nVidia drivers = stable, ati drivers = buggy, what were you talking about!?

[GremlinHater]

Awhile back my Radeon 64mb VIVO conked out on me, I guess it was luck of the draw that I got a bad one. At the time, I wanted to replace it because I liked it and the myths of ati's driver problem weren't as big as everyone seemed to be hyping it out to be.

Well, since the Radeon 64 VIVO's were not available due to the new r200, I decided to give nvidia a try, cost was a factor and vivo was important so i decided on the Gainward GeForce 2 Ti 500/XP VIVO Golden Sample. I thought, hey this will be good and with so many people hawking nvidia's driver support, i'll be good to go.

WRONG!

From day one the sucker has been nothing but trouble and exudes problems ati smashers were screaming or would have liked to scream.

Other then normal display, and video in working in there propietary software, not much has gone right. I have tried native, gainward's and nvidia's recommended detonators and they have either not promised all or won't work period.

To list, here are some of the major problems that I find annoying or more so...

1. An unknown device is detected, VID_04E6 PID_80002000, and for the life of me I have not been able to find the driver for it ANYWHERE or even ANYONE who knows what it it.

2. In Empire Earth my computer will randomly reboot approximately 10 minutes into the game, the only hardware/software I have switched is my video card, so I'm pretty sure that it. It acts just like the power was unplugged.

3. I cannot play DVD's, it does the same rebooting action as with my game except it doesn't even start, as soon as I hit play, it acts like it's saying turn off the power.

4. Recently tried to update to latest drivers, it so happens that it changed my device name from GeForce2 Ti to GeForce 2 DDR, then it reboots and I get a BSOD.

I have only begun to come across all the problems that are most likely here with the card, by any chance can any of these be manufacturer related so I can turn this thing back in? Don't get me wrong, not that I hate nVidia or love ATI, but after hearing the previous debate that seems to no longer exist about ATI's drivers, you would think I would have atleast some luck with this card. I even had one person comment...

Jezzz you should consider yourself lucky for getting the 23.11's to work proprerly on your system! I on the other hand have had such bad luck with Nvidia and any driver above the 21.83's . I am accually scared to install Nvidia drivers on my PC or anyones PC for the matter!

So anyone got any advice what I can do to solve the card problem or find a clause that will allow me to return it because of defect? Cause right now from my experience and perspective, it's nVidia that has the problem, not ATI.

 

[BFG10K]

Start with the basics:
-make sure you have the latest BIOS and chipset drivers for your system.
-stick to officially supported WHQL drivers for all of your components, not just your video card.
-don't overclock anything or tweak your BIOS too aggressively.
-start with a clean OS install after switching vidoe cards if you don't know how to remove all traces of your previous video card.
-make sure you have enough cooling and power to your system.

For more comprehensive support for nVidia boards the GeForce FAQ is a great place to start.

 

[Gstanfor]

Just posting to reinforce what BFG10K said, especially this part:


<< -start with a clean OS install after switching vidoe cards if you don't know how to remove all traces of your previous video card. >>



Left over drivers from other video cards are the prime reason why people encounter poor performance and errors when updating video.

Greg

 

[GremlinHater]

<< Start with the basics:
-make sure you have the latest BIOS and chipset drivers for your system.
-stick to officially supported WHQL drivers for all of your components, not just your video card.
-don't overclock anything or tweak your BIOS too aggressively.
-start with a clean OS install after switching vidoe cards if you don't know how to remove all traces of your previous video card.
-make sure you have enough cooling and power to your system.

-yes, i have those
-i did use those in the beginning, the problem was still there, using more up-to-date ones now, don't you think it slightly defeats the purpose of higher end components if I can't use them and have to use the whql instead? just my thought, no offense...
-haven't overclocked any component at anytime yet, haven't had the energy/time to bother
-yup, i started with totally clean OS at that time because it was time to clean up anyways
-yup, have enough cooling and power

 

[Adul]

Aren't drivers in general a b!tch to deal with. :|

Anycase I would seek and destroy any ati related driver from your system. That goes a long way to solving some issues.

 

[Mem]

Yep ATi is like AOL once in your system format job does a nice "seek and destroy" as Adul put it 🙂,just for the record I`ve never had any problems with Nvidia drivers since TNT1 days,it`s nice to go into the stores and pickup any game knowing it will work ok with my Nvidia card.



<< have tried native, gainward's and nvidia's recommended detonators and they have either not promised all or won't work period. >>




Lots of people forget to remove the old drivers first when switching between Gainward & Nvidia drivers.
Few bios tweaks as well are a good idea like disable all video shadowing & fastwrites,disable system bios cacheable.



🙂

 

[GremlinHater]

Thanks for some of those tips, I think I'm going to do a fresh install since I wanted to change my dual partitions anyways. I'll let you know how it comes, if anyone else has any advice, I'd be grateful for it.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

to me, all are buggy:
my 3dfx voodoo banshee - scrolling in notepad all text mess up.
my ati radeon le - brightness setting in rtwc doesn't work.
my elsa geforce2mx - everything locks up - pond demo, scrolling in IE. even not doing anything, windows still locks up, use standard vga driver then ok.