Latest Nvidia Drivers and XP

[ChickenWing42]

Hey Guys,

Is anyone else having problems with the new Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti 4200 driver and Windows XP? My computer is restarting every time I try to load a game of unreal. I sent in al error report to MS and they said it was a divice driver. (I do windows updates on a regular basis) So I looked at my video drivers and I had the latest version. SO just for the heck of it decided to uninstall and reinstall the newest drivers. As I was going through the process it told me that XP had not been tested with this driver and not to install so I didn't and went with the MS reccommened driver.

Has anyone else encounted this with XP?
Would I be better off going back to Win 2000?

-Lisa

 

[Whohangs]

I would try rolling back your drivers to the older nVidia drivers.

 

[Xentropy]

Er, don't downgrade your OS just because of that.

Are you using the WHQL certified 41.09 drivers from here?

I'm using those and have no problems with my Geforce 3 with any games, including UT2003.

If you feel like troubleshooting, go to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced tab -> Startup and Recovery Settings button and uncheck "Automatically Restart". That should allow you to actually look at the bluescreen before your system restarts itself. If it says something about an infinite loop, it may be a known issue, but I thought XP SP1 fixed the infinite loop issue, since it went away when I installed the service pack. I could be wrong, though.

 

[naddicott]

Originally posted by: Xentropy
Are you using the WHQL certified 41.09 drivers from here?

Technically those drivers are a WHQL candidate.

The most recent WHQL certified drivers I know of are the 40.72 drivers here. I've seen the 40.72s working fine on both XP home and XP pro (and W2k). I agree that you don't need to change your OS just over a silly driver issue.

 

[ChickenWing42]

Wow quick response!!

Thanks for all the help guys!

What does WHQL Certified mean?

-Lisa

 

[CraigRT]

I would try the Detonator 40.72 WHQL drivers.
if they are not on NVidia's site, you can get then no doubt from Guru3d

 

[Xentropy]

Originally posted by: ChickenWing42

What does WHQL Certified mean?

WHQL = Windows Hardware Quality Labs

It's a Microsoft compatibility test for PC hardware/software that confirms it works up to Microsoft's standards in Windows. Non-WHQL certification doesn't mean a piece of hardware or software will be unstable, just that MS hasn't tested and approved it. And, of course, given Microsoft's "standards", even WHQL certified stuff isn't necessarily going to work all of the time. But, in general, if you're having stability issues, going back to the latest available WHQL-certified driver is a good idea.

As for the drivers on nVidia's site not being certified, oops. Last I looked they were certified, but I guess they made more recent ones available that haven't been through the Labs yet. I agree that Guru3D is the best site for nVidia drivers if you don't just want nVidia's version of the latest and greatest, but it can be overwhelming since there are about a hundred nVidia Detonator driver revs floating around at this point.

 

[NesuD]

I had problems also with that driver causing reboots. stepped back to the 40.72 and the problems went away.

 

[w0lf42]

Thanks so much for providing all of your suggestions. I attempted to help troubleshoot ChickenWing42's 'restart' problem for about a month.

We both definitely learned the difference between WHQL Candidate, WHQL Certification Pending and WHQL Certified. And now we are only running WHQL Certified drivers.

We did discover the problem and I only stumbled upon because I was so frustrated that her machine was rebooting so often that I tried everything I could conceive of. I believe what caused this was the onBoard audio. I, apparently, didn't bother to disable it when I installed her sound card. But even after removing her sound card and using the onBoard audio, it still caused her system to reboot.

After disabling the onBoard audio and installing her Creative Labs Live card, her system seems to be rock solid.

I just thought I'd follow up and let you know that we appreciated all of the suggestions.

-Wolf