Sooo.. after scanning through this thread, would it be wise for me to hold off on updating the drivers?

lol, this reads like a linux how-to thread :p

Hehe ;p Well I wanted to upgrade to W7 anyway, this was just 1 reason.. but I have to admit W7 is pretty good.

HorrorScope wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 20:58:
We've all been there and it does suck, so we feel for you.

If you don't mind:

Why would you worry about a ghost image vs clean? It's an exact copy of a working system, all one's and zero's and you have an option to copy sectors if you want an exact image how it's laid out. This is a very standard, mature method.

You can have different saves, one could be a clean load with just the updates complete and basic core software you always want installed period. I do that anytime I get a new pc up. In that case it's a 45 min recovery and you are in a great clean state, save hours.

Or save your system state weekly and keep 2 copies just in case. With computers for me it's one moment everything is good and the next moment something went to hell badly, typically a hard drive crash. Now in 45 minutes you can be restored almost back to exactly where you were at, saving tons of hours and things you would forget about. This is better then cooking with gas.

I've done it, the company I worked for that is how they deploy units, I didn't know there was a downside to be honest.

You probably know all of this, but I like to put it out there regularly because that to me is how to backup for any user.

Good to hear the NVidia forums are back up, they were down for a looooong time.

The NVidia forums are different and less active than I remember, but I agree, it's great that they are up.

I don't keep a backup image because I haven't had great luck with them. I used to with windows 7's image feature... but I never felt confident enough that the image was recent enough. I change things up so much that I just want to know exactly how I was set up, and reverting to a backup would leave me wondering which drivers were current, which software was at what state... etc etc. I also keep about 200-350 gigs of games on a system and that makes for a major backup time (this is also the bulk of my programs, so if I skip this part of the backup, there is almost no point.) I'm a control freak and I've been doing Windows installs this way for 15 years, so I'll give you that part of it might just be a stubborn OCD habit.

I can do a fresh install and have everything done and configured in about an hour and 20 minutes. Of course it'll take time to download my steam library and such, but I have it up pretty fast. I keep most of my files on a secondary drive anyway... documents, pictures, downloads all user files. These I occasionally backup to a networked drive.

EDIT: Also, the fix described below did not work.

PropheT wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 22:04:

Muscular Beaver wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 17:43:
Anyone tried it yet what that means exactly? More or less power usage?

Basically, it means the power handling and clocking of the card is handled closer to what the old "Prefer Maximum Performance" power-state setting that the control panel offered. It does increase power usage slightly but not significantly from what I've found, and it helps with stuttering and some other issues that the power-save feature caused in certain games.

Does that also mean they removed the god damn turbo crap?

Muscular Beaver wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 17:43:
Anyone tried it yet what that means exactly? More or less power usage?

Basically, it means the power handling and clocking of the card is handled closer to what the old "Prefer Maximum Performance" power-state setting that the control panel offered. It does increase power usage slightly but not significantly from what I've found, and it helps with stuttering and some other issues that the power-save feature caused in certain games.

Respen wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 19:38:
Horror,

I'm actually active in the Nvidia forums on this topic as well, lol. Several others with the issue but less solutions than here. I am very anal about my installs, im more likely to reformat than use a ghost image, if im going to start over id rather go all the way, I appreciate all of the advice though. Trying the step by step when I get home from work. I'm used to tweaking and hunting for solutions... but this particularly annoys me because I was under the impression it was a whql release...

Hate putting all of these writes and rewrites on my ssd. Anyway, back to work for a few I'm a horrible phone typist anyhow.

We've all been there and it does suck, so we feel for you.

If you don't mind:

Why would you worry about a ghost image vs clean? It's an exact copy of a working system, all one's and zero's and you have an option to copy sectors if you want an exact image how it's laid out. This is a very standard, mature method.

You can have different saves, one could be a clean load with just the updates complete and basic core software you always want installed period. I do that anytime I get a new pc up. In that case it's a 45 min recovery and you are in a great clean state, save hours.

Or save your system state weekly and keep 2 copies just in case. With computers for me it's one moment everything is good and the next moment something went to hell badly, typically a hard drive crash. Now in 45 minutes you can be restored almost back to exactly where you were at, saving tons of hours and things you would forget about. This is better then cooking with gas.

I've done it, the company I worked for that is how they deploy units, I didn't know there was a downside to be honest.

You probably know all of this, but I like to put it out there regularly because that to me is how to backup for any user.

Good to hear the NVidia forums are back up, they were down for a looooong time.

Shok wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 18:29:

shihonage wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 18:20:
NVidia drivers under Win8 may be experiencing a similar problem to what's happening under WinXP.

Here's something that may work for you (the only thing that worked under XP for me, and I tried everything from safe mode to manual driver installs):

1) start normal nvidia install
2) at about 80% of the install, go to task manager and end process tree for nvidia setup stuff
3) reboot

It really works... at least on XP. There's some bug in the installer that uninstalls the driver at the very end, so stopping it beforehand works.

No, just no. That is some of the worst advice you could give someone. You don't go pulling the rug out from under an installer while it is updating device drivers. See comment 31 from Soulburner, that is the best solution here:

Soulburner wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 16:02:
To anyone that has problems with the installer failing - you have to:
1. uninstall the current drivers and reboot
2. extract the drivers installer with Winrar or 7zip
3. open Device Manager and find your graphics card. Double click it and select the "update driver" button, then point it to the extracted files
4. The system will install the driver only - reboot just in case
5. NOW, run the installer normally. It will complete without failing.

It's weird. Earlier, I've tried only uninstalling the drivers and running DriverSweeper, but that did not help.

I understand that I am just some dude on the Internet and you have no reason to believe my expertise, but I've done absolutely everything OTHER than what I posted, before resorting to it.

The aforementioned standalone driver install is one of the FIRST THINGS I tried on XP. What followed then were clean uninstalls, EVERYTHING THAT COULD BE POSSIBLY DONE IN SAFE MODE, various driver cleaners, manual scanning of registry, until I finally found the "80% abortion" method on some obscure Internet forum.

And... it WORKED. Nothing else did.

So, if this is the case with SOMEONE - where the obvious things don't work - try the 80% method. Or, you'll be stuck with old drivers. Forever.

P.S. By the time installer passes 80%, the driver installation (and associated screen blink) is long complete.

Horror,

I'm actually active in the Nvidia forums on this topic as well, lol. Several others with the issue but less solutions than here. I am very anal about my installs, im more likely to reformat than use a ghost image, if im going to start over id rather go all the way, I appreciate all of the advice though. Trying the step by step when I get home from work. I'm used to tweaking and hunting for solutions... but this particularly annoys me because I was under the impression it was a whql release...

Hate putting all of these writes and rewrites on my ssd. Anyway, back to work for a few I'm a horrible phone typist anyhow.

Respen wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 18:54:

HorrorScope wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 18:38:

Creston wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 15:14:

Respen wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 15:08:
Well, thanks for the heads up eRe4s3r. You were right, something must be wrong with my installer. Most items failed or partially installed, including PhysX now.

Sonofab*tch. There goes my next day off.

Just do a system restore to yesterday.

Creston

Exactly, at the very worst.

Except it didnt work, as you would know if you'd read the next few posts. A solution was posted though... can't wait to get home and give it a try.

But then it's how you read what I wrote. I mean in the very worst do a system restore. If that doesn't work, I'd be digging deeper into the system and almost never failing back to a Clean Install. Also do yourself a lifetime favor, get a usb drive and ghose your boot drive, that certainly would cover any issue like this.

There was one suggestion that went step by step above, was that tried? Couldn't tell if going back to an older version worked? Does win 8 have a safe mode and if so were those avenues looked at? I'd be googling for answers. Unfortunately I doubt the NVida forums are up or ever coming back, you would get an answer there.

This comment was edited on Dec 4, 2012, 19:15.

HorrorScope wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 18:38:

Creston wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 15:14:

Respen wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 15:08:
Well, thanks for the heads up eRe4s3r. You were right, something must be wrong with my installer. Most items failed or partially installed, including PhysX now.

Sonofab*tch. There goes my next day off.

Just do a system restore to yesterday.

Creston

Exactly, at the very worst.

Except it didnt work, as you would know if you'd read the next few posts. A solution was posted though... can't wait to get home and give it a try.

Creston wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 15:14:

Respen wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 15:08:
Well, thanks for the heads up eRe4s3r. You were right, something must be wrong with my installer. Most items failed or partially installed, including PhysX now.

Sonofab*tch. There goes my next day off.

Just do a system restore to yesterday.

Creston

Exactly, at the very worst.

eRe4s3r wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 14:50:
It's a rare but common enough problem, only solution? Reinstall the OS.. I am not joking on that. No driver will ever install for you these 3 items if they failed once. I had the same issue on Vista and since I upgraded to W7 it's gone. So maybe it's an OS related issue with the drivers, but all r300 drivers from nvidia did that for me.

You have to be joking.

eRe4s3r wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 18:02:
Yeah I read the solution below/above whatever Someone should have told me about that a month ago

Look on the brightside, now you have a shiny new OS install to break for the future.

shihonage wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 18:20:
NVidia drivers under Win8 may be experiencing a similar problem to what's happening under WinXP.

Here's something that may work for you (the only thing that worked under XP for me, and I tried everything from safe mode to manual driver installs):

1) start normal nvidia install
2) at about 80% of the install, go to task manager and end process tree for nvidia setup stuff
3) reboot

It really works... at least on XP. There's some bug in the installer that uninstalls the driver at the very end, so stopping it beforehand works.

No, just no. That is some of the worst advice you could give someone. You don't go pulling the rug out from under an installer while it is updating device drivers. See comment 31 from Soulburner, that is the best solution here:

Soulburner wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 16:02:
To anyone that has problems with the installer failing - you have to:
1. uninstall the current drivers and reboot
2. extract the drivers installer with Winrar or 7zip
3. open Device Manager and find your graphics card. Double click it and select the "update driver" button, then point it to the extracted files
4. The system will install the driver only - reboot just in case
5. NOW, run the installer normally. It will complete without failing.

It's weird. Earlier, I've tried only uninstalling the drivers and running DriverSweeper, but that did not help.

Looks like nVidia updated their site recently and they are now labeled "310.70 - BETA" when you do the standard driver lookup. Interesting that you dont even go through the beta channel and it delivers these to you simply by choosing your gpu and O/S from the page.

Sounds like someone flubbed the release for these, either that or they found something last minute and decided to keep them beta?

Either way, they're working fine for me (only played Planetside 2 and Natural Selection 2 since install)

NVidia drivers under Win8 may be experiencing a similar problem to what's happening under WinXP.

Here's something that may work for you (the only thing that worked under XP for me, and I tried everything from safe mode to manual driver installs):

1) start normal nvidia install
2) at about 80% of the install, go to task manager and end process tree for nvidia setup stuff
3) reboot

It really works... at least on XP. There's some bug in the installer that uninstalls the driver at the very end, so stopping it beforehand works.

Mashiki Amiketo wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 17:14:

eRe4s3r wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 14:50:
It's a rare but common enough problem, only solution? Reinstall the OS.. I am not joking on that.

There's solutions posted earlier in the thread, but I'm just going to say it's overkill. The only time you should need to nuke an OS install from orbit is when it's so screwed up, that you can't fix it. This though, is fixable with enough patience.

Yeah I read the solution below/above whatever Someone should have told me about that a month ago

Interesting that they came through on the non-beta channel for me.. I thought only WHQL drivers did that.

It seems you're not the only one as it appears that same thing happened with the HardOCP folks too.

Muscular Beaver wrote on Dec 4, 2012, 17:43:

Anyone tried it yet what that means exactly? More or less power usage?

That's what it's supposed to be. I'm going to stay away from them and stick to the 306's. The last time they tried this it was nearly 7 months of driver restart crashes, because of their "power saving feature." Most will probably remember the 279-299 series drivers that gave the "driver has stopped responding" messages. They were trying something similar as well.