Well, this is something that's stumping me horribly. I got a video card from a friend, namely, a Radeon 9600SE/128MB. Naturally, it didn't work. But it was free, and I consider myself a bit of a hobbyist at times. So, I took a look at the board, and noticed that there were a couple of spots where it looked as if someone'd hit it with a soldering iron, almost at random - and, upon further inspection, noticed that the fan (which was already rigged with the most horrible wiring job) was, in fact, not operating. So, I removed a working fan from an old, dead GF2, attached that after removing the atrociously vulcanized, over-applied thermal paste from the GPU and fitting with new paste...Obviously, someone had tried to viciously overclock this thing. Big old BFG fan was originally on there. Then, I re-soldered the damaged joints, cleaned some solder from a few traces. Now, the card works - I'm posting this from Knoppix 3.8 (I believe that's the v. number), getting 32bit color in 1024x768, detected at boot time as "Unknown Vendor - Generic radeonfb device"...no glitches or problems as of yet. HOWEVER...Windows 2000 installation is completely impossible, it would seem. Previously using a Tnt2 (Slight overclock - 165Mhz Core, 200 Mem), I took that out and installed this...uninstalled the drivers for my previous card, of course...Windows booted fine with it, got to the GUI, logged in, etc...however, after 3 hours of attempts with different versions of Catalyst, cleaning my registry with a few NV apps, etc, I was still stuck with 16 colors at 800x600 - but, it would show up as "Radeon 9600" with "Secondary Device" under it in Device Manager...so, I put my "Clean" image on here after a small backup. This just has my Integrated graphics drivers - it's intended to be my "Out of the Box" setup, so to speak - essential drivers, a few essential programs, that's it. Installed the card again, and just like last time, booted fine, etc - but STILL stuck at 16 colors, "Radeon 9600" "Radeon 9600 Secondary Device" in the Device Manager as if it was all just hunky dory. I am *COMPLETELY* burned out here.

I didn't read every word...but...did you download and install the proper Win 2K drivers for the card? Life is more painless for those who are brainless.

~Sigh~ If you'd read the whole thing, you would have noticed that yes, I did. A few times. Reading is...a good thing. The universe revolves as it should.

**Problem Solved** - As a completely last-ditch, no hope effort, I flashed the BIOS. Now the card runs like a champ. :D Thanks anyway, computing.net. The universe revolves as it should.

Okay. I re-read what you wrote. I don't see where you said you reinstalled the Radeon drivers... You said you reinstalled the card (hardware) but not software. Life is more painless for those who are brainless.

"however, after 3 hours of attempts with different versions of Catalyst" Did you flash the 9600 BIOS?