@Luke,
Whenever I have recently run into problems changing nVidia driver versions, I have had 100% success using ccleaner to remove all traces of the old version before attempting to load the desired version. The steps I use are:
1: Download (Save) the desired nVidia drivers.
2: Uninstall the nVidia drivers via the Control Panel.
3: Reboot into "Safe Mode"
4: Run the ccleaner and remove all traces of nVidia drivers
5: Reboot - cancelling out of Windoze automatic "Intalling Drivers"
6: Run the downloaded installer.

Works every time for me. YMMV. Good luck.

F.

You would be well advised to stop BOINC, and disable any auto-run at startup before embarking on this procedure.

Well spotted, Richard.
Stopping Boinc I took as read - but you are correct, it should have been included as Step 1. Auto-run on my Vista set-up requires manual confirmation (UAC) so I just cancel at the dialogue box. But, again, I should have remembered it.

F.

Thanks Fred & Richard...
It's step 5 I'd probably have trouble with. Before I can even cancel the operation it has completed itself. Well, it seemed that quick when it did that yesterday.

- Luke.

Easiest way to solve the problem of Windows downloading the new driver is to pull the ethernet plug before you boot the computer.

No internet, no download.

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If the users ever realized what has happened, and demanded that XP support continued, I wonder what millions of requests to Billy G. would do???

Absolutely nothing. XP served it's purpose and did well. Vista is architecturally more solid and advanced than XP ever was, and Win7 builds upon that foundation. I think with the sales figures so far, Win7 is showing people that it's time to upgrade. I don't think nearly as many people will be hanging onto XP anymore, despite some naysayers and their dreaming.

Windows 98 Gold crashed at demo. Windows 98 Second Edition was very solid, but still crashed at times. NT 4.0 was simply NT 3.51 with Windows 95's interface slapped on top of it. It was solid, but didn't support anything, including decent Plug and Play. I found that Windows 2000 was more flexible and just as solid as NT 4.0 was.

I don't know why anyone would just Win7 against Vista/against those who hated Vista. Vista is a great OS and is built like a brick house. I've never seen anything crash Vista or Win7 other than heat or power related problems (which is not the OS's fault).

BTW - Typing this on my Pentium II 333MHz Windows 98SE machine. :)

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If the users ever realized what has happened, and demanded that XP support continued, I wonder what millions of requests to Billy G. would do???

Absolutely nothing. XP served it's purpose and did well. Vista is architecturally more solid and advanced than XP ever was, and Win7 builds upon that foundation. I think with the sales figures so far, Win7 is showing people that it's time to upgrade. I don't think nearly as many people will be hanging onto XP anymore, despite some naysayers and their dreaming.

Windows 98 Gold crashed at demo. Windows 98 Second Edition was very solid, but still crashed at times. NT 4.0 was simply NT 3.51 with Windows 95's interface slapped on top of it. It was solid, but didn't support anything, including decent Plug and Play. I found that Windows 2000 was more flexible and just as solid as NT 4.0 was.

I don't know why anyone would just Win7 against Vista/against those who hated Vista. Vista is a great OS and is built like a brick house. I've never seen anything crash Vista or Win7 other than heat or power related problems (which is not the OS's fault).

BTW - Typing this on my Pentium II 333MHz Windows 98SE machine. :)

Win7 so far is not on My list of things to do in 2010(It's not that I don't want to get Win7, I just can't do It on $845 a month(in June maybe $830), Maybe in 2011 when I get to April 2011(no joke, Our state revenue levels are though, less taxes for the rich and corporations, more taxes for everyone else), But not until then at the very least, But then our cheapskate pennypinching governator in His last year is cutting peoples checks in 2010(the safety net too), If He could do what He wants all by Himself He'd stop all state spending that repubs don't like, Raising revenue isn't important to repubs, Only cuts to stuff they don't want their tax money spent on is.

---

The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

If the users ever realized what has happened, and demanded that XP support continued, I wonder what millions of requests to Billy G. would do???

Absolutely nothing. XP served it's purpose and did well. Vista is architecturally more solid and advanced than XP ever was, and Win7 builds upon that foundation. I think with the sales figures so far, Win7 is showing people that it's time to upgrade. I don't think nearly as many people will be hanging onto XP anymore, despite some naysayers and their dreaming.

Windows 98 Gold crashed at demo. Windows 98 Second Edition was very solid, but still crashed at times. NT 4.0 was simply NT 3.51 with Windows 95's interface slapped on top of it. It was solid, but didn't support anything, including decent Plug and Play. I found that Windows 2000 was more flexible and just as solid as NT 4.0 was.

I don't know why anyone would just Win7 against Vista/against those who hated Vista. Vista is a great OS and is built like a brick house. I've never seen anything crash Vista or Win7 other than heat or power related problems (which is not the OS's fault).

BTW - Typing this on my Pentium II 333MHz Windows 98SE machine. :)

I think Vista may fill the same place that Windows ME did. Something to get out the door while they work on the actual next version. I don't like some of the GUI features of windows 7 that I can't turn off, but at it's core it is build well. Even for Microsoft! I would just like a version not designed with the design staff of playskool.

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

If the users ever realized what has happened, and demanded that XP support continued, I wonder what millions of requests to Billy G. would do???

Absolutely nothing. XP served it's purpose and did well. Vista is architecturally more solid and advanced than XP ever was, and Win7 builds upon that foundation. I think with the sales figures so far, Win7 is showing people that it's time to upgrade. I don't think nearly as many people will be hanging onto XP anymore, despite some naysayers and their dreaming.

Windows 98 Gold crashed at demo. Windows 98 Second Edition was very solid, but still crashed at times. NT 4.0 was simply NT 3.51 with Windows 95's interface slapped on top of it. It was solid, but didn't support anything, including decent Plug and Play. I found that Windows 2000 was more flexible and just as solid as NT 4.0 was.

I don't know why anyone would just Win7 against Vista/against those who hated Vista. Vista is a great OS and is built like a brick house. I've never seen anything crash Vista or Win7 other than heat or power related problems (which is not the OS's fault).

BTW - Typing this on my Pentium II 333MHz Windows 98SE machine. :)

I think Vista may fill the same place that Windows ME did. Something to get out the door while they work on the actual next version. I don't like some of the GUI features of windows 7 that I can't turn off, but at it's core it is build well. Even for Microsoft! I would just like a version not designed with the design staff of playskool.

That would be Windows Server 2008 R2.
As for Vista, never had a single problem with it. People just give it a bad name because others do.

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- Luke.

If the users ever realized what has happened, and demanded that XP support continued, I wonder what millions of requests to Billy G. would do???

Absolutely nothing. XP served it's purpose and did well. Vista is architecturally more solid and advanced than XP ever was, and Win7 builds upon that foundation. I think with the sales figures so far, Win7 is showing people that it's time to upgrade. I don't think nearly as many people will be hanging onto XP anymore, despite some naysayers and their dreaming.

Windows 98 Gold crashed at demo. Windows 98 Second Edition was very solid, but still crashed at times. NT 4.0 was simply NT 3.51 with Windows 95's interface slapped on top of it. It was solid, but didn't support anything, including decent Plug and Play. I found that Windows 2000 was more flexible and just as solid as NT 4.0 was.

I don't know why anyone would just Win7 against Vista/against those who hated Vista. Vista is a great OS and is built like a brick house. I've never seen anything crash Vista or Win7 other than heat or power related problems (which is not the OS's fault).

BTW - Typing this on my Pentium II 333MHz Windows 98SE machine. :)

I think Vista may fill the same place that Windows ME did. Something to get out the door while they work on the actual next version. I don't like some of the GUI features of windows 7 that I can't turn off, but at it's core it is build well. Even for Microsoft! I would just like a version not designed with the design staff of playskool.

That would be Windows Server 2008 R2.
As for Vista, never had a single problem with it. People just give it a bad name because others do.

I don't care for 2008 R2 either. It's easy enough to set the option for Vista & 7 to have a more simplistic gui like the server OS's

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

If NT4.0 still worked on the internet I would be running it still.

---

"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

If NT4.0 still worked on the internet I would be running it still.

NT 4.0 with IE 6 works fine. I probably only use that once a month or so anymore. For some reason we keep supporting OS's even though the vendor has dropped support years ago. Sort of like OS2....*looks for a wall to bang head on*

---

SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

If NT4.0 still worked on the internet I would be running it still.

NT 4.0 with IE 6 works fine. I probably only use that once a month or so anymore. For some reason we keep supporting OS's even though the vendor has dropped support years ago. Sort of like OS2....*looks for a wall to bang head on*

Funny You don't look like a certain 6' tall Rabbit named Harvey. I've got an Atari 1200XL, They made like 100,000 of those back in 1982, It's definitely not internet capable currently, unless someone figures out how to stuff Ethernet, a web browser and email into less than 64K of ram(10K of that is the OS Rom and some is for Atari DOS 2.x). :o

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

I think Vista may fill the same place that Windows ME did. Something to get out the door while they work on the actual next version.

Actually, that's not correct. WinME was not something to get out the door while they worked on their "next actual version". WinME was the last of the hybrid Win/DOS kernels like Win98 and Win95 before it. There was nothing to come after it other than moving everyone to the NT architecture. Windows 2000 was supposed to do that but fell a little short (I think it was too early for it's time and performed quite slowly, but then again so did XP at first).

Vista was simply the first new version of NT since Windows 2000 (v5.0 vs. v6.0), and the first version always makes the most changes while the next version polishes things up (same thing with Win95 vs. Win98 and Win2K vs. WinXP). The first new version in any Windows always makes some changes that people aren't used to so they always complain about it and say that it doesn't work because software/driver manufacturers haven't caught up. In fairness, software/driver manufacturers always focus on the most deployed platform so they're always going to be behind until the new version becomes widespread.

WinME seemed to suck bad because it removed access to many DOS features that people were used to - that and people complained about crashes, but I suspect that had more to do with aging hardware than anything else. In point of fact, I have a WinME machine that runs great and has only crashed because it has no fan in the case which overheats the PIII 1GHz chip in there.

I don't like some of the GUI features of windows 7 that I can't turn off, but at it's core it is build well. Even for Microsoft! I would just like a version not designed with the design staff of playskool.

It is actually the Office team that gets to design the GUI. Personally, I love the changes that Vista and Win7 have brought. My only complaint that I had about Win7 was that it defaulted to a thicker, fatter Taskbar and it wasn't black anymore. I was able to change the taskbar to the thinner version like Vista has, but the taskbar seems to stay the same. Otherwise, I love the new GUI!

---

Tachyon now has a RAC of over 2000. 18,000 more to go.

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- Luke.

Hmmmmmmm...
The 920 rig crashed horribly last night........

Don't know what the fuss was about.

Took me about 10 reboots to get it running again.

The 260 rig is OCing like a madman. You should get some good numbers with that rig.

Meow.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

I have to say I was skeptical of Win 7 with all the dislike of Vista but after having it for a month or so I wish I could afford to upgrade all my Machines.

Sounds like you'd be a very good test to see how you think one of the Linux distros compares. Try one or two of the mainstream distros?

(Select to use the "KDE" desktop. If you have a decent spec recent machine, then also try the "compiz fusion" 3d effects for fun.)

See what you reckon?


Good luck,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I have to say I was skeptical of Win 7 with all the dislike of Vista but after having it for a month or so I wish I could afford to upgrade all my Machines.

Sounds like you'd be a very good test to see how you think one of the Linux distros compares. Try one or two of the mainstream distros?

(Select to use the "KDE" desktop. If you have a decent spec recent machine, then also try the "compiz fusion" 3d effects for fun.)

See what you reckon?


Good luck,
Martin

My main problem is most all my other machines run Microsoft Retail Management system and Sql and I wouldn't even begin to know how to make that work. But I might play with it on this computer. Are those the links in your sig?

---

Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

... Try one or two of the mainstream distros?

(Select to use the "KDE" desktop. If you have a decent spec recent machine, then also try the "compiz fusion" 3d effects for fun.)

See what you reckon?

My main problem is most all my other machines run Microsoft Retail Management system and Sql and I wouldn't even begin to know how to make that work. But I might play with it on this computer. Are those the links in your sig?

If that stuff is for your business, then definitely keep with what is already working! If it ain't broke, then don't try any fixing unless there really is something new needed...

The Mandriva link in my sig takes you to the Mandriva summary page for their current versions.

For a quick test and look-see, easiest is to try one of the "live CDs". You can run that directly from booting off the CD. Your HDD isn't touched. Those versions are only 32-bit and run very slowly due to the CD drive being very slow compared to HDDs. The Mandriva ISO image can be copied directly onto a USB memory stick and it will magically boot from there. There's some very clever formatting already done for you in the image so that the same image works from both CD and memory sticks.

You can install those 32-bit versions onto a HDD to get an immediate speedup. However, if you're going to do that, you may aswell download a 64-bit install CD/DVD and do a 64-bit install.

The download pages links are:

Mandriva Linux One 2010 ("live CD")

For Mandriva, you need to pay for the 'powerpack' version if you want various proprietary software included in the install. There's many other flavours with variations on the various aspects of 'free'. There's always lots of help if needed.


For Kubuntu (v9.10), there's only an installer. Select whether you want 32-bit ("x86") or 64-bit:

Download Kubuntu (installer)


The "KDE" desktop has a similarity to the Windows desktop. The "Gnome" desktop has a similarity to the Mac desktop. There's a choice of other desktops also, but that's a choice to be explored only for those interested.

Regardless, the usual mouse clicks and drag'n'drop and menus and so on work just the same as for any GUI.

Hope that helps,

Have fun!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Tachyon has just passed 3000 RAC.
Just an update on the build status, it is not entirely finished yet, I haven't configured the fan controller, I haven't added the bottom fan, and I haven't added the red cathode.

Once those are all in, I can start producing my video. Fingers crossed.

I might as well mention this is well. I have a BSOD this morning, after about one and a half weeks of stability. So I raised the vcore a notch. That really suprised me.

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- Luke.

Tachyon has just passed 3000 RAC.
Just an update on the build status, it is not entirely finished yet, I haven't configured the fan controller, I haven't added the bottom fan, and I haven't added the red cathode.

Once those are all in, I can start producing my video. Fingers crossed.

I might as well mention this is well. I have a BSOD this morning, after about one and a half weeks of stability. So I raised the vcore a notch. That really surprised me.

How is the noise level for the fans so far? My i7-860, with the stock cooling solution, seems to make a hell of a racket with the CPU fan running full tilt. Not exactly the best thing for a HTPC to do. Finding the right heatsink/fan combo is always fun with measuring the case & area around the CPU to see what will fit.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

Apparently, I have very long completion times coming from the i7 CPU, how long should they be taking to complete then?

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- Luke.

Hi Luke my i7 HT on does a VLAR in just over 3 hrs, 8 at a time.
A standard MB takes about 2.5 hrs 8 at a time.
No OC here.

Dave

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Apparently, I have very long completion times coming from the i7 CPU, how long should they be taking to complete then?

On my machine with HT off a guestimate average would be around 1 hour 8 minutes and with HT on around 1:55. So hard to tell as some are long 2:30 and some are short 1.15. Seems my GPU is 1/2 minute longer with HT on.

---

Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!