New XPS 410 with blank Vista logon screen

The video driver on Dell's website for the ATI X1300 Pro 256MB is already 2 versions old. Go to the ATI website and download the latest driver (Catalyst 7.2.

Except for the first time I ran my new 410 (with the same basic setup as quadrun1's), I had the same trouble. I was able to create my password, but the next time I tried to start, it froze. Never tried to guess where to click and enter the password on the blank screen, though. It would boot in safe mode, but not normally. I used my vista reinstall dvd to reinstall the OS (it will not let you upgrade from safe mode, only do a clean install).

Once I reinstalled vista, everything worked fine, even before I updated the video driver (from http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html and select OS, product, etc.). One benefit (?) of a clean reinstall is getting rid of all the preinstalled "stuff" from Dell (should I say that?), but I also didn't have anything other than the anti-virus purchased and chosen to be pre-installed, and hadn't installed anything else.

On my system i detected that the video signal came on the second dvi connector on the grahpical adaptor and simply had to change the monitor to that. Mayby that helps aswell

Firstly, it's outrageous that DELL XPS support are saying they don't have a solution.

I personally spoke to DELL support concerning the solution AND emailed DELL with the exact solution 2 weeks ago.

This is what you have to do:

The X1300 driver from the DELL website is months old. Go to the ATI website and download the latest driver.

First take a checkpoint for restore incase you need to.
Control Panel/Backup and Restore.

BEFORE installing you need to go to Control Panel/ Programs & Features and uninstall anything to do with ATI.

RESTART

Vista will use a standard windows driver and your display will not look great but no blank screen.

Now go and disable all antivirus.

RESTART

Now install the latest ATI driver. You should find it'll now install without a problem and no Blue Screen.

RESTART

Check all is working well with the new driver.
Re-enable anti-virus.

Cheers,
Andrew

I have a Dimension 9200 with ATI Radeon x1300 pro and I too get the blank logon screen with the following Video Hardward error message: "A problem with your video hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly." Thanks spiralstar99 for the solution to this! Hopefully, it'll work on mine and the others! I will take the "wait and see" approach to see how the others fair with installing the new driver from the ATI website. Just to confirm, is this the correction location for the new ATI Radeon 1300 pro driver: http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/vista32/common-vista32.html? Thanks again!

maximus_prime: That was the location I downloaded my new driver from when I had my troubles (at least I'm pretty sure that was the URL that came up after I used the lists to pick and choose ;-) )

Frank

Yes, that's the correct site, but you must uninstall the old ATI drivers and turn off virus protection.

Before reinstalling with UAC off, try the following, which will allow the Catalyst Control Panel to run with admin priveleges...

If you go the START menu/All Programs and click on the Catalyst Control Center to expand it. Then RIGHT click on CCC-advanced (or which ever you are using) and select properties. Click on compatibility TAB and down the bottom you should have a checkbox to run as administrator. This may well fix it for you.

You probably need to turn off User Account Control (UAC). Go to Control Panel/ User Accounts.

Once you've turned it off, you'll want to go through the procedure again to uninstall all the ATI stuff etc. Make sure you use the Uninstall option in the Program and Features Control Panel.

Turn UAC back on when you're done.

Cheers, Andrew

I use the 7.1 install - I believe the latest which you downloaded was 7.2 ? have you tried installing the previous 7.1 version ? I have a copy of the 7.1 install if they no longer have it on their site. Let me know if you want it.

Jason:

After I did my full Vista reinstall, I installed the Catalyst Ver. 7.2 driver. If you want to try 7.1, you can get that from http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/vista32/previous/common/common-cat71-vista32.html

Have to ask the obvious question though - did you download the Catalyst 64-bit driver instead of the 32-bit (I ask only because I accidentally went to the 64-bit page the first time, then checked myself and got the 32-bit. I don't know if that would cause a problem or not though)?

Best of luck!

Frank