been working as a computer technician for over 12 years and 3D accelerated video cards since the First 3Dfx Voodoo Card, so I know what I'm doing, tested all possible settings on mobo and video drivers (and many drivers) with no happy results.

Now I'm moving to flashing the Video Card bios...

I really can't find the problem and everything goes nice on Linux (Fedora Core 4 x64) with ATI Linux Drivers.

[wazzledoozle]

Try running it at AGP 4x with fast writes disabled. I had a powercolor 9550 256mb for a year with no problems, that sounds strange.
May just be a bad card.

[DoomLord]

Well, last night I finally nailed it.

I pretty much voided my warranty but I Flashed the Video Card Bios with the supposed to be same file.
I downloaded the bios file from this site that matched my model and company (Connect 3D 9550 256MB), the only difference I see is that the file says the video card has samsung 5ns memory and my chips are Elixir's.

but flashed, changed absolutely nothing at the motherboard bios or video card drivers and absolutely no more problems.

So, you have two options, take the card back and get a non faulty one, or void your warranty and flash the bios yourself.

Good Luck!

[Shadowhawk]

Finally got that one resolved... it was a bad card after all... I replaced it, but with a different manufacturer, I ended up getting a Norwood Micro Radeon 9550 OC which runs stable with no BIOS flashing or nothing at 428/230 using ATItool (stock is 400/200). Thanks for the help and comiseration.