The card itself is OK. The problem is the confusion that exists around which driver version to install. The driver on the supplied CD , caused a number of issues with my PC , so I had no choice but to uninstall it.
Doing research on the internet , revealed that the card works best with a much earlier version of the driver or ATI's Catalyst Control Centre. Eventually , I managed to install a version of the Catalyst Suite that worked , and after tweaking the BIOS settings , eventually got the card to work properly.
In the BIOS , I had to reduce the AGP rating from 4x to 2x , and disable fast rewrite.
If you have an old PC like mine , I suggest you avoid ATI cards , and go for a different make. The card is working now , but only thanks to my persistance.