Question for Nick re mainboard drivers

[vgbaron]

Hi Nick -

I have an NVidia 680i mobo from EVGA which has been chugging along just fine. I just updated the forceware drivers and it *seems* like FSX isn't running as well as before. Basic 3dMark6 test 11076 and IIRC it was 11900 prior.

Do I need to go through the XP tweak process of yours over again. I guess I could try to restore the old drivers but maybe leaving well enough alone is best (should have thought of that earlier).

thanx,

Vic

[NickN]

better place for this is in hardware

Updating drivers can be a pain, especially motherboard drivers. Nvidia and Via systems unlike Intel chipsets tend to have a different update process which you wont read about.

Its best to uninstall the video driver completely and reboot before upgrading chipset drivers on Nv and Via motherboards. Intel does not seem to have a problem with that.

I have even seen a few boards prefer the motherboard drivers unnstalled first too however you have to be careful if you use RAID or other support in motherboard drivers. When uninstalling its usually best to skip the RAID part if you use it because that can leave you with a no-boot issue after uninstalling.

Your best bet is to uninstall the video drivers completely, reboot and then uninstall the chipset drivers skipping any SATA driver uninstall (it usually gives you a set of checkboxes to work with inthe process) then reboot and install either the old MB drivers or the new ones again... reboot install video drivers, reboot... set up video drivers, reboot

[vgbaron]

Meant to put it in hardware...oh well. Powered off system, rebooted and 3DM is back at 11700. FWIW, the nvidia installer uninstalled the old drivers automagically b4 installing new ones, including the RAID drivers.

I'll un/re the video drivers just 2b sure.

Thanx!

Vic