Asus EN8600GT Graphics Driver Problems - Help Please

[marcbkk]

I just put together a brand new system with an Asus P5K main board, an Asus EN8600GT Silent Graphics Card with 512MB video ram (Nividia Chip) and 8GB of DDR2 system Ram.

I am running Windows XP SP2 and all drivers for both the onboard mainboard components and the graphics card installed properly without error. I am also running a dual monitor setup with the card.

Shortly after the install XP started downloading and installing updates and then I started having problems with the graphics card driver.

Basically every time I restart the computer or power it up with a cold boot the display driver reverts back to the original XP default driver (which of cource is not able to support the card properly). Then XP pops a message telling me the current manufacture’s graphics card driver I have installed can’t be used anymore and that I need to download and install an updated version.

So I went to the Asus web site and downloaded the latest release of the Asus EN8600GT VGA Driver for XP, which is version 169.21 dated 12/05/2007.

Then, once I put the driver update in, the system asks to reboot and everything is fine again with my 2 displays.

But as soon as I either restart or shut down and reboot I am back to square one with the same problem again.

Anyone have any ideas on how to fix the problem?

Many thanks,

Marc

[JrRacinFan]

Uninstall your current drivers in device manager then when it asks for a restart keep pushing F8 before windows loads. Then boot into VGA mode.

From there install your drivers. See if that helps.

[marcbkk]

Many thanks. That was a good idea and I tried what you suggested. I am afraid it did not work though.

After removing the driver completely as you suggested, I tried putting back in just the latest driver from Asus that I downloaded. The problem is that it was basically just the driver and did not contain all the other graphic controller software from the original graphics card CD installation package so i had to put that back in again too in order to get the card to be able to utilize the driver.

The problem though is that installation puts the old driver back in as well. So then I put in the new driver again once more.

So after taking the drivers out and rebooting in VGA mode it went new driver, then old driver, then new driver again and then after the second reboot I was back to square one again.

What is odd though is that when you look at the version of the driver after it has booted up with only the standard XP display driver running I can still see the Asus driver installed under device manager and it shows it as being the latest one as well.

What is strange though is that to get the display driver to work it needs to be reinstalled then again and the system rebooted until it will work and then again it only works for that single boot and then after any other reboots after that the display driver stops working and needs to be reinstalled again.

I am thinking about nuking windows and starting all over again since it did work properly in the beginning, but that is another 4-5 hours of software installations and might not be needed if there is a solution to all this.

I wish I also knew what driver or XP update installation set it off in the first place.

Many thanks again…

[Squirrely]

I guess you have Windows XP 64 bit.

Just try over-installing (new word? :D) the new driver with the new beta driver 174.74. This is from the Nvidia website.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_174.74.html

Hope this works.

[marcbkk]

I wish I was running 64bit XP. For the moment just trying to get it all running smoothly on 32bit first.

[JrRacinFan]

Dont download from Asus website, try to use the official 169.21's from www.nvidia.com

[marcbkk]

Thanks, I am already running the 169.21 version from Asus and this is the version that XP is telling me is out of date, but I have downloaded the same version from Nividia now as you sugessted and will give it a go. Thanks.

[marcbkk]

I have now put in the NVidia one and the result is the same unfortunately.

I am thinking that the root of the problem though is one of the Window's updates that is making problem, but hard to know which one.

In the end I may have to nuke my XP install and then reintall and block all updates until I figure out the root of the problem.

I will give it a bit longer though to see if maybe there are some other things I might try first because reinstalling XP and then disabling updates is not the greatest way to go either.

Thanks again...