Uninstalling all of the motherboard drivers didn't help.

Trying to make my system as clean as possible I deleted the hidden drivers "safedisk" and "starforce".

One last attempt before a fresh install...

---

STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

While waiting for my Vista upgrades (to fail...) I decided to read the Microsoft Software License Terms.

Could someone at Microsoft elaborate on item 13 please.

It states:

"13. UPGRADES. To use upgrade software, you must first be licensed for the software that is eligible for the upgrade. Upon upgrade, this agreement takes the place of the agreement for the software you upgraded from. After you upgrade, you may no longer use the software you upgraded from."

The Vista upgrade I purchased is an upgrade.  According to the license I cannot continue to use XP MCE 2005, once I install Vista.

Does Vista actually communicate with Microsoft and turn off my current XP license when I perform this upgrade?

If so I will not be happy at all.  The way things are going I expect I'll need to continue running XP for some time - perhaps until I replace my physical hardware (if I'm lucky just the sound card).

If a Vista upgrade installs, but remains not fully functional, does Microsoft expect/require me to not use XP at all while I get the bugs out of the Vista install?

---

STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

4th attempt... it worked!!

Who would have thought that "safedisc" and/or "starforce" would have caused Vista to fail during the upgrade.

ARGHHH!

It just crashed with a MEMORY_MANAGEMENT stop error - well after the first boot (farthest it has made it yet):

MEMORY_MANAGEMENT

If this is the first time you've seen this....

....

*STOP: 0x0000001A (0x00041287, 0x000201CF, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)"

I'm not impressed.

---

STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

Have you checked to make sure your hardware isn't defective (i.e. hard drive
and memory diagnostics)

If your hardware is screwed/marginal, software that runs on it will not fare
well.



--
Jason Tsang - Microsoft MVP

Read my blog for the latest in Media Center topics
(and other topics that interest me)
http://jtsang.blogspot.com

More information by me
http://jtsang.mvps.org
http://www.classicsunveiled.com

Find out about the MS MVP Program -
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx



wrote in message news:190124@10.240.6.244...
> 4th attempt... it worked!!
>
> Who would have thought that "safedisc" and/or "starforce" would have
> caused Vista to fail during the upgrade.
>
> ARGHHH!
>
> It just crashed with a MEMORY_MANAGEMENT stop error - well after the first
> boot (farthest it has made it yet):
>
> MEMORY_MANAGEMENT
>
> If this is the first time you've seen this....
>
> ....
>
> *STOP: 0x0000001A (0x00041287, 0x000201CF, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)"
>
> I'm not impressed.
>

---

Jason Tsang - Media Center MVP
http://blog.jasontsang.ca

After reading this thread, I'm incredibly curious about how anyone could try and blame MS for this issue.  Especially when the Vista Upgrade compatibility report says that it has no data on the component in question and refers the user to the manufacturer per your own post:

NVIDIA® nForce(TM) Audio

NVIDIA Corporation

There is no compatibility data available for this device. For more information, go to the device manufacturer's website or Windows Marketplace, or contact your retailer.

The prior "Compatible" statement is related to the codec...the NVidia decoder. 

No where in this thread do you mention any contact with either MS or nVidia regarding this issue.  Initially asking Jessica to look into this is incredibly unfair and puts her in a horrible position.  She explicitly states that her presence here is in no way shape or form a replacement for standard support practices.  My guess would be that MS would tell you that there's nothing they can do about it, nor is there much else they could have done.  within the compatibility report it says they have no data on it, so that's enough right there.

---

Ghostlobster
Very happy convert to SageTV! Finally, watching ESPN-HD in real HD on my HTPC without having to deal with the CableCARD fiasco!

ghostlobster:

After reading this thread, I'm incredibly curious about how anyone could try and blame MS for this issue.  Especially when the Vista Upgrade compatibility report says that it has no data on the component in question and refers the user to the manufacturer per your own post:

NVIDIA® nForce(TM) Audio

NVIDIA Corporation

There is no compatibility data available for this device. For more information, go to the device manufacturer's website or Windows Marketplace, or contact your retailer.

The prior "Compatible" statement is related to the codec...the NVidia decoder. 

No where in this thread do you mention any contact with either MS or nVidia regarding this issue.  Initially asking Jessica to look into this is incredibly unfair and puts her in a horrible position.  She explicitly states that her presence here is in no way shape or form a replacement for standard support practices.  My guess would be that MS would tell you that there's nothing they can do about it, nor is there much else they could have done.  within the compatibility report it says they have no data on it, so that's enough right there.

Hang on a second.  The only thing the Upgrade Advisor is saying is that it doesn't have data on certain specific hardware and I should check with the hardware manufacturer.  It also says exactly the same thing for my Saphire X1950Pro video card and as I stated in this thread I did go to the manufacturers web sites to confirm compatibility.  When I go to the device manufacturers web sites and run their upgrade advisors (nVidia and ATI), they both state that there are no problems at all with running Vista on my hardware.

Also, I didn't specifically blame Microsoft for my issues, only to say there was a lot of confusing misleading information out there.

Again, all of the upgrade advisors, including the one built in to the Vista install DVD all give my system the green go ahead for Vista installation.  Not a single one states that there is any significant issue with installing Vista (other than the Microsoft Advisor stating it doesn't have data on the audio and video card and that I should check with the manufacturer).  There is absolutely nothing that says I should experience blue screen failures when attempting a Vista upgrade.

Also, Vista does install without any trouble if I do a fresh install.  In fact the audio does work after installing new drivers for it (except the real time Dolby Digital Live (DD5.1 encoding) doesn't work). So again, it DOES actually run Vista.

How is it that you consider the customer wrong when the customer did follow the correct procedure.  Here is the exact procedure that any customer is expected to follow with my (or any) hardware:

- Customer considers upgrading to Vista so he/she downloads the Microsoft upgrade advisor and it states there is missing information on drivers for the sound device (nVidia) and video device (Saphire/ATI) and that the customer should check with the manufacturer's web sites.

- Customer goes to the hardware manufacturer's sites and runs their Vista upgrade advisors.  The advisors all say no problems at all with Vista for their hardware.

- Customer purchases Vista and expects they should be able to upgrade their system without any issues.

- Customer then decides to read up on the internet forums and finds out there is conflicting information regarding support and availability of drivers for the hardware (here is an extreme example: http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35805).  Some of the threads are stating nVidia has dropped all support for nForce 2 based hardware while others are stating many drivers do not install automatically and once you figure them all out the only issue is with the Dolby Digital Live encoding not working.  Keep in mind these are not the official Vista upgrade checks, these are people discussing their experience with Vista upgrades.

- Customer posts concerns in this thread regarding the conflicting information found on the internet vs what the various upgrade advisors are saying.

- Customer tries to upgrade to Vista, carefully following the upgrade advisors task list, but the upgrade fails.  The current OS isn't anything special.  It is a very basic, unmodded, legal MCE2005 install that has been running without issues for years.  Nothing is overclocked or modified.  The only slightly non-standard setup is to export the Recorded TV folder with anonymous access so other MCE systems can watch Recorded TV from it.   Again the customer expects the Vista upgrade should have proceed without any issues (other than the possibility that the sound may not work properly) so he/she struggles with uninstalling lots of other software, hoping to be able to upgrade to Vista.

- The customer then decides to try a fresh install of Vista and it works (except the video card, sound, and SATA drivers don't install during the initial OS install automatically - Windows update works).  Customer then goes on-line and see he is being flamed by you for Vista failing to upgrade and being totally unreasonable expecting to be able to upgrade to Vista??

Great.  As I typed this on my laptop, Vista just locked up on the HTPC during the installation of the 19 Windows Updates.  This update was supposed to include many of the latest hardware drivers.

---

STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

Finally...

Vista is now up and running with pretty much everything working and it seems to be stable.

For anyone with an A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard doing a search and coming across this, here is where I am right now:

For some reason Vista wouldn't upgrade from MCE 2005 (kept blue screening during the update), but a fresh install essentially worked.

Unfortunately after fresh installing Vista, it constantly kept blue screening until I got all of the hardware drivers installed.  This was difficult to do because Vista would only run for about 3-5 minutes at first before BSODing.

I ended up manually running Windows Update and selecting only the nVidia motherboard drivers to update one at a time (PCI, GART, memory, etc.).  Sometimes it would crash before I got the driver installed, but eventually I got them all installed and then the system stopped BSODing.  Finally I updated (again using Windows Update) all of the audio, SATA, etc. drivers and again everything came up - including the audio (no Dolby Digital Live though).  I installed the latest ATI video drivers downloaded from the ATI web site.

Interestingly, even though there are no nVidia drivers from nVidia for this motherboard, Microsoft does have drivers available through Windows Update for it (including audio).  Also, the LAN drivers for both the Marvell and nVidia LAN that are included with the Vista DVD do work and install automatically during the OS install (contrary to some posts on the internet).

It looks like other than the lack of Dolby Digital Live, this motherboard is going to work fine with Vista.  So far it seems to be running just as fast as it did with MCE 2005 (no slow disk I/O issues yet, etc.) and it seems stable (I am now typing this from within Vista also).

One thing that I haven't figured out yet is how to enable the SPDIF output (PCM 2 channel with functioning SPDIF pass-through).  I know I read somewhere how to do it with this board and Vista but haven't found it (again) yet (possibly a different driver?).  If anyone can point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it.

---

STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

Unfortunately I discovered that the system wasn't actually stable after all.

Even with all of the Windows Updates installed and all of the devices within device manager "happily" running fully WHQL certified drivers (except for one unknown device) Vista kept BSOD'ing on me.

My first thought was to search out the device ID for the non-installed driver and it was the game port/MIDI port.  Since I didn't need them I turned them off in the BIOS and the unknown device went away.  Now the device manager looked perfect - but the system still kept on BSOD'ing.

I noticed that the crashes seemed to occur when the system or at least part of the hardware had been sitting idle for a while.  Digging deeper I found it happened right around the time any power saving feature was activated (hard drive shut down, monitor shut down, sleep attempted, etc.).

Searching the web I came across this page:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/04/29/nvidia-nforce2-vista-drivers-with-alternative-for-audio-and-smbus/

In it the author notes how nForce2 motherboards are often unstable with Vista when using the standard Microsoft SMBus driver and that the nForce4 AMD SMBus driver works with nForce2 motherboards and retains WHQL certification.  I tried it and it fixed the BSODs during power saving state changes.  The driver can be found here:  http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce4_amd_winvista32_15.00.html.  To use it you have to use WinRAR (or equivalent) to extract the SMBus driver and then manually install it using Vista's Device Manger.  The driver to update is the PCI system management driver and you do not have to force the install (the driver supports the nForce2 SMBus and is WHQL, so just update the driver and point to the folder and it will install).

Unfortunately I now discovered that my system was still seeing the occasional BSOD and upon reboot discovered that the crashes were now due to the memory controller (I've tested this system for over 24 hours with memtest so I know the memory is good).  Searching the web again I discovered that the latest WHQL nForce2 memory controller driver from nVidia's web site for XP (version 5.10 found here http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_udp_winxp_5.10.html) actually works with Vista and again retain it's WHQL approval.  After manually installing it for one of the system memory controller devices and then forcing an auto-update for the remaining devices it was installed.  To use it you have to use WinRAR to extract the memory driver from the nVidia file and then manually install it with the Device manager.  Again, the driver doesn't need to be forced to install (again just update the driver, point to it and it will install)

Now the system seems to be truly stable.  I haven't had a BSOD since.

So I decided to attack the sound drivers and discovered a little know beta generic nForce audio driver at nVidia's FTP site (noted in the link above).  It can be downloaded here:  http://download.nvidia.com/Windows/vista/beta1/4.64_nForce_winvista_audio_32bit.zip.  You have to manually force this driver to install for both the nVidia processing unit and the AC97 sound controller (it is not WHQL certified and I believe it was intended for one of the beta Vista releases).

As soon as it replaced the Realtek AC97 driver and the system was rebooted, my SPDIF port started to output audio through the SPDIF port.  To my surprise, instead of 2 channel PCM, it was encoded Dolby Digital with the 2 front channels encoded in DD5.1.

With everything now working I set up Media Center and installed some software.

After a while I decided it was annoying to only have 2 channels encoded into 5.1 and decided to look for a way to get full 5.1 audio encoded to Dolby 5.1 (basically Vista needs to know that there are 6 speakers available).

I don't know why this isn't posted anywhere else (that I found), but I downloaded nVidia's latest WHQL nForce2 Soundstorm driver for XP (4.62) from http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_audio_4.62_win2kxp.html and ran the executable.  To my surprise it installed without a hitch and I didn't even have to run anything in compatibility mode, nor loose the WHQL certification.  It just installed perfectly over top of the Vista beta drivers.

After a reboot the NVMixer for Soundstorm icon was sitting in the notification area and again my receiver was picking up Dolby Digital 5.1.  When I tried to access the mixer to set up the speaker I came upon my first minor issue.  It wouldn't run.  To make it work I had to go into "C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NvMixer" and access the properties for NvMixer.exe to enable it to run in XP SP2 compatibility mode.

What totally surprised me away was by using the NVMixer control panel I was able to configure 5.1 audio channels with Dolby Digital 5.1 output (SPDIF).  By turning on "environment" and certain delay settings I was able to get audio out of all 5.1 speakers showing that the Dolby Digital Live was actually working.

At this point Vista still thinks there are only 2 speakers available so it only produces audio out of the front two.  But...  by turning off the environment and clone (basically setting up the NVMixer the way I want to use it - a simple 6 channels of audio encoded to Dolby Digital 5.1) and then running the Sound control within the control panel for Vista, clicking on Speakers and then clicking configure.  I now saw a selection for 5.1 speakers was available in the number of speakers (it's actually the only one available).  Double clicking on it suddenly turned on all 6 speakers for Vista and allowed all 6 audio channels to be encoded to Dolby 5.1.

I tested the audio by playing back a few 6 channel sources (wmv, wma) and full 5.1 audio was working through Dolby Digital Live encoding.

So in summary, this motherboard IMO, should be totally listed as NOT supported by Microsoft and nVidia for use with Vista with the current state of drivers.  It is not only lacking in functionality, it is unstable with the default, fully updated Microsoft setup.

At the same time, I don't see why it isn't supported.  All of the drivers are available to make it fully functional, including Soundstorm's Dolby Digital Live support.  All someone needs to do is package the drivers in a neat package (or for Microsoft to host them through Windows Update) and these motherboards could work well with Vista.

BTW, I ran a Vista performance test on my system just now.  It comes up with: a baseline of 4.0 due to the processor, but the memory is at 4.8, the Desktop performance for Aero is 6.2, the 3D business and gaming performance is rated 6.1, and the disk transfer is 5.5.  Now that I'm running this assortment of drivers its able to run Vista very well with full functionality (except for the MIDI and gameport - but not many of us use those anyway these days - plus there is possibly a driver out there that will work).

I'm not sure if I'm ready to switch our HTPC over to Vista just yet (dual boot right now), but for the past 4 hours of use it seems to be up to the job.

BTW, part of the reason I decided to put all of this here...  I spent many hours searching the web for Vista drivers and Vista information for the A7N8 family of motherboards and nForce2 systems in general.  This thread is currently in the top 5 Google hits for this type of search.  Hopefully some of this information can help others get their nForce2 systems up and running with Vista (after all, the upgrade advisors say it should work...).

---

STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

Hey HT, during this point in your instructions.....

"I don't know why this isn't posted anywhere else (that I found), but I downloaded nVidia's latest WHQL nForce2 Soundstorm driver for XP (4.62) from http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_audio_4.62_win2kxp.html and ran the executable.  To my surprise it installed without a hitch and I didn't even have to run anything in compatibility mode, nor loose the WHQL certification.  It just installed perfectly over top of the Vista beta drivers."

I get continual BSOD's halve way through the installation. Sucks because everything works find sound wise exception for 5.1. Any ideas on how to overcome this? I've tried installing with compatibility mode to no avail....

xazos79:

Hey HT, during this point in your instructions.....

"I don't know why this isn't posted anywhere else (that I found), but I downloaded nVidia's latest WHQL nForce2 Soundstorm driver for XP (4.62) from http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_audio_4.62_win2kxp.html and ran the executable.  To my surprise it installed without a hitch and I didn't even have to run anything in compatibility mode, nor loose the WHQL certification.  It just installed perfectly over top of the Vista beta drivers."

I get continual BSOD's halve way through the installation. Sucks because everything works find sound wise exception for 5.1. Any ideas on how to overcome this? I've tried installing with compatibility mode to no avail....

My best guess is you have to first install the Beta Vista drivers and then install 4.62 over top of them.  That is what I did and Dolby Digital Live 5.1 has been working well ever since.  The beta drivers themselves do work, the only problem is there isn't anything I've found to configure the audio connection and NVMixer doesn't work with the beta drivers.

The only audio problem I do currently have is SPDIF pass through isn't working when playing DVDs.  Instead the 6 channels are decoded and then re-encoded using Dolby Digital Live.  I don't know if this is a configuration issue with the Microsoft decoder or ? (I haven't looked into it at all yet - at least its functional).

As a side note, my system has not been 100% stable either.  It has been seeing the odd random BSOD every few days.  I uninstalled ATI's 7.4 drivers and installed 7.5 almost 3 days ago and so far it hasn't BSOD'd.  I'm hoping BSODs are a thing of the past (but I suspect there will be more).  I also turned off UAC as I sometimes got BSODs during the black screen flash before the UAC prompt.

It seems that currently Vista is very prone to BSODs.  Searching the web it seems there are tons of people experiencing unstable Vista systems and BSODs - even those with brand new hardware (I was thinking of upgrading my hardware, but after reading threads like accident's one http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/1/192035/ShowThread.aspx my system doesn't sound so bad after all (for now)...my 1.5 terabytes of HD storage and RAID configuration are working fine too).

One other issue that my system has that I can't figure out:  Sharing of folders doesn't work at all unless I share it using the Advanced sharing button.  If I use the user level share button, Vista thinks it is shared, but no other system on the network can see the folder (even though when I use the advanced share to look at the settings they look fine).  When I use Advanced sharing, even using the same permissions that the standard sharing creates, sharing works.  Also, there are some folders that keep showing using the shared folder icon that are actually not shared at all.  Basically sharing of folders is all messed up.

---

STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

HT Slider:

So in summary, this motherboard IMO, should be totally listed as NOT supported by Microsoft and nVidia for use with Vista with the current state of drivers.  It is not only lacking in functionality, it is unstable with the default, fully updated Microsoft setup.

 

Thanks for your posts - they've given me the courage to continue trying to get my A7N8X working with Vista!

But I'm having big problems - not so much with BSOD but rather with file system corruption and chkdsk. Chkdsk wants to run regularly - usually after I've tried to access Nvmixer or the Realtek equivalent. Vista seems to recognise the Realtek Vista drivers as legacy drivers. Odd.

Anyway, any help you could give with the following questions would be much appreciated.

Where did you get the ethernet driver from? Was it downloaded via Windows Vista Update?

Do you think that the continuing problems - if you have continuing problems - are the consequence of using the sound drivers? I've tried to use variour Nvidia and Realtek drivers and whilst the drivers seem to work I've found that they result in a very unstable system that isn't fixed by uninstalling the drivers - only a Vista reinstallation seems to fix the problem.

But then again I'm not sure what the cause of the system instability problem is (or in my case the file system corruption problem).

I think that perhaps, and I hate to say this, many of the workaround drivers just aren't up to the job of enabling nforce2 to work with Vista.

Has your system been stable since your last post?

Thanks again.

 

@ HT Slider:  the lack of driver support from nVidia was their choice.  Basically, they put their line in the sand at the video interface:  no AGP support for Vista.  Kinda sad for all those nForce3 board owners, though.  Those aren't that old.  As for the nForce2:  when Creative basically cornered the market on PC audio, nVidia dumped their audio division.  Those people lost their jobs.  So, you can see the problem:  even though it's "not that old" (even though it's a five-year-old chipset now: I just looked at a pre-pro review written in Oct 02), there's nobody at nVidia who can write the drivers anymore.  Sucks.  I know.  Which brings me to:  when I ran teh Vista Upgrade Advisor on my desktop (Shuttle SN41G2 v3:  nForce2 Ultra 400 board, AthlonXP 2700+), the Advisor gave me the same warnings as it did for you.  Namely, no native drivers for sound or NIC, check with your hardware vendor.  So, I did.  I poked thru both Shuttle's and nVidia's sites.  Lo and behold, only the same old-ass May 2004 release XP driver that I'm still running.  :(

Now, on to your problems.  Starforce is evil - it's known to wreak havoc on PCs.  Optical drives stop working correctly (for one)....  Same goes for Safedisc.  Unfortunately, they're a PITA to get rid of.  Hint:  Starforce shows up as a device driver, not a program.  Gte rid of them, and your problems should be fixable.  Wikipedia article.

---

~Chris
'nearly every day of my life is some kind of computer hell'

Desktop: Shuttle SN41 (AthlonXP 2700+), AIW, T550, PVR-USB2, HDHR; server: Intel E6400 on I965P mobo, 2GB RAM, 2x 500GB WD, PVR500, NV DualTV, Saber2020, 2xHDHR; Xbox MCX, Xbox360

Retty:

Thanks for your posts - they've given me the courage to continue trying to get my A7N8X working with Vista!

But I'm having big problems - not so much with BSOD but rather with file system corruption and chkdsk. Chkdsk wants to run regularly - usually after I've tried to access Nvmixer or the Realtek equivalent. Vista seems to recognise the Realtek Vista drivers as legacy drivers. Odd.

Anyway, any help you could give with the following questions would be much appreciated.

Where did you get the ethernet driver from? Was it downloaded via Windows Vista Update?

Do you think that the continuing problems - if you have continuing problems - are the consequence of using the sound drivers? I've tried to use variour Nvidia and Realtek drivers and whilst the drivers seem to work I've found that they result in a very unstable system that isn't fixed by uninstalling the drivers - only a Vista reinstallation seems to fix the problem.

But then again I'm not sure what the cause of the system instability problem is (or in my case the file system corruption problem).

I think that perhaps, and I hate to say this, many of the workaround drivers just aren't up to the job of enabling nforce2 to work with Vista.

Has your system been stable since your last post?

All of the drivers are from Microsoft Update, except the SMBus (nForce4 Vista drivers), memory controller (nForce2 XP 5.10 driver pack), audio (nForce2 XP 4.62), and video (ATI's Vista Catalyst 7.5's for the X1950Pro).  Every time I've tried just the Microsoft Update drivers, the system BSODs roughly once every 5-10 minutes (even after updating the ATI video driver).  The installation of the audio drivers didn't seem to make any difference, but installing the nForce 4 SMBus driver seems to fix the shutdown/standby BSODs and installing the XP nForce 2 memory drivers seem to substantially improve the overall system stability.

Unfortunately my system still far from 100% stable and its extremely unpredictable too.  Right now its been up without a single issue for 4 days straight (including playing demanding 3D games), but prior to that it BSOD'd a good dozen times while trying to boot into Vista.  A big part of that seems to be the uninstallation of OneCare.  It seemed to uninstall fine, but afterwards Vista refused to boot at all until I repaired Vista and even then it kept BSOD'ing over and over until I booted first into safe mode and then into normal mode.  I haven't tried to reboot it since, I've just left it on.  There isn't any antivirus software running on it right now.

I tried another fresh Vista install on another partition last week and without the nVidia audio drivers (MS Update Realtek drivers & everything else the same) it still experienced the same level of instability (actually possibly worse - BSOD's roughly once twice per day but I only left it running for one day and two BSODs).

We too have been seeing file corruption, but it doesn't seem to be related to running NVMixer and only occurs after a BSOD.  I've actually never seen a single crash, BSOD or file corruption while running NVMixer.  So far running chkdsk during a reboot has aways repaired the drive and only non-critical files have been lost (temp files).  The worst Vista corruption (not file system though) occurred uninstalling OneCare and there were no errors shown at all.

Another thing I noticed is our system often crashes right after the IP address lease expires and is re-issued by the router.  Vista detects some sort of system issue and runs a diagnostics/repair program automatically and 3 seconds (in the event log) after that it BSODs.  It isn't consistent with this either though (often no new IP lease before BSODs and other times new IP leases without any BSODs).  The only thing I can truly say is BSODs always occur during disk I/O - which of course leads to file corruption.  I also replaced our Linksys WRT-54G router a few days ago with an ASUS WL-500gP and haven't seen BSODs during IP lease expriations since (The router replacement was planned as the SMC7008ABR completely blew up a few hours after I first installed Vista on the HTPC.  The SMC router won't even boot at all now.  I can't see how Vista could be involved, but the router started to lock up over and over as soon as Vista was running on the LAN.  The WRT-54G (that was originally purchased to be used only as an access point) only locked up once in the past 3-4 weeks and I'm hoping that the WL-500gP will be rock solid plus I can upgrade the firmware to get full IPv6 support).

I'm not sure how much more time I'm going to spend trying to get this hardware stable.  I've spent hours and hours trying to find the source of the instabilities, but really haven't got anywhere.  Sometimes the system will work almost a full week flawlessly, other times it can't even make it 1/2way through the boot sequence without BSOD'ing.  The other strange thing is I can run 3D games for hours and it is always 100% stable (so far).  Under light loads, running Media Center, browsing the web or most commonly during a reboot are the only times it BSODs with the current drivers.

I just bought a new power supply (600W, replacing the Enermax Noisetaker 485W EG495P-VE).  Most of this doesn't clearly point me to the PSU, but with all of the BSODs during reboots & disk I/O, the failure of the on-board SATA controller (running XP at the time - failed a while ago) and the fact that when I calculate the PSU requirements its right on the limit, makes me wonder if the PSU could possibly be the issue.  I figure I'll try this tomorrow and if this doesn't fix it, I'll just leave it as is for a while and research/purchase new hardware to build up a new system.  For the next HTPC build it will be all Intel, except where I'm forced to use ATI or nVidia for a video card.  I'm leaning towards either the 965 or 975 chipset with Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect and a Core 2 Duo E6600 processor.  If I can't find a genuine Intel motherboard with everything I want, I'll consider ASUS again, but only using Intel chipsets and boards that are certified for use with Vista (and ones that don't have a history of instability with Vista through a Google search).

One thing for certain, this "upgrade" to Vista has been, by far, the most frustrating experience I've ever had when building a PC.  I've never seen anything that seems to be so completely random and that I've been unable to track down to something specific.

At least the system "appears" functional.  During the past couple of weeks almost all of the BSODs have occurred when no-one is using the system (other than when I uninstalled OneCare) and we haven't missed any recordings.  Basically as far as my wife and children are concerned Vista "appears" to be working fine and when no-one is looking it once in a while BSOD's and automatically reboots.  I figure its just waiting for one of those major corruption BSODs when the hard drive and registry gets completely messed up...(random time bomb).

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STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

Cup:

@ HT Slider:  the lack of driver support from nVidia was their choice.  Basically, they put their line in the sand at the video interface:  no AGP support for Vista.  Kinda sad for all those nForce3 board owners, though.  Those aren't that old.  As for the nForce2:  when Creative basically cornered the market on PC audio, nVidia dumped their audio division.  Those people lost their jobs.  So, you can see the problem:  even though it's "not that old" (even though it's a five-year-old chipset now: I just looked at a pre-pro review written in Oct 02), there's nobody at nVidia who can write the drivers anymore.  Sucks.  I know.  Which brings me to:  when I ran teh Vista Upgrade Advisor on my desktop (Shuttle SN41G2 v3:  nForce2 Ultra 400 board, AthlonXP 2700+), the Advisor gave me the same warnings as it did for you.  Namely, no native drivers for sound or NIC, check with your hardware vendor.  So, I did.  I poked thru both Shuttle's and nVidia's sites.  Lo and behold, only the same old-ass May 2004 release XP driver that I'm still running.  :(

Now, on to your problems.  Starforce is evil - it's known to wreak havoc on PCs.  Optical drives stop working correctly (for one)....  Same goes for Safedisc.  Unfortunately, they're a PITA to get rid of.  Hint:  Starforce shows up as a device driver, not a program.  Gte rid of them, and your problems should be fixable.  Wikipedia article.

No AGP support for Vista?

I haven't seen any issues at all with the default Microsoft AGP Gart driver (unless it is somehow involved with the BSODs?? - nothing is screaming AGP driver issues to me though).  The X1950Pro is running with 8X AGP and fastwrites enabled.  Playing high end video games like the latest half life perform flawlessly.  I'm actually extremely impressed with the 3D performance.  3D performance in Vista seems just as good as in XP.

I don't think either of these (Starforce or Safedisc) are running on my system right now, unless they install by default with a fresh Vista install.  They may have been related to the early BSODs while trying to upgrade from XP to Vista, but since the system is so randomly unstable I suggest my removing them and finding an improvement to how far the Vista upgrade got was likely just "luck".

Right now I'm at a loss to what could be causing the BSODs.  Hardware issues?  Motherboard driver issues?  Vista bugs with this particular hardware?  Either way, replacing the hardware will likely fix it.

Edit:  Actually after installing those free ATI "STEAM" video games (2 versions of half life), there is a good change that either Starforce or Safedisk are installed.  I only installed these a few days ago though and the system stability if anything has been better recently.

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STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

HT Slider:

One thing for certain, this "upgrade" to Vista has been, by far, the most frustrating experience I've ever had when building a PC.  I've never seen anything that seems to be so completely random and that I've been unable to track down to something specific.

Thanks again. You've described the issues more eloquently and in more detail than I ever could.

Yes, the whole setup is very unstable and appearances to the contrary only make the eventual crashes more frustrating.

It is odd though that different people seem to experience different problems - or at least different expressions of the same problem. For me there are no BSODs just corruptions to the file system. Vista chkdsk is unable to correct the file corruptions - I need to run XP chkdsk from the multiboot system to correct the disk errors.

And, yes, more processor intensive and graphics card intensive applications seem to work with less problems (or even no problems).

This is frustrating because I've thrown a fair bit of money (and time) at this problem already and it looks as if the money could have been better spent elsewhere.

Anyway, the most stable install I've experienced is one where I used no sound drivers at all. There was consequently, of course, no sound but the system did seem to be fairly stable (I ran it for just over 24 hours constantly with no problems). I'm considering abandoning the onboard sound altogether and buying a cheapish Vista compatible card.

But I think the problems go deeper than that. My suspicion - although I have absolutely no concrete evidence at all for it - is that the memory controller and SMBus driver are causing problems and that despite the superficial compatibility of non nforce2 specific drivers the bottom line is that nforce2 motherboards are not compatible with Vista.

I posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management yesterday describing "Chkdsk problem on new install" and got a reply from a MVP who suggested, although he didn't say it explicitly, that he has no problems with A7N8X and Vista using more or less the drivers provided by Windows Update.

I don't think I'm ready to give up completely just yet. I'll try a few more things - installing as few drivers as possibly and settling initially for 2 channel sound - and I'll report back.

Thanks yet again!