Radeon 9200 driver failure

[ricw]

hi everyone

I'm new to the forum but have had my VGN S2HP Vaio for 20 months now. It has recently started to display the message "the ati2dvag driver has stopped working normally. Save your work and reboot the system to restore full display functionality ...." when I reboot I get the Windows "report serious failure" stuff and the response suggests I update the ati drivers. the ati site says I already have the latest drivers and they don't support them anyway. Can anyone shed any light or suggest how to fix this? Grateful for all suggestions. Thanks Ric

[Blencogo]

Hi Ric and welcome to ClubVAIO.

Have you had a look in Device Manager (under Sound, Video and Game Controllers) to see if there is an error code against your ATi device?

Have you tried right-clicking on the device and choosing Uninstall? Then reboot your computer to force Windows to automatically reinstall the driver.

If this doesn't work go to Control Panel>Add New Hardware and try to install from there either choosing the device from the list or searching for the drivers. The original compressed driver should be in C:\Drivers\Video.

[ricw]

Hi Blencogo

No error messages. I've reinstalled the driver so will now leave it and see what happens. All working well so far. Thank you for your help. Ric

[ricw]

Hi again. I've tried all the suggestions and sadly it is still failing. It works for a while and then the error message comes up and the screen goes into what looks like safety mode quality.

It's also having trouble booting up, sometimes it gets halfway through then a blue screen appears momentarily and it starts the boot up process again. Don't know if there's a connection to the video driver issue or not. Any further help will be greatly appeciated. Ric

[rich912]

Hi Ric,

Do these symptoms sound familiar?

System does not come out of hibernation
System reports an error in the ati driver
System does not boot, screen remains black.
In some cases the Sony logo come up on boot and does not proceed with the boot process.

If so I am afraid that you are possibly experiencing a known problem with the S series ATI 9200 video chip. If your notebook is still in warranty I suggest that you contact Sony – otherwise a reputable third party repairer.

[ricw]

Hi Rich,

Thanks for your advice and sorry to be so long replying. I've been on a trip, trying to coax my ailing Vaio into life. Those are exactly the symptoms. It's dissappointing when you spend the extra money for a well-built reliable machine and it only lasts 20 months. It's out of warrenty but I wonder if Sony have anything to say . Ho hum. thanks again for your help, Ric