[Sergo]

A couple years ago, I tried upgrading to Windows XP service pack 3, but it wouldn't recognize my video card, so I rolled back and ran fine on SP2 for a few more years. Now I am forced to upgrade if I want to continue playing City of Heroes, and I am having the same problem. I have gotten so frustrated that I tried rolling back again using system restore, but it said it couldn't restore, and didn't elaborate further.

My video card (Radeon 4650, different by the way, from the one that was in the machine the first time I had this problem) does not even show up in Device Manager. I tried removing the card and Windows "found" the onboard graphics on my motherboard, but when I reinstalled the card, the computer did not find new hardware.

I have tried removing all drivers I could find and reinstalling.

I have looked for a setting in the bios that might disable my AGP slot, but have only found a setting that toggles between AGP and PCI, and it is properly set.

Video will still come through the card (I am using the system in question right now), but the card is clearly not installed and I cannot select the 1680x1050 resolution for my monitor.

One person suggested a hardware problem, but that seems unlikely since rollback worked the first time, and the development of the hardware problem would have to magically coincide with the installation of SP3, and the hardware was clearly still working after the first time this happened.

Is there something else I can do to force my system to look in my AGP slot?

[mmorpeegee]

I believe there is some kind of conflict with the 4650 and certain on board graphics chips (often the HD4200), and the conflict gets brought out by SP3.

I believe the solution is to disable the onboard graphics on your motherboard by using the bios. If you snoop around in the bios you will find a setting to disable the on board chip. After that, you should be able to reboot using the 4650 and that should work properly.

If it doesn't (and even if it does), make sure you install the very latest drivers for it, and the catalyst control centre too. (I think there is a download that installs both at the same time). Also, if you have any trouble, you might want to look for something called Driver Cleaner which will help you to remove all traces of any older drivers that are getting in the way. If you do end up using needing to use that, make sure you find a safe version of it. There is sometimes viruses attached to freeware, so make sure it comes from a reliable source.

Hope that helps.