Video Card & Drivers

I put this here as I am not real sure where it does belong. And I guess it does more or less pretain to hardware.

In a discussion in the Win98 Forum I said that I had changed the Video card in this machine with XP Pro on it.

After doing so I went to the Windows Update and it said that there were Video Driver updates available. So as ( it turned out ) not so great an idea I let it install them. WRONG thing to do. They were not as new as the ones right off of the CD that came with the card. It even found that newer files were already installed.

Also they were NOT the lastest. They were 4.4.x.x. THe Newest ones from Nvidia are 4.5.2.3. Which I now have on both machines and they are doing great. And on this machine DX9 says they are WHQL certified.

And XP Windows Update site is STILL telling me that Video Driver Updates are available.

I also ran into this problem some time back with Audio Drvers on a Win98SE machine.

BillyBob

 

Traveled similar road, different results (month ago)...
System has always been XP, same Vcard. Went to M$ update, offered M$ fixes and video update. Chose some M$ updates/installed. Then went to Nvidia, found 4.5.2.3, installed. Went back to M$ update view, video suggestion no longer displayed. The reason I did not let M$ do the video update.... it did suggest a newer version that was on my system, but older than the version I downloaded from nVidia. Just a guess, since nVidia drivers are now WHQL certified, M$ acknowledge/promotes the software. Does not explain why your up to date video driver is not recognized by M$ update page. I notice you say this also occurs for audio card. Are false suggestions only on hardware/drivers?

 

Are false suggestions only on hardware/drivers?

So far that is the case.

And in both 98 SE and XP Pro.

That is for darn sure.

But I am glad that someone else has had at least a similiar situation.

BillyBob

 

I generally don't mess around with driver updates from Microsoft. If the device is experiencing a problem, I go to the manufacturer's site.

MS keeps listing a modem driver update. My modem works just fine. So I leave it alone.

 

That is also my normal thinking ( when I do think that is )

But every once in awhile I just give it a shot to see what happens.

The only drivers update that I have ever gotten from the Windows Update site and worked properly was the AC97 audio drivers. But that may only be because the AC97 drivers were not on the machine to begin with. I had just switched from a plugin card to onboard audio.

BillyBob

 

Video card drivers can be extremely sensitive to correct installation and uninstallation. Hopefully, XP correctly uninstalled your drivers when you ran Windows Update but it doesn't really sound like it.

I wouldn't worry about the "latest" drivers nor would I worry about Microsoft certification. Newer drivers do nothing for any Nvidia card from a GeForce 3 or older. Actually, I've heard the 28.xx series are the best for a GF3. Considering the quality of Nvidia drivers I wouldn't worry about M$ certification but I have heard that Nvidia has actually had a few bugs in some versions over the last year or so. But they affect games. Most likely due to added pressure ATI is putting on the company.