Hello all, I've seen my video card's driver (ati2dvag.dll) entering an infinite loop every time DirectDraw is called (that is, launching an app like Internet browser, a D3D-enabled game etc.). If such action is performed, the driver gets stuck in infinite loop (at least that's what Event Viewer in XP says), and is reset to minimal resolution and color palette by AMD control centre. - If I enter the DxDiag and disable the "DDraw hardware acceleration" everything works fine - except for launching apps that use DirectX. - If the DDraw accel is enabled and I launch an OpenGL app, everything works fine, no artifacts, no glitches. - If I lower the hardware acceleration slider by one notch, without actually disabling it, everything works fine as well. I have another OS (Linux Mint) on the same machine. All apps there work fine, no crashes, loops etc. Graphics acceleration works fine as well. Here's the list of things I've already done: Uninstalling the Catalyst 14.4 and sticking to XP's basic VGA driver (works OK, no loops) Uninstalling the 14.4 and cleaning the remnants using drivercleaner. Tried installing legacy 13.12, 13.9 and 12.8 AMD driver versions afterwards, without success. Checking the DirectX using dxdiag - no issues are reported, however the driver gets stuck in a loop when performing DDraw test, if AMD graphics driver is installed. D3D test is OK. Testing graphics card under high load (90C temp, no artifacts, no hardware problems). Turning the DDraw causes Windows to operate normally. Reinstalling DX using both registry trick and DirectX uninstaller software gave no result. Replacing the power supply to a brand-new one, no result. The problem appeared during normal OS operation, it wasn't like that before. I want to avoid reinstalling the system, although I'm out of ideas what else could be done. I have strong suspicion however, that the problem lies within XP's hardware acceleration. Any ideas? Thanks in advance. System specs: Computer: MSI MS-7369 CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (Windsor, JH-F3) 2400 MHz (12.00x200.0) @ 2387 MHz (12.00x199.0) Motherboard: MSI MS-7369 Chipset: nVidia nForce 560 (MCP65GT) Memory: 3072 MBytes @ 397 MHz, 6.0-6-6-18 - 1024 MB PC6400 DDR2-SDRAM - Kingston 99U5316-028.A00LF - 2048 MB PC6400 DDR2-SDRAM - Unknown GR800D264L6/2G Graphics: GIGABYTE Radeon HD 5770 ATI/AMD Radeon HD 5770, 1024 MB GDDR5 SDRAM Drive: ST3500312CS, 488.4 GB, Serial ATA 3Gb/s Drive: TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S222A, DVD+R DL Drive: AXQFUL 05YZWH2F, BD-ROM Sound: nVIDIA MCP65 - High Definition Audio Sound: ATI/AMD Juniper/Broadway/Granville - High Definition Audio Controller Network: RealTek Semiconductor RTL8168B/8111B PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Adapter OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional Build 2600
Well yeah, the erason is simple: my laziness . I have a craplton of "essential" stuff installed which otherwise I'd have to port, when switching to Win7