| When I compared video cards while looking for a replacement, the ATI Radeon 7000 certainly seemed to be a good value - lots of bang for the buck ... When the card functions properly, it's great. But I kept running into problems where a high-pitched squeal would emit from the card and my system would lock up and I would have to re-boot. I determined through elimination that it was the video card that was acting up (at first I wondered if my processor was the culprit - gulp!). Once I narrowed the problem down to the card, I thought at first the card itself was defective, but when I updated the driver, it appeared to work OK. Such is life with Windows I run XP Professional SP1 and keep the OS updated regularly - and I run with a 19' NEC MultiSync 95 monitor). So I thought my problems were over. Wrong! A few weeks later, the symptoms re-appeared. I could run in safe mode with Windows default video driver, which I was thankful for. So I did a lot of research into the issue. ATI had not updated the driver on their web site, but the driver distributed with Windows XP had been updated. In fact, I determined that Windows Update had "automagically" updated my driver. Curses! So I rolled back to the old driver. Once again, things appeared to be OK. The problem re-surfaced again and again, and each time I spent many hours surfing the net to find a good driver. I kept encountering more and more complaints on the message boards about the quality of ATI drivers. It seems that they are hardware guys who want to move iron and view software drivers as a necessary evil, so they only put in the effort they absolute. Trust me when I say I tweaked the settings, disabling acceleration and what-not, trying to keep Windows that the driver happy to no avail. My time is worth money, and I finally decided the 25-40 hours I spent far exceeded the value to be gained. So I removed the ATI driver. Windows kept trying to re-installing it, and the symptoms would re-appear. It got so I couldn't even log in to Windows. I finally let Windows have its way, then booted up in safe mode and disabled the device in the Hardware Manager. Since then I've run with the Windows default driver at 1280x1024. No acceleration, no high refresh rates, but at lest the machine doesn't crash. I write software for a living, so I'm happy if I can crunch hard on the CPU. Good thing I'm not a gamer. So buy the Radeon 7000 if you are (1) buying on the cheap and (2) not concerned with running with all of the acceleration and high refresh rates supported. If you can afford a little more, I recommend you shop around and do your homework to find another card that end-users who do the things you will want to do have expressed satisfaction with. -- Lawrence J. Sylvain has 17 years of experience in developing n-tier solutions for small and large organizations. Part of his time and talents are devoted to developing new and innovative ways to use multimedia, music and networking technologies to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. A printer-friendly resume is available at the above web page. | .jpg)
