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Restoring AMD 64 Corrupted AGP Drivers

  Problem The AGP graphics drivers for your VIA Arena chipset are corrupted or missing. This can happen if you must reinstall Windows XP on your system.  
  Symptoms Any or all of the following:
  • Optical devices disappear from the "My Computer" device and folder list
  • Display settings are inaccessible or have no effect
  • USB devices are inoperable
  • The screen's display is corrupted
 

Background

  Once upon a time, there was a troublesome little program called Internet Explorer. It became a troublesome gigantic program full of thorns and pitfalls, oftentimes fatal for the software that dared explore its boundaries.

And so one day it quit working. Unfortunately for my time and well-being I e-mail the infamous Microsoft Support team. I would have called them on the phone, but they threaten a $35 per incident charge. They told me that in order to get IE working again, I would have to reinstall Windows XP.

They were wrong. Not only did reinstalling XP not fix the IE problem, it failed to install the AGP graphic driver for my AMD 64 K8T800 chipset. In a way this solved my problem with IE, because the computer itself was useless.

Needless to say, Microsoft was no help at all. Through a laborious process of searching The Internet, trial and error with motherboard settings and unrecorded acts of sheer stupidity and insight I finally managed to get the thing running again. Here's how I did it.

 

  • Download the Everest Home system auditing tool (click here to download it)
  • Install the program by double-clicking on its icon
  • Once the program's installed, run it and note the link at the bottom of the report that points you to a page from which you can download the chipset driver
  • Visit the URL you obtained in the previous step
  • Navigate through the links until you find the driver for your combination of operating system and chipset
  • Download the driver and unzip it, taking note of the location of the file "viaagp1.sys" (it will be in a subfolder whose name corresponds to your operating system, for example WinXP)
  • Reinstall your Operating System
  • When the installation process complains that it can't find "viaagp1.sys", click on the "Browse" button to point it to the file in the extracted folder
  • Let the installation proceed
After the final step, the operating system's plug and play software should detect your graphics card and install the appropriate driver.



The Everest Home Window. The URL for the chipset driver is highlighted.
SECURITY WARNING! Reinstalling Windows will cause you to lose all security patches and software updates. It is recommended that a Windows Update be performed upon completion of the reinstallation.