New 4870 owner with a couple questions

[Stoneyguy]

I bought a Visiontek 4870 today and I'm confused on two issues.

1) If I installed driver 8.6, then the hotfix, then 8.7, do I need to reapply the hotfix patch?

2) My second monitor works in a cloned mode when the bios loads up, but when windows starts it goes black and the power goes to a standby orange. Anyone know where I can find a recent "how-to" to get my second monitor working as an extended desktop.

I've installed Hydravision software. The catalyst software does recognize the second monitor and it's enabled. The second monitor is a 19" Viewsonic and my main monitor is a 24" Gateway.

Anyway, nice card so far! :)

[nekrosoft13]

8.7 already includes the hotfix

[Heinz68]

The '4000 series HotFix" was for Catalyst 8.6 driver and for some people who had some stability problems with the 8.6
The 8.7 driver doesn't have any HotFix for the 4000 series at least not yet.

[K007]

When installing drivers, just like any thing, always uninstall/clean registry safe mode and then reinstall new drivers.

Good question about the 8.7. I am pretty sure the driver team included the hotfix stuff in there...they had to have...they must....wtf if they didn't...

[LordJuanlo]

From Catalyst 8.6 you don't need to uninstall previous driver, even you don't need to reboot the system. You install the new package and that's all

[K007]

From Catalyst 8.6 you don't need to uninstall previous driver, even you don't need to reboot the system. You install the new package and that's all

woah...wait..what?...woah...wow..

[LordJuanlo]

Not sure if it's a Windows Vista only feature:

This release of Catalyst™ introduces an enhancement to the Catalyst installer. Users are no longer required to reboot their system after Catalyst has finished installing (as long as the installation is an upgrade from a previous Catalyst install).

Source (http://downloads.guru3d.com/ATI-Catalyst-8.6-Windows-Vista-64-bit-download-1957.html)

[Yaboze]

From what I can tell, the 8.6 hotfix is a complete driver package that doesn't get installed over anything. It's just the 8.6 driver with some fixes to hold you over until the 8.7 driver.

ATI/AMD has month driver releases, designated by the year and month: 2008 and 06 for June, which gives you 8.6. If there are problems with a monthly release, they put out a hotfix tagged complete driver to hold people over until the next month.

The 8.7 driver should have everything the 8.6 hotfix set has and then some.

They do things much differently than Nvidia, not that either is good or bad, just different. Nvidia may not put out a driver for months, then release one, with a higher revision number than a recent leaked driver, but with an older date. It boggles the mind sometimes.

[Stoneyguy]

From what I can tell, the 8.6 hotfix is a complete driver package that doesn't get installed over anything. It's just the 8.6 driver with some fixes to hold you over until the 8.7 driver.

ATI/AMD has month driver releases, designated by the year and month: 2008 and 06 for June, which gives you 8.6. If there are problems with a monthly release, they put out a hotfix tagged complete driver to hold people over until the next month.

The 8.7 driver should have everything the 8.6 hotfix set has and then some.


Thanks guys. It's all clear to me now. :D

Now if somebody could tell me why my 2nd monitor looses it's signal in between the Microsoft loading bar (http://vistasupport.mvps.org/images/upgrade_vista/vista%2013%20copy.jpg) and the Vista log (http://vistasupport.mvps.org/images/upgrade_vista/vista%2027%20copy.jpg)o when booting up... :headexplode: