I nearly blew up my computer. I blame Microsoft. I downloaded what appeared to be an innocent little update to my nVidia nForce Audio driver and BAM! now my nForce audio control panel doesn't work properly anymore. "An unsupported operation was attempted." Apparently. In the process of trying to "fix" the problem, I caused Windows XP to nearly suffer a meltdown and it ended up causing some pretty severe BSOD errors. Under Win9x, a BSOD was a fairly common occurence, and if you did not get them, you were either very blessed or very lucky. Under NT-based platforms, for those of you that aren't in the know, a BSOD is a very, very BAD THING. If an NT system suffers one of those you have big problems.
Apparently I am so affected now. Why the fucking hell did I update that driver? My sound was working perfectly. No amount of driver rollbacks are helping me, so I guess I could either A) reinstall Windows, or B) hope for a new driver release that magically fixes the problem. I think my chances are better wiping out Windows.
Anyway, things are at least working again, for the meantime. I can sleep, maybe. In the process of fixing, my board was failing memory tests, Windows was failing to recognise my optical drive, it was taking several minutes to load all my utilities in the systray on startup (shouldn't be happening with this system; trust me, it's fast), and a host of other difficulties.
Let me tell you, that's the last time I update a driver from Windows Update.
Posted by Ron at November 3, 2003 04:10 AMThat's a fucked up coincidence; I did the exact same thing last week, and vowed the exact same thing.
Reinstallation of the nVidia all in one driver from the ASUS site fixed it though.
Posted by: Luke at November 3, 2003 04:18 AMWHY, oh, WHY didn't you warn me?!?!
Seriously, I was not so lucky; reinstallation of the all-in-one drivers only resulted in a BSOD. I tried both nVidia reference drivers and the ASUS drivers (the ones on the CD and the ASUS website are exactly the same).
I eventually bailed my ass out by using the "System Restore" function of Windows XP. I had, up until last night (Or should I say this morning?), thought that was a pretty useless feature because, hey, I'm no moron, I know how to reinstall a driver. But is seems that it actually has a use.
Perhaps I'll create a new Restore Point and try updating with the nVidia reference drivers, since they are newer than the ASUS ones and I don't think ASUS did anything special to the motherboard driver... or maybe I'll just leave well enough the fuck alone for once.
Posted by: Ron at November 3, 2003 11:34 AMFrom what I've read on the nForcersHQ pages, don't use any of the NV reference drivers - the ASUS ones are required.
Posted by: Luke at November 3, 2003 07:25 PMThat's good to know. I guess I'll just leave well enough alone then. ASUS, noted for superior performance, often achieves it by modifying the specs of the products they are selling so I guess it makes sense that the reference drivers never work properly on their products. Lesson learned - until next time.
Posted by: Ron at November 4, 2003 12:36 AMThe same dan things happened to me with a asus nforce board. I tried to reinstall the all in one package but it did not fix the problem. FUCK WINDOWS!
Posted by: Nick at October 6, 2005 08:17 PM