Using the Radeon 9000 with a HD TV

Here’s the issue: I wanted a video card that would allow me to use my LCD monitor and my Sony Wega HDTV at the same time (like an extended desktop). I bought a dual-port video card with a VGA port and DVI. My TV is HDMI so I used a DVI to HDMI adapter to connect my TV to the DVI port.

I walked through the driver setup (with the included CD) and when I rebooted the screen was blank. So I rebooted into safe mode to troubleshoot. When I got in safe mode I realized that the ATI drivers were having trouble loading - so I went to ATI’s website and got the latest drivers and the Catalyst software (a free download, but pretty large so be prepared to wait a few minutes).

I uninstalled the original software/drivers (from Add/Remove programs) and installed the Catalyst software and drivers. I rebooted and the same thing happened - it hung. I did a little searching online and found that many other people had the same problem - the issue was that in my haste to install the drivers I had failed to notice that I needed the latest .Net framework installed from Microsoft.

So I did a search for .Net 2.0 download (it is a beta version but works great for me so far) and installed the framework. (I would put a link but when I was searching I found many dead links so I am guessing that Microsoft periodically changes the location of the page)

After installing the .Net framework I once again uninstalled all ATI software on my computer and reinstalled the catalyst drivers. This time I rebooted and everthing worked without a hitch. Amazingly enough, the ATI software decided (correctly) that I had two monitors connected - a LCD monitor and a HD Sony TV. I played with the resolution a bit and finally got one that worked for both.

I loaded up a free HD trailer that I downloaded from Movielink and put it on the Sony - it looked awesome. I switched back and forth between the HD trailer and HD OTA broadcasts (that I didn’t realize we got here) and the quality was comparable - now I can watch HD broadcasts on my TV from my PC - I can truly say that I am now excited for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD to be released.