Aspire 5536 ATI Update

I've been trying to update the graphics/chipset drivers on my 5536 with ATI HD 4500 graphics to the new 11.2 version.

I keep getting a crash in the installation program with details as below.

Acer don't seem to have updated the drivers since 2009, and I'm told this new ATI chipset driver has solved a usb problem with audio devices.
Has anyone else updated these drivers?

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: InstallManagerApp.exe
Application Version: 3.0.812.0
Application Timestamp: 4d40a04a
Fault Module Name: ntdll.dll
Fault Module Version: 6.1.7600.16695
Fault Module Timestamp: 4cc7b325
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 000000000006de9e
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.49
Locale ID: 2057
Additional Information 1: 376a
Additional Information 2: 376a119231f06ac933e7e12dd0d2e147
Additional Information 3: aa4f
Additional Information 4: aa4f9f9562a3d3d00f6875ee15903e4

 

try to follow these steps & keep us posted:

1- Install driver sweeper 2.9.0
2- Uninstall your previous driver
3- reboot when asked but in safe mode (press F8 while booting windows) & choose safe mode
4- Open driver sweeper & sweep the remaining ATI/AMD files/reg entries
5- reboot in windows you will find windows installing the automatic WDDM driver of the GPU in device manager
6- uninstall the driver from the device manage & choose delete the software of the driver
7- refresh the device manager tab & make sure the GPU is listed as "Standard VGA adapter"
8- now install the new catalyst driver (11.2 in your case) & keep us posted

 

That made no difference except that I now have the 800 x 600 screen!

The driver installation fails in exactly the same way. The only thing I didn't find was how to check what the display driver is now called, but it looks like the standard Microsoft basic driver. "Display" no longer appears in device manager and right clicking the screen just gives the "Personalise" and other dumbed down options.

I'm not really very happy with these ATI systems where motherboard device drivers seem to be controlled by display driver installations. Seems the wrong way round to me.

 

the strange part is that I had el 5738G which has I guess the same chassis & bios as the 5536 & also had the same GPU & always had no problems updating to the generic AMD/ATI drivers ...

did this happen to any other builds prior to the 11.2 ??? for example the 11.1 ... or one with the old catalyst like 10.12 ???

 

The same thing happens with 10.12 and 10.10, although the file referred to in the fault module name for both these is MFC80U.DLL rather than the ntdll.dll referred to in the fault report for 11.12

I don't think it should make any difference, but I'm running Windows 7 Professional N which I think is the "avoid EU lawsuit version". The machine is a 5536G.

 

hmm ... what happens when you try to install the OEM driver ???? does it crash ... if not I think you can use the OEM installer & replace the OEM drivers file with the new driver ones & use the OEM installer

 

Hmm, There is no OEM driver for the graphics/chipset on the Acer sites I've looked at, so presumably it is "within Windows".

The other thing is that I've looked up your 5738G, and it's an Intel machine. My 5536G is an AMD, so I think it's probably just the case and mediocre cooling that are similar.

 

For me Acer website does have a driver for the 5536 dated back to 23-10-2009 ... are you sure you are checking the right place ?

Download

 

Yes, I think this was me being stupid. I've now downloaded and tried to install the VGA driver from the Acer site and that won't install either.

I've had to spend most of today restoring the email database on this machine which had become corrupt, so I haven't had much time to look at the 5536.

I've logged the crash using Sysinternals Process Monitor and will look at that when I have time.

On another list it was suggested that the installer uses VC++ 2008 runtimes and I have VC++ 2010 Express installed on this machine, but I don't see why that should be a problem.

 

some applications require older versions of VC runtime ... happened to me once with a game that required the 2005 version & I had back then the 2008 so it wouldn't hurt to try ... also make sure your .NET framework is higher than the minimum required for the Catalyst control center to run because it uses that & I remember people having problems installing due to .NET framework version problems

 

Just a quick update. I have manually installed part of the South Bridge ATI 11.2 update, and this has cured my original problem to do with usb1.1 audio interfaces glitching horrendously. The usb filter part of the update comes with a pdf that gives installation instructions.

I still can't get any ATI Catalyst installer to work on the machine. It points to a Microsoft file ntdll.dll as the faulting code. My machine and two others (non Acer) running 64-bit Win7 have different sized files of that name in different places, but with all the same version numbers.
I've tried to ask about this on one of the new Microsoft forums but have had no useful response so far.