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How do I stop Windows 7 installing the WDDM drivers on my X300SE?

matt100

matt100

matt100

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I've put an ATI X300 SE in an SFF PC as it has DVI for my HDTV whereas the onboard is VGA and my 1080p HDTV only does 720p via VGA.

Now.. if I just leave it to its own devises it installs the WDDM driver which doesn't appear to have any acceleration so windows open jerkily etc so I figured fine, just install the ATI driver..

But I can't.. I can't install the ATI driver (9.3) when the WDDM is installed as it just fails.

I can't uninstall the driver and then install the ATI as the screen goes blank.

I can't uninstall the WDDM and go into safe mode and do the ATI as it just installs the WDDM anyway as soon as it boots into safe mode.

I can't disable the WDDM then go into safe mode then uninstall the WDDM because after all that (and the screen is still on this way btw) I try and install the ATI and it says something like device load failed or something (found a post on a forum telling me to install the X86 and X64 2008 C++ redistributables whatever they are, which I did... still same problem.. it says the error is something to do with the 2005 C++?).

So basically I always end up in windows with the WDDM driver which I'm not convinced is using the onboard memory etc of the card, I'm not expecting gaming performance clearly but I wouldn't mind windows opening and closing smoothly.

Anyone got any ideas how to stop it loading the WDDM driver?

Oh yeah I also have automatic updates turned off.
 
Have you tried uninstalling the driver from the Device Manager, or Updating the driver from there, and pointing it to the new driver, as it will update that way if the driver you are trying to install is newer.
 
Yeah if I uninstall I get te black screen again, if I try and do the whole update driver, browse, have disc thing it wants a .inf file and nothing else is seen, the ati driver is a .exe

lost!
 
matt100 said:
Yeah if I uninstall I get te black screen again, if I try and do the whole update driver, browse, have disc thing it wants a .inf file and nothing else is seen, the ati driver is a .exe

lost!
Click to expand...

the drivers should be already extracted to c:\ati if you've ran the installer. point device manager at that folder. it's what i had to do to get my x1950xt working in windows 7. btw, are you using the latest 9.3.1 update? :)
 
that was seriously close... I get down to the .inf file in the windows 7 64 and vista 64 9.3 driver and then select the whole have disk thing, then select the x550/x700 driver and it then tells me it won't install because it doesn't support this version of windows.

argh! its windows 7 64 FFS!
 
matt100 said:
Now.. if I just leave it to its own devises it installs the WDDM driver which doesn't appear to have any acceleration so windows open jerkily etc so I figured fine, just install the ATI driver..
Click to expand...

Chances are, It'll also be jerky with a d/led ATI driver. Afterall the built in Win7 driver is probably newer than the one you're trying to upgrade to anyway.

You need to get a new card. No point flogging a dead horse when you can get one that works 100x better in Media Center for £25.
 
an old x1950XT is about 5 years newer than a X300 and about 50 times quicker, so updated drivers would make a difference. But when drivers havent been developed for for years, then chances are the built in ones would be about as good as you can get (for media and Aero)

I put Win7 on my mates old HTPC that has a Nvidia 6150 onboard, and the built in drivers work fine, they play 720p MKV's and everything else (minus games)
 
yeah I'm taking steps to resolve this now!

frustrating because it seems to play MKVs etc fine which is ultimately what I'll be wanting it to do but the jerkiness in animating windows etc is weird and annoying.

I've switched back over to the GMA on board and the windows are nice and smooth again. Very odd.
 
Your Intel GMA (depending on what version ) is probably faster than a x300SE, and it probably has Pixel Shader 3 support, unlike the x300.
 
Lanz said:
an old x1950XT is about 5 years newer than a X300 and about 50 times quicker, so updated drivers would make a difference. But when drivers havent been developed for for years, then chances are the built in ones would be about as good as you can get (for media and Aero)
Click to expand...

ok, i've got an x1050 kicking about (rebadged x550 i think). i'll see how it works in 7 and post back....

edit: works well even on the WDDM drivers. maybe the lack of video ram will cause issues at a higher resolution. i only have a 17in CRT @
1280x960.

edit2: updated to ati driver just fine. a few screenshots....

before:

ms.png


driver update:

driver.png


afterwards:

ati.png
 
Last edited:
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