Nvidia IDE SW driver question...

[Pix3lDezigner]

Guys for some reason my Raptors and internet were running really slow on the ASRock Dual SATA board. I know a bunch of people raved about that board, but I was not getting stellar results with it. So I ended up splurging and getting a 7800 GT with the DFI LanParty UT nF4 Ultra-D. Here are my current specs:
AMD X2 4400+
2GB (1GB x 2) OCZ Platinum 3200 @ 2-3-2-5 1T
XFX 7800 GT PCI-Express
DFI nF4 Ultra-D
2 x 74GB Raptors in Raid 0
1 x 200GB Seagate

When I install the Nvidia platform drivers, do I need to install the IDE SW driver with my setup? Also what else do I not need to install, or something that I should make sure to install from that driver kit? I already installed the IDE SW driver because I wasn't sure. If I don't need it, what would be the best way of going about it? Just uninstalling that driver by itself, or uninstalling all of them and reinstalling the package without it? Any help would be appreciated, thanx!

 

[dunkster]

When you installed Windows, Windows installed the standard Windows IDE driver on your system.

If you installed the full Nvidia driver suite, you also installed the Nvidia IDE driver.

Thus you can simply 'roll back' the IDE driver to the standard IDE driver. Click on:
- Device Manager
- Disk Drives
- Properties
- Driver Tab
- Roll Back Driver
- Make your selection

Hope this helps!

 

[Ike0069]

Some people have problems with it, other don't.
My suggestion is to not install it, but if it's already installed and not causing any issues, then I see no reason to uninstall it.

 

[CalvinHobbes]

I was wondering the same thing. Yesterday, I upgraded my chipset drivers (NF3) to the 5.11 drivers (from 5.10). The SW IDE driver stood out because they have a dialog that pops up and makes you agrees to a EULA of sorts.

I did not install it but I was interested in any performance or stability differences between the Nvidia driver and the Windows driver.

 

[PurdueRy]

I have always installed it. Never caused me any problems

 

[dunkster]

I had problems with the Nvidia IDE driver on my previous NF2 system. The problem occurred when I added a second optical drive to system. The system wouldn't recognize either optical drive. Attempts to correct the problem resulted in not recognizing my floppy drive either.

I rolled back to the standard IDE driver to solve the problem. I'm not the only one who's had problems with the Nvidia IDE driver.

 

[jniles]

:roll: nforce ide drivers caused a loss of performance on my single pata

 

[Trevelyan]

After using NF2 motherboards for a long time, my recommendation is to NOT install the nvidia IDE driver.

 

[TheRyuu]

I NEVER install the IDE driver. Nothing but trouble if you ask me. Plus if I did install it I wouldn't be able to play backups of those pesky starforce games.

 

[cool]

Weird... Every nforce system (from 2 to 4) I have built has accepted the nforce IDE driver without any issues. There are a few things to be aware of:
- use short IDE cables. The higher the DMA transfer mode, the shorter the IDE cable has to be.
- always use Master/Slave configurations, not Cable-Select. The master device should always be at the end of the cable.
- disable unused PATA/SATA ports in BIOS. While you're at it, make sure that IDE settings like "IDE Prefetch mode", "IDE HDD block mode", etc. are all enabled.
- for nforce2 systems it is essential that APIC is enabled. If it's not, then the official UDP 5.10 will most likely end up in a hang at Windows boot... The first nforce2 systems (only FSB 333) had all crappy APIC implementations, for them the generic MS IDE driver is the better choice.
- BIOS and firmwares for the optical drives have to be up to date
- on some setups the nforce IDE driver is very sensitive to overclocking. You're better off with the MS driver...
- don't use Adaptec's ASPI driver. If you need ASPI, then copy the wnaspi32.dll from the Nero folder to windows\system32 or in the folder of the application that requires it (like EAC).
- use always the latest IDE drivers. The IDE driver component is 'universal'. That means it runs from nforce2 up to the latest nforce4 SLI X16 mobo. Right now, I'm using the 6.22 IDE driver from the nforce 410/430 chipset drivers on my nforce2 mobo. You have to mod the INF file though (add device IDs for nforce2, 3 etc.). There are a lot of remixes floating around that use the latest driver components. For more detailed instructions on how to build your own INF --> nforcershq.com driver forum
- by the way, disabling read caching has a positive effect on performance

 

[xtknight]

No, and you probably shouldn't install NVIDIA's IDE driver. It causes error diarrhea on my A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce 4 SLI) system. There is hardly any benefit anyway, except NCQ, which is only if you have that feature on your hard disk, and only a performance boost in niche/theoretical scenarios. I've heard some people's hard drives got corrupted because of NCQ+nForce4. It's just not worth the risk. You can probably get by with installing the latest IDE driver THEN flash your BIOS in DOS so you don't have to boot up your now-defunct-from-IDE-driver Windows, but why bother?

 

[cool]

NCQ is next to useless on single-user desktop systems. It really starts to make a difference in server environments (concurrent I/O requests).

 

[BFG10K]

I have always installed it. Never caused me any problems

Same here; also Intel Application Accelerator.