Updated NForce drivers!

[vass0922]

http://www.techimo.com/newsapp/index.pl?photo=6433

Nvidia released new nForce drivers 2.45 for Windows 2000 and XP. This new set of drivers has a lot of fixes in the audio drivers and the problematic IDE driver is gone - seems it needs further development. Among the improvements are EAX fixes and compatibility improvements in a series of games as well as 3D audio performance improvements.

For the first time Nvidia combined the Windows 2000 and XP driver into one single download.

Driver version numbers:
Audio driver 3.48 (WHQL)
Audio utilities 3.48
Ethernet driver 3.13 (WHQL)
GART driver 3.34 (WHQL)
Memory controller driver 3.38 (WHQL)
SMBus driver 3.38 (WHQL)
Display driver 44.03
Installer 3.56
USB driver
IDE In-the-box 2.70 - WinXP only

[JohnE.]

Awesome, thanks... gettin' 'em now

JohnE.

[vass0922]

hmmm appears I gotta uninstall the originals first

stupid installer

I'll do it in the morning, way too tired now.
(I ran through the installer w/o installing first and it seems everything still has the date of 6/14)

and of course moronic windows thinks its current version is better

[Good Companion]

Somewhat OT, but I want to make sure I understand this Nvidia driver thing:

What I gather is that Nvidia puts out one driver for all of its (some of its?) cards. Is this correct? If so, then what are the detonator drivers?

Thanks in advance and my apologies for threadjacking,

Dana

[tmx468]

The Detonator series drivers are for their Geforce Graphics Cards.

The nForce drivers are for their nForce range of motherboards.

[Good Companion]

Aha! I get it. Pretty cool that they can use 1 driver for all of their products.

Dana

[JohnE.]

Yes, that's correct. I believe Detonator graphics card drivers are what's inside the Unified Driver package, although I'm not sure nVidia even calls them Detonator anymore.

I'd like to understand this nVidia driver thing too

I've spent hours searching their site for info on how to "properly" install/uninstall their drivers for nForce chipsets (there *used to be* a guide available in pdf format for graphics cards, which I still have) to no avail and there's never anything in the release notes or readme's.

I still can't figure out how to install nForce drivers "properly". Do you have to uninstall the previous ones? Do you also have to uninstall any nVidia graphics drivers? How do you install updated graphics drivers on an nForce system... i.e. do you have to uninstall the nForce chipset drivers first? blah, blah...

Having the graphics drivers incorporated into the chipset drivers, when I don't have onboard graphics, confuses the heck out'a me and they don't explain any of it... grrr.

JohnE.

[tmx468]

If it is an nForce board with onboard graphics, I beleive the drivers are part of the motherboard driver package.

Whenever updating any nVidia driver, you uninstall the old drivers and any software installed already, make sure windows is using a generic driver (the joys of 16colour, 640x480!) and then install the new drivers. Complicated, but worth it - each driver seems to pull a little bit more out of the hat!

[JohnE.]

Gee thanks nVidia... for a trip to Safe Mode and about 10 restarts.

I forgot about the "make sure windows is using a generic driver " bit and ended up in driver hell, lol.

WinXP sometimes has a nasty habit of reinstalling the same drivers you just uninstalled so I hit cancel when it tried to reinstall devices... I should'a let it complete the process.

The reboot got me to a black screen, had to uninstall in Safe Mode, first reinstall failed on the audio drivers... had to uninstall and try again. Second reinstall worked except I've now got MS generic drivers for the vid card, version 29.58 from 02/07/2001. What's up with that and how do I fix it? I thought the new nForce package was supposed to come with 44.03 display drivers?

nVidia graphics drivers don't show up in add/remove... looks like I'll have to uninstall the new nForce drivers, reboot, and reinstall for a third time

(edit) Nope, just had to download the separate 44.03 display drivers and install that by itself

Another weird glitch - uninstalling/installing the nForce drivers kept uninstalling the drivers for my M-Audio Delta 66 soundcard and WinXP would redetect the Delta and reinstall the drivers. Very odd.

JohnE.

[JohnE.]

Another annoying issue with these drivers (may only apply to the A7N8X Deluxe or any other board with the MCP-T and the 2 onboard LAN connections)... after installing the new package, you may have to setup your network again.

The 3Com driver stays put, but the nForce MCP Networking Controller is now a "new" device with default settings. I couldn't connect to the net from my second or third machines or to my other machines until I ran the network setup wizard and rebooted all 3

Having the network controller driver in the UDP maybe not such a good idea?

JohnE.