Windows 7 Two video cards with two different drivers not working

jcclow

New Member
I have two different ATI cards installed in one system, each with their own 22" HP LCD. One is an ATI FireGL V5600 for my CAD applications and the other is an X1900XT for Left4Dead. When I ran Windows Update after I installed Windows 7, it immediately downloaded an updated driver for the V5600 (8.623, I think) but when it installed it, it disabled the X1900XT. I went to the Device Manager, uninstalled the X1900XT, then Scanned for Hardware Changes, it finds the X1900XT, installs the driver and it works again. Unfortunately, it also reverts the driver for the V5600 back to 8.56.1.15 which isn't even a valid driver for the V5600 as seen on Link Removed - Invalid URL.

I'm not sure why I can't have independent drivers for each card. I know for a fact that this is supported in XP as I have my system dual booting with XP and it work perfectly there (see Link Removed due to 404 Error and Link Removed due to 404 Error it's hard to tell, but both of those screenshots are from XP with each card having independent drivers). The downside is that my CAD apps don't recognize the V5600 with driver 8.56.1.15 as the workstation card it is, and my graphics are severely crippled in those apps.

I would like to report this to Microsoft, but unlike in RC1 there is no way to report a bug. Thanks in advance for any help.
 
So after days of digging, I found out that because the ATI X1900XT is now considered a legacy card, it is no longer supported by ATI and Windows. Windows 7 will work with it installed, but because it is not WDDM 1.1 certified/compatible it will revert back to an old driver and therefore force the driver for the V5600 back down too. I went out and bought an ATI 4850 and all is well now. Anyone want my X1900XT? ;)
 
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I have the same problem with my 1950xt and 4670.m Only when i use older driver like 8.9 or 9.3 catalyst are both working but the thing is that if auto update is on it keeps disabling XT. I am working on this to find a way.
 
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