Windows Update With Older ATI Hardware

The ATI drivers from 2006 have had a few minor glitches. Repeated attempts to upgrade through Windows Update and through Windows Device Manager resulted in no available upgrades.

AMD (owner of ATI) has this page to upgrade to drivers from 2010.

The upgrade went smoothly.



After the upgrade I used Windows Device Manager to look for an additional upgrade. It found an "upgrade", which was a downgrade to the previous version from 2006.



This was cured by reinstalling the ATI upgrade.

Repair Windows Master Boot Record

A corrupt MS Windows master boot record can be serious, though is often simple to correct.

Boot from the installation CD and start the recovery console.  Use the fixmbr command to repair the boot record.

Overheating Laptop

A laptop that would intermittently turn itself off has been diagnosed as overheating.  Even with multiple underside fans running, the laptop could not keep itself cool.  The small form factors don't tolerate dust buildup.

Note the internal temperature of 63C in this picture from SpeedFan.