Device Manager missing "display adapters" entry

My wife's system was dying (old Nforce2 AGP system). I rebuilt the system
with a new AM2+ motherboard, cpu, ram, video card. I booted off the original
installation CD (WinXP Pro 32-bit) with the original hard drive installed,
and told the CD to repair the existing Windows installation. I have years of
messages, receipts, and other info on my wife's system and it would have been
a nightmare to try and reinstall all of the old programs and copy over all of
the old vital information. The upgrade/updating actually went quite well and
most everything is working great. HOWEVER, I can not get the ATI catalyst
software to load because it says no ATI driver is installed, even after I've
installed the full correct catalyst package direct from ATI's website
(HD4890). When I go into Device Manager there is no longer a "display
adapters" entry showing in the list of hardware, and my video card is now
showing under "Unknown" at the bottom of the list of hardware. If I go into
DISPLAY inside Control Panel, I do see the video card listed as a 4800 series
ATI video card attached to multiple displays? Yes, that is the second
problem. I only have a single 24" LCD monitor attached to a single video port
on the video card, but I am showing three default monitor entries, one
generic television entry, and two plug n' play entries under "monitor" in
Device Manager. I need to get "display adapters" back into Device Manager so
my video card can be recognized as a video card and placed under the display
adapter entry, and hopefully then all those "extra" monitor entries will go
away as well. I have tried deinstalling and reinstalling the ATI drivers
completely to no avail, and yes, all the motherboard drivers have been
installed. I would appreciate any help possible. I sent an email request to
Microsoft for tech assistance, and they sent me an email link pointing me to
here???? I guess Microsoft doesn't supply tech support assistance to end
users in trouble anymore unless you pay $59 for it??? Thanks.

I had a similar problem with a repair install for a new motherboard a while
back. Check this out and see if it applies to you:
Open Device Manager > View Menu > select: Show Hidden Devices.
If you have the same condition I had you will find duplicate and phantom
devices listed. Phantom devices would be for the old hardware that no longer
exists. I carefully (always research and verify) removed all the phantoms,
then either determined which duplicate was not needed or removed both
devices and loaded the drivers fresh.
I suspect that you will have a phantom video adapter that is blocking your
attempts.

I checked that out, and couldn't find anything helpful there. I took
another hard drive, reduped the old drive, and went through the
upgrade/update procedure again. This time I checked after I removed things
from 'add/remove hardware". Apparently the "display adapters" is in device
manager until I remove the old Nvidia drivers. That is when the display
adapters entry disappears from device manager and my video card becomes
"unknown". I don't understand WHY this is happening though because my wife's
old motherboard was an ABIT Nforce2 NF7-S motherboard, and my new motherboard
is an Asus M3A78-Pro AM2+ motherboard, so the Nvidia drivers are not needed,
and shouldn't even be in use??? Weird. The system seems sluggish with those
Nvidia drivers in there, and speeds up with them deinstalled, but then I lose
the display adapters in device manager and then the ATI software won't load
and catalyst complains that there is no ATI graphics driver loaded and won't
run <sigh>. It sure would be nice if Microsoft would monitor these newsgroups
and respond to user type problems like this, but apparently they aren't
interested in supporting WinXP for free anymore <sigh>!!! So much for
integrity and support <sigh>. Maybe it's time to look more seriously at Linux
SUSE. Thanks for your input TVeblen . . . I really appreciate you taking the
time to write and try to help!!!!

The operating system does not "know" that you've changed motherboards, so
the nVidia drivers will remain until you actually remove them.

You should try this:
First check the ATI or nVidia programs folder to see if there is an
uninstall tool there. If not, check add/remove programs.
Now go into safe mode (F8 during boot).
Remove all instances of display driver software from uninstall tool or
add/remove first - if none, go to the next step:
Go to device manager and uninstall all instances of display adapters and/or
unknown devices (that you know is the video adapter).
Restart and let windows load using the generic VGA drivers (480x620
resolution).
Now install the ATI driver software

Therein lies the problem. For SOME reason once I remove the old
Nvidia drivers, Windows just removes "display adapters" from Device Manager
on its own. If I then uninstall the video card from the now "unknown" entry
and then reboot, Windows reports "vga compatible controller found" and then
adds the ATI Radeon 4800 series device, but it still enters that under
"unknown". It seems that once Windows removes the "display adapters" entry
from Device Manager, there isn't any way to get it back in there so my video
card shows up as a display adapter instead of an unknown device. I don't
understand why Windows does that when all I have ever used on that system is
an ATI video card and the Nvidia drivers are all related to the motherboard
chipset and other motherboard Nvidia drivers like the ethernet. Very strange.
Too bad there isn't anyone else out there who has more knowledge of this
stuff who could perhaps give some sound advice that we could perhaps both
benefit from. Thanks for the post TVeblen.

I just basically had the same issue. No "Display Adapters" entry in Device
Manager. Neither an ATI nor NVidia AGP card would load. The motherboard
installed is an ECS P4 board with VIA chipset. I uninstalled the VIA CPU to
AGP2.0/AGP3.0 Controller (motherboard driver) under System Devices in Device
Manager. Rebooted. XP reloaded the motherboard driver and then I was able to
install either video card. Hope this helps you too

Well my problem was due to my wife's old motherboard being an old
Abit NF7-S nvidia based motherboard, and the minute I deinstalled the old
nividia drivers, the display adapters entry would disappear from the device
manager and my video card then installed as an unknown device. Catalyst would
not start because it didn't see any video card display drivers loaded since
there was no video card listed under display adapters since there was no
display adapter entry anymore. I decided to just leave the motherboard
nividia drivers alone, duped her old hard drive, used my original
installation CD to repair the existing windows installation, and then
everything went fine after that. I now have my display adapter entry there,
my ATI HD4890 video card shows properly as a video adapter, the drivers load
properly, and catalyst starts and runs fine. The system runs fast and sweet
with the new Asus M3A78 Pro motherboard, AM2+ Phenom II 940 cpu, and 4GB of
ddr2-1066 ram running Windows XP SP3 on a 750GB WD Caviar Black hard drive,
with an LG Blu-Ray drive and a Asus DVD-RW drive. I am using a Zalman 750w
power supply and the cpu is being cooled by a AC 64 freezer Pro fan/heatsink
with the new AC thermal paste with seems to work quite well. I replaced all
the fans in the Sagatta II case with high end Enermax twister fans, 120mm and
80mm fans, and the system, cpu, and Gigabyte 1GB HD4890 video card all run
nice and cool. Even with the video card fan manually set down at only 45% it
keeps the card idling cool at around 38 degrees C. The motherboard shows
around 34 degrees C and the cpu overclocked to 3.23ghz shows idle temp at
around 28 degrees C. So everything is running quite well and I am very happy
with the final results <grin>. Have a great day and thanks for the post!!!!

That abit board uses the Nvidia chipset so uninstalling all the NVidia
drivers you would have uninstalled the motherboard drivers also, not just the
old video driver. Upon reinstalling xp those motherboard drivers would have
reloaded (ie; cpu to agp bridge) and then a video card driver would load.

I think we both discovered the same thing lol
The motherboard drivers need to be loaded properly before Display Adapters
appears in Device Manager and a video card install properly. :)

I guess we both solved our problem(s) with Windows. Windows is not exactly a
user friendly operating system, but it can be managed with diligence and
patient perserverence <grin>. I started puttering with the new Linux SUSE
(totally free) operating system which seems far superior to Windows in many
respects, but it is quite user unfriendly in a lot of other ways, and
somewhat crytptic as well to do some things. I think those reasons are mostly
why there isn't more interest or greater support for it, or else it would
probably become quite a serious threat to Windows grip on the user
community!!!! Have a great summer!

Bob



"thegeekshop" wrote:

> That abit board uses the Nvidia chipset so uninstalling all the NVidia
> drivers you would have uninstalled the motherboard drivers also, not just the
> old video driver. Upon reinstalling xp those motherboard drivers would have
> reloaded (ie; cpu to agp bridge) and then a video card driver would load.
>
> I think we both discovered the same thing lol
> The motherboard drivers need to be loaded properly before Display Adapters
> appears in Device Manager and a video card install properly. :)
>
> Happy computing :)
>
> "Bob" wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> > Well my problem was due to my wife's old motherboard being an old
> > Abit NF7-S nvidia based motherboard, and the minute I deinstalled the old
> > nividia drivers, the display adapters entry would disappear from the device
> > manager and my video card then installed as an unknown device. Catalyst would
> > not start because it didn't see any video card display drivers loaded since
> > there was no video card listed under display adapters since there was no
> > display adapter entry anymore. I decided to just leave the motherboard
> > nividia drivers alone, duped her old hard drive, used my original
> > installation CD to repair the existing windows installation, and then
> > everything went fine after that. I now have my display adapter entry there,
> > my ATI HD4890 video card shows properly as a video adapter, the drivers load
> > properly, and catalyst starts and runs fine. The system runs fast and sweet
> > with the new Asus M3A78 Pro motherboard, AM2+ Phenom II 940 cpu, and 4GB of
> > ddr2-1066 ram running Windows XP SP3 on a 750GB WD Caviar Black hard drive,
> > with an LG Blu-Ray drive and a Asus DVD-RW drive. I am using a Zalman 750w
> > power supply and the cpu is being cooled by a AC 64 freezer Pro fan/heatsink
> > with the new AC thermal paste with seems to work quite well. I replaced all
> > the fans in the Sagatta II case with high end Enermax twister fans, 120mm and
> > 80mm fans, and the system, cpu, and Gigabyte 1GB HD4890 video card all run
> > nice and cool. Even with the video card fan manually set down at only 45% it
> > keeps the card idling cool at around 38 degrees C. The motherboard shows
> > around 34 degrees C and the cpu overclocked to 3.23ghz shows idle temp at
> > around 28 degrees C. So everything is running quite well and I am very happy
> > with the final results <grin>. Have a great day and thanks for the post!!!!
> >
> > Bob
> >
> >
> > "thegeekshop" wrote:
> >
> > > I just basically had the same issue. No "Display Adapters" entry in Device
> > > Manager. Neither an ATI nor NVidia AGP card would load. The motherboard
> > > installed is an ECS P4 board with VIA chipset. I uninstalled the VIA CPU to
> > > AGP2.0/AGP3.0 Controller (motherboard driver) under System Devices in Device
> > > Manager. Rebooted. XP reloaded the motherboard driver and then I was able to
> > > install either video card. Hope this helps you too,
> > >
> > > "Bob" wrote:
> > >
> > > > My wife's system was dying (old Nforce2 AGP system). I rebuilt the system
> > > > with a new AM2+ motherboard, cpu, ram, video card. I booted off the original
> > > > installation CD (WinXP Pro 32-bit) with the original hard drive installed,
> > > > and told the CD to repair the existing Windows installation. I have years of
> > > > messages, receipts, and other info on my wife's system and it would have been
> > > > a nightmare to try and reinstall all of the old programs and copy over all of
> > > > the old vital information. The upgrade/updating actually went quite well and
> > > > most everything is working great. HOWEVER, I can not get the ATI catalyst
> > > > software to load because it says no ATI driver is installed, even after I've
> > > > installed the full correct catalyst package direct from ATI's website
> > > > (HD4890). When I go into Device Manager there is no longer a "display
> > > > adapters" entry showing in the list of hardware, and my video card is now
> > > > showing under "Unknown" at the bottom of the list of hardware. If I go into
> > > > DISPLAY inside Control Panel, I do see the video card listed as a 4800 series
> > > > ATI video card attached to multiple displays? Yes, that is the second
> > > > problem. I only have a single 24" LCD monitor attached to a single video port
> > > > on the video card, but I am showing three default monitor entries, one
> > > > generic television entry, and two plug n' play entries under "monitor" in
> > > > Device Manager. I need to get "display adapters" back into Device Manager so
> > > > my video card can be recognized as a video card and placed under the display
> > > > adapter entry, and hopefully then all those "extra" monitor entries will go
> > > > away as well. I have tried deinstalling and reinstalling the ATI drivers
> > > > completely to no avail, and yes, all the motherboard drivers have been
> > > > installed. I would appreciate any help possible. I sent an email request to
> > > > Microsoft for tech assistance, and they sent me an email link pointing me to
> > > > here???? I guess Microsoft doesn't supply tech support assistance to end
> > > > users in trouble anymore unless you pay $59 for it??? Thanks.
> > > >
> > > > Bob
> > > >