Comments on: Crashing Vista: nVidia drivers responsible for 30%

By: Derry

Derry — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:55:49 +0000

I have an Intel Q6600 installed in a nVidia P5N-E SLI motherboard, 2GB of RAM and an 8800GT from nVidia. I recently converted from XP to Vista (DX10 finally lured me in). But, I experience a lot of problems. Mainly due to the nVidia video driver, that continues to stop responding during my gaming (most often in Assassin’s Creed lately).
I like Vista. I like to be able to choose which operating system to run on my PC. I DON’T like that XP will be discontinued soon and that people are forced to use Vista. Why couldn’t they wait for Windows 7 to come out to finally retire XP?
Well, all in all I’m happy with Vista, but I’m unhappy with the results produced by the two companies (Microsoft and nVidia).
Step up to plate, guys!

By: Ron

Ron — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:36:14 +0000

Definately add me to the 30% list. I downloaded and installed the latest version of drivers for my GeForce 7600GT video card (v169.25) from NVIDIA’s website. I haven’t had one crash since on my home or work systems with either Vista x86 or x64. Prior to this my Vista was basically unusable crashing frequently. Interestingly, Windows Update reports an update for my NVIDIA drivers dated 12/10/2007. I’m pretty sure these are the drivers I had been running. Word of caution, hide the update!

By: Ron

Ron — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:49:00 +0000

Oops… I forgot to include that I am running a NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT. The video drivers are those that shipped with Vista and were updated by Windows Update. So far disabling them via msconfig show encouraging signs. I put Vista x64 through its paces this AM with no crashes. I am currently testing Vista x86 with equally successful results. However, I remain optomistically skeptical!

By: Ron

Ron — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 15:24:56 +0000

Running an Intel DG965WH with two Sata Raid volumes, Nvidia 7600GT, and three OS partitions: XP Pro, Vista Ultimate x86, and Vista Ultimate x64. I have BSD crashes running either Vista OS at least once per day ofter more than once. This often breaks either one or both Raid volumes. I like Vista and with the end-of-product cycle looming for XP the migration to it or the new Windows program due out later is a must. Ubuntu is not an option for me.

I have disabled the startup Nvidia drivers (via msconfig) this morning and so far no crashes. Could it be that simple? I’ll add a post if it does.

By: Nohea

Nohea — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:47:11 +0000

@ hai2u – yeah well, figures they want to push it out early again, like Vista. Then everyone will be whining again cuz it offers nothing new, crashes, slow, then goto offers nothing new and repeat. Oh well.

By: pietro

pietro — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:01:10 +0000

Mind you that NVidia is making also chipsets, and it is my estimate that many of those crashes are especially because of that.
Also, I noticed that when i overclock my NVidia graphics card and get a crash, vista detects it as video driver problem.
And thrid – it was microsoft, that delivered incorrect drivers in all SP1 betas for the NVidia SATAs and RAIDs.
So the high percentage of nvidia drivers is only because nvidia has much wider product span.

By: Netranger

Netranger — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:22:29 +0000

Vista SUCKS! WinXP has no problems with the drivers, so which one is it that real has the problems…VISTA

By: hai2u

hai2u — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:18:15 +0000

@32 Nohea

Epic O-fkn-reeeeeally?

More like Q1 of 2010

By: TimeWaster

TimeWaster — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:53:24 +0000

One of of biggest problems with the early beta it would crash alot just as much as when xp was in beta form. Since then we now have SP1 for vista and i haven’t had any problems.

By: caricalho

caricalho — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:03:07 +0000

i have vista ultimate 64 and a geforce 8600GT and yes, it crashes once in a while due to a driver problem (actually never happened during gaming). I’m one of the reports they receive

By: thug_angel

thug_angel — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 05:24:14 +0000

and I was actually using win xp sp2…

By: thug_angel

thug_angel — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 05:21:09 +0000

I had a major issue with the latest forceware drivers on my built in 6100.At first I though my mobo was a goner but when I installed the old driver enclosed in the cd,it all worked out….

By: Hnmru

Hnmru — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:36:32 +0000

ati and xp ftw!

By: josepts

josepts — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:33:36 +0000

I am curious about what version nvidia drivers were crashing vista? It would be interesting if the data showed the crashes based on retail vs beta versions of the nvidia driver… My guess is that if nvidia drivers in total crashes 30% of the time, then how much of those crashes are due to the beta drivers that were still being tested, versus the versions that already been tested and approved… If the tested drivers crash 10% of the time, and the beta versions crash 20% of the time, that would be expected from beta software…

By: sass

sass — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:24:46 +0000

@jay (36) & ‘vista haters’
I dual boot XP/Vista. I’d have to say that Vista works better with my video card (8800 GTS). Not to mention letting my video card scale my desktop with a fixed-aspect ratio works reliably only in Vista; I need to use a hack (registry fix) to get it to work with XP, which works maybe 50% of the time and only temporarily (through one resolution switch). It’s a known issue with XP and G80 video cards which nVidia has done nothing to fix…
Any problems I have with games are because of the games, not Vista. People fault the OS for things that more debugging by the application developers usually solves, through patches/new versions. Even though Vista is a bit slower, a bit bulkier, and has individual apps that crash sometimes (i.e. Windows Explorer and IE{which does suck}), overall it actually is rather reliable (i.e. OS not crashing on me, just individual apps), though definitely not 99+%, which happens when companies release their products early (probably were too eager start working on Windows 7).
That said, I still end up using XP most of the time (it has most of my apps). Waiting to get another 6 GB of ram to run Vista x64 without a swapfile ^_^ before I switch completely.