HALP: My Vista PC won't recognize nVidia drivers

[Jeff Green]

So, my Dell 630i continues to be a royal pain in the arse.

My current problem (along with the 20 BSODs a day) is that for whatever reason, it decided to stop recognizing that I have a GeForce 8800 GT installed.

Actually, scratch that---it DOES list it in the Device Manager, but it has that exclamation point claiming that the device driver is missing. Then, when I ask it to search for a driver and/or update the driver, it claims that everything is up-to-date. HAI.

I've tried uninstalling everything nvidia related. I've tried redownloading the drivers both from nVidia's site and through Windows Update. Sometimes the install will believe it has successfully finished and asks me to restart the PC. I do. Nada.

Any tips, other than suicide and or a sledgehammer?

thanks...

[wisefool]

Vista 32? :(

Maybe you're lucky and the card is loose.

[Case]

Try driver cleaner (http://drivercleaner.net)?

[JPR]

If that's a laptop driver, you should try getting it directly from Dell. Go to support.dell.com and type in your service tag, and it should send you to the correct driver for your video card. I don't know if it's still the case now, but a couple of years ago, Nvidia drivers you got from the website didn't work with Dell's laptops.

[Jeff Green]

If that's a laptop driver, you should try getting it directly from Dell. Go to support.dell.com and type in your service tag, and it should send you to the correct driver for your video card. I don't know if it's still the case now, but a couple of years ago, Nvidia drivers you got from the website didn't work with Dell's laptops.

It's a desktop PC. :(

Also, if the card was loose, then why would the Device Manager acknowledge the card was there? And why would it say the drivers are "updated"?

Gonna try this driver cleaner (thanks!) and see if that helps any....

[rei]

never ever use the drivers suggested by windows update. ever.

[Jeff Green]

Bah. Bought and installed DriverCleaner. Ran the app. Told me I didn't have the current driver. Downloaded the driver from the link provided. Ran the installer. Installed fine. Rebooted the computer: Vista doesn't see new driver. Ran DriverCleaner again, it acknowledges, that, yes, I do have the correct driver installed.

1) Fuck Microsoft, and fuck Vista.

2) My next PC is Mac

GOODBYE, GAMES FOR WINDOWS! YOU ALWAYS DID SUCK!

3) Err, I still want to play PC games, and still want to fix this. :)

[Skipper]

Download the latest Nvidia driver to the PC.
Uninstall any current driver, reboot if necessary. Your screen resolution should look like crap.
Start-> Right-click "Computer," select "Properties."
Click "Device Manager," then allow the admin access to it.
Expand "Display adapters," then right-click your adapter and "Uninstall."
After this it should ask for reboot, cancel that.
Do a full shutdown.
Turn the machine on, boot to windows, cancel the "Add new hardware," dialog box.
Install the latest downloaded Nvidia driver.
Reboot.

This should take care of the high majority of incorrect driver issues. The issue is that you probably aren't deleting the device and fully restarting the PC (forcing the new hardware driver selection.)

In very few cases you *might* need to install the original CD driver for your 8800. After installing that and rebooting you can THEN install any updated driver.

[Case]

You need to use DriverCleaner to remove all traces of Nvidia drivers first. Then install the new drivers.

OTOH, what Skipper says may very well work; it's just annoying to have to do all that.

Bah. Bought and installed DriverCleaner. Ran the app. Told me I didn't have the current driver. Downloaded the driver from the link provided. Ran the installer. Installed fine. Rebooted the computer: Vista doesn't see new driver. Ran DriverCleaner again, it acknowledges, that, yes, I do have the correct driver installed.

1) Fuck Microsoft, and fuck Vista.

2) My next PC is Mac

GOODBYE, GAMES FOR WINDOWS! YOU ALWAYS DID SUCK!

3) Err, I still want to play PC games, and still want to fix this. :)

[rei]

you paid for it? The driver cleaner I used from guru3d I swear was free

[Jeff Green]

Yeah I paid, cuz I'm a moran.

I did use DriverCleaner first and then installed the new drivers---it didn't work.

So, yeah, next up is to try Skipper's extended method....

[Skipper]

Jeff hasn't posted back so he's either running well or he went postal on the Dell. I give even odds on both.

[Jeff Green]

Jeff hasn't posted back so he's either running well or he went postal on the Dell. I give even odds on both.

haha--no :)

I'm at ZD now (second-to-last day *sniff*)---so this has been tabled until I get home tonight. O THE ANTICIPATION!

[Skipper]

Second to last day? And it's like 1pm there already? Why aren't you uh ... leaving early? Remember you only really have to show up for the going away lunch on the last day. The rest of a two week notice is for Freecell and dropping by people's cubes to let them know they need to pay you back for the $20 they borrowed the week before.

[MatthewF]

Heh, Vista now BSOD's with a BUG_USB_DRIVER error whenever I plug in my high-gain wireless adapter. Apparently it doesn't like the XP drivers that were last released for it and there are no Vista drivers. Sigh. I'll just plug the adapter into another computer and buy a new one with Vista support.

[Jeff Green]

Second to last day? And it's like 1pm there already? Why aren't you uh ... leaving early? Remember you only really have to show up for the going away lunch on the last day. The rest of a two week notice is for Freecell and dropping by people's cubes to let them know they need to pay you back for the $20 they borrowed the week before.

I have 17 years worth of crap to sort through. :(

[Jeff Green]

BAH.
Skipper, I've gone through your instructions like three times now--nothing. I don't know what I'm doing wrong or if this machine is just borked. I go through all those instructions, but after the final reboot, the 8800 GT does show up under Display Adapters, but it has the exclamation point next to it all over again, warning me "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)". Even though every time I try this, I completely uninstall the drivers, delete the folder in Windows, and use DriverCleaner--then reinstall following the directions.

I dunno--am I installing the wrong drivers?? I've actually tried different sets of drivers (going back to older ones just in case), but in every case I get that Windows warning box about these "not being verified" or whatever. I've tried ForceWare 177.83, but also 175.19 and one other. Am I just being a moron and actually installing the wrong shit?

[rei]

the not whql warning by itself isn't harmful just not paid up for certification. sounds like you have deeper issues somewhere :/

[Creole Ned]

If you have another video card to test with, try that.

You could also try repairing your Vista install but I can't offer any guidance there as I've not done that myself.

[bago]

Remember, there are signed drivers and unsigned drivers.

[CounterMeasure]

BAH.

I dunno--am I installing the wrong drivers?? I've actually tried different sets of drivers (going back to older ones just in case), but in every case I get that Windows warning box about these "not being verified" or whatever. I've tried ForceWare 177.83, but also 175.19 and one other. Am I just being a moron and actually installing the wrong shit?

If you were using the wrong drivers, the installer would tell you before letting you install them.

175.19 are WHQL'ed drivers will 177.83 are not. If you are getting the Driver warning dialog installing 175.19, then that's a problem. It maybe that you have another non-WHQL'ed or damaged version of the 175.19 in the driver store that it is using. Windows many times isn't smart enough to be able to tell that the version in the driver store has problems and to use the original source version instead.

Here's what to do next. Go into Windows\INF and delete setuapapi.dev.log so the logging starts from scratch and is easy to read through. You could delete the other 3 or 4 setupapi*.* files, but we are really only interested in the device one. Now try the install again. Once done, look through that log for error info. The errors will be marked with "!" to the left while major errors will be marked with "!!!". The reason why you are getting the driver warning dialog should be listed in there. Post back what you find and we can go from there.

[MatthewF]

Oh this is golden. The Microsoft IR receiver for my brand new media center keyboard and remote is what's been causing the BUG_USB_DRIVER BSOD. Oddly enough, all my 3rd party USB devices function fine. Plug in the IR receiver though, instant BSOD. There's a word for this...

[Skipper]

Jeff do you have the original driver CD? If so you may have one of the cards that needs the original driver before the device will display as an Nvidia card, allowing you to load updated drivers. Although that would be pretty crappy, it's been known to happen.

I'm not sure if you remember the whole fiasco of the 8800 series and what happened when Vista was released. Vista wouldn't recognize the cards even though Nvidia had said the cards were Vista compatible. Huge flame wars ensued on their forums and eventually both Windows Update and Nvidia posted working drivers. You have a very similar issue in that it sounds like Vista doesn't recognize your 8800 as that particular card. This would cause a lot of your BSOD's, especially if you try to task the video system much.

When that kind of stuff happens it pays to start with the basics and work your way through it. Power down and reseat the video card. Check to ensure that it has a power cable firmly connected to the video card's power jack. Make sure that if your BIOS has a setting for video that it's selecting to use the right one as default, and the right type of settings for the card (memory, etc.) It might also be a good idea at this point to ask if you keep your Vista drivers up to date for your machine, especially those related to the motherboard, or yes, even video.

Before you lose it and chuck the computer though let me know. I have some spare cards and could ship you one to test or verify with if you need to do that.

[Fugitive]

Oh this is golden. The Microsoft IR receiver for my brand new media center keyboard and remote is what's been causing the BUG_USB_DRIVER BSOD. Oddly enough, all my 3rd party USB devices function fine. Plug in the IR receiver though, instant BSOD. There's a word for this...

Did you happen to install iTunes 8 recently? There's apparently a BSOD problem with it and Vista, related to the USB drivers. (They say it happens when connecting an iPhone or iPod, but it could conceivably affect other device as well.)

[rei]

he's had this problem before itunes8 came out. i suspect some messed up bios settings or something seriously wrong with hardware/video card/mobo.

[Jeff Green]

Ugh. I have seriously now uninstalled, cleaned, reinstalled, blahblahblah so many times with nothing going right that I can't see straight and feel like giving up.

Countermeasure, I can send you that setupapi file in a PM I guess. Posting it in its entirety here might be obnoxious.

I've re-seated this card, done everything else everyone has suggested, and all I can think right now is: *I LOVE* this PC, and maybe now that I don't have a PC-game journalist job anymore, I *WILL STILL PLAY PC GAMES BECAUSE I LOVE THIS PC*. JAH RASTAFARI.

MAJOR EDIT: HAHAHAHA! Irony of ironies. After this public spaz-out, and much cursing at my computer screen, and a couple PMs to people on this board, and promises to my wife that I will not stop ruining my Sunday any longer, I try it all ONE LAST TIME---and now it works. Nvidia drivers installed and recognized, etc etc.

EDIT 2: For those who care, the driver that the PC ultimately found worthy of installing was: 7.15.11.7529

LOL.

[rei]

nuke it from orbit, reinstall everything in one afternoon and buy the $10 acronis bundle i linked and make an image to an external hard drive that you can reimage it back to hell whenever you feel like or when you get an error? it's very satisfying.