Can't Install my graphics card driver! ATI

I have an ATI mobility Radeon 2600. It has been working fine for a while. I was using a moded driver. All was well until recently i was playing a game and my computer overheated and shutdown. I was concerned that the driver was not working properly so i decided to reinstall the factory default drivers that came with my computer. I have installed this driver before and it has worked, but when I try to install it now, I get an error. "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)" I have tried unistalling, restarting, installing many many times but to no avail. I have tried the moded driver as well, and i get the same error. I am very tired. I cannot understand why this is happening unless my graphics card is just physically messed up although i truly hope that is not the case. Please help if you have any ideas at all i will try them. I am using Windows Vista 64bit (premium). Thanks in advance.

 

That sounds like you burned the card to crap and it no longer works

Sorry

 

I sure do hope not....

 

Try going to ATI's website and downloading the most recent driver directly from them. Then try installing THAT copy.

Have you tried loading any games since the crash? I'd be curious to see how things look. Also, make sure that the system doesn't continue to overheat by clearing any dust/lint out of the fans and vents.

 

Thanks StormEffect, but i tried that to no avail. The device manager says "This device cannot start. (Code 10)."

I can't understand how it broke. Everything was working fine until i uninstalled the driver and tried to reinstall it. After overheating and shutting down, i restarted and everything was normal. Now it is messed up. I can't understand it.

 

I think its burned O.O what were your temperatures? like 100Celcius?

 

I'm not sure because i was playing a game at the time, but the game was running very smoothly. But it was quite hot near the vent i wouldn't doubt it.

 

I am worried that you may have physically damaged part of your video card, possibly causing the errors when you try to install a new driver.

Can you try running a 3D game for a littlle while and checking for visual artifacts (flickering textures, colored dots, corrupted textures) so we can tell if there is any physical damage?

Theoretically, the artifacts will start out small and get worse as the heat level increases. Otherwise, there may actually be a software error and NOT a hardware error causing your problem. I don't know what you might do in that situation, maybe run a driver cleaner in safe mode? Otherwise you'd have to do a full reinstall.

Hopefully your vents aren't clogged with dust or anything.

 

try to underclock your GPU, clean your fan, get a cooling pad...cuz or else if its too late it might be fried

 

You could always try a clean install of Vista, see if that works, if it doesn't, then you are out of luck..

 

Sounds like it's time to call tech support. Hopefully you have a good warranty.

 

Thanks everyone for your help. My computer is relatively new (2-3 months) so there shouldn't be any dust. (there wasn't i cleaned it, it was pretty clean). I finally decided to reinstall vista, and that actually worked. I am very surprised that it did work actually. I can't really explain how a reinstall of vista would work. Perhaps vista just didn't recognize my card properly or something, but to me it doesn't really make sense. It works now so all is good.

The reason i didn't think my card was damaged was because everything was fine until i tried to reinstall the driver. Before my computer shutdown from the apparent overheating, the game was running very smoothly with no artifacts. I am really confused as to what the problem really was. But thanks everyone for your help.

 

O_O omg u get ur laptop at cyberpower, that's teh laptop i've been eyeing on since last month gonna get that hope i dont get your problem , sorry to hear about it =(

btw how is that laptop performing? if yo dont mind me asking =) what game you play and settings and is it smooth?