[rawhide99]

Hi all, I have been baffled by a recent (driver?) issue.

I recently re-installed windows on my XP home machine as it was talking forever to boot up, I have done this in the past with no problems at all.

This time however, my device manager picks up my Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Music sound card as a Multimedia audio device and refuses to accept it even after using the Original Driver CD or the drivers off the Creative site.

To add insult to injury, I have 2x Nvidia 8600 GT's (256) installed with the Sli bridge in place, The system recognises 1 fine, but see's the other as a VGA visual controller, if I try to force an update in device manager ( using XP's internal driver database) I get " Device cannot start (code 10).

The most up do date drivers are in place, abd the first card uses them fine.

Motherboard is a Asus A8N Sli version 1.x.x I have installed the recommended Nforce drivers from Nvidia.com. (Nforce 4 X16 SLi AMD)

Any ideas on what I have managed to forget / break ?

[Triple6]

Don't use the Driver Update feature in Device Manager. You need to download and run the proper installers for most devices, especially video cards.

This is the driver you installed for the chipset: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_winxp_15.23.html When you run the installer does it or did it come up with any error? Try reinstalling those drivers again.

And are these the drivers you tried to install for the video cards: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_178.24_whql.html

[rawhide99]

Sorry, I didnt explain myself too well.

I installed all of the drivers from the manufacturers websites, so I currently have
NForce 15.23 for my MoBo
178.23 for my cards.

Am I right to assume that Nforce is my chipset drivers ? As the Asus site is still offering v6.6 from 2005 ?

Edit - I have had no errors at all during any installation.

[Triple6]

Yes, thats all correct.

Have you tried to uninstall the NVidia chipset and video drivers and reinstall the Chipset(NForce) drivers from the Asus site? And then install the video drivers?

[rawhide99]

I was thinking about doing this but I cant make sence of it.
Are the Nforce Drivers and the Asus Chipset drivers different things ?

Quick edit- Asus zipped file comes as a Makedisk option, offering me a pataraid or sataraid option to click

[Triple6]

No, they are the same thing.

[rawhide99]

With that being the case, how will i benefit from trying V6.65 ?

I'm not trying to sound sarcastic, Im just a very inquisitive person.

[Triple6]

Well, we are just going to see if it works.

[rawhide99]

No, that didnt work. I have however moved my Sound card into a different PCI slot now, and rather than being an unknown device,my PC recognises it, but still refuses to accept the drivers for it

[Triple6]

Is anything different this time versus all your previous reinstalls?

[rawhide99]

Apart from the Sound card actually being called by name, no. It wont install it though, its asking me for files like ctac32k.sys insted of accepting the Install CD

[Triple6]

You should uninstall the Creative drivers from Add/Remove Programs and not use the CD. You should download and run the installer from the Creative site, Creative drivers are buggy and the latest drivers are almost always the best to use, but still never perfect. The installer will copy all the correct files to all the correct locations do it shouldn't ask for any files.

Actually when I had asked what was different I was referring to the installation of Windows this time versus when you previously installed Windows. Any new hardware or any changes such as BIOS updates?

[rawhide99]

Ooh I see, I did fiddle with the BIOS a while ago, using Asus Update.
I say "fiddle" as i wasn't really 100% sure what I was doing, but the PC was working fine ( and slow initial boot) for a while afterwards.

New sound drivers are in, and still it doesnt like the card.

[Triple6]

You may want to clear the CMOS settings and then redo them. Make sure to disable the onboard sound after doing so. There should be a clear CMOS jumper on the board to clear all the settings.

[rawhide99]

I have done that before. I wont be able to do it now, as I have a bit of work to do, But I will return once I'm done.

Thank you for your excellent patience and assistance so far