System hangs when i try to install my ATI XFX 4870's drivers!?

Question

I'm actually a computer professional so don't go telling me to download the drivers again or something stupid like that.
anyways here's my story

I bought this card a couple of months ago, i used its bundle CD to install the drivers, they got installed easily. I used this card without a problem till i found out that they have released ATI Catylist 9.4. I had 9.2 so i downloaded the latest drivers and when i ran it, my system hanged, so i restarted my pc tried it again, had the same result so i thought maybe my windows is acting up so i reinstalled it. Tried the installation again and had the same result so i took out my old drivers and the system still freezed at the first screen.

Even my old downloaded 9.2 or bundle 9.0 are all now making my system hang up whenever i run the installation.

My system specs are
Intel Q6600(Quad Core) @ 2.40 Ghz
Intel Motherboard DP35DP
Kingston 2GB 600 something bus RAM
ATI XFX 4870 1 GB VGA Card

So i need to know that is that my card's fault or my motherboard's fault because i'm sure that during the frist screen on the installation the software is telling the motherboard to locate any installed GPU's. I hate my motherboard it sometimes just stops reading the data from my super drive, it shows the DVD-RAM Drive but dosent open anything so i have to unplug the SATA cable and plug it into some other port to run the DVD.

So thats all that its to it there. any decent ideas???

Answer 1

restart your computer and try entering SAFE MODE. you can do this by keep pressing F8 after BIOS boots up. then select SAFE MODE. but before you restart your computer, uninstall all of the graphic drivers and download the latest driver for your graphic card and leave in on your desktop then restart your PC.

Answer 2

Are you running Vista?

Ok, instead of unplugging the sata cable, have you tried uninstalling the dvd ram from device manager. This is a known problem with Vista, hence my guess.



Make sure you have uninstalled fully the old ATI drivers. Then try the ATI drivers without the catalyst control center (driver package only), as a lot of problems are caused by the control center.

Answer 3

The thing i hate about computers is there are so many things that could be causing this.



Have you have sure the card is receiving enough power, ie both molexes are connected to the adapter for the GPU?



have you tried delting the old driver registry files?



It could be a GPU failure/ mobo failure.



is the GPU in a primary PCI-E slot ie. not a x8 slot?



hope this helps



Harry