A question for system builders.

**sardo_numspa** · June 13th, 2002, 01:07 PM

My question is two fold. When you build a system for a customer, and it contains a Geforce class video card do you install the latest detonator drivers or the manufacturers drivers prior to shipping the product? Second question, do you advise your end-users to install and maintain the card manufacturers drivers or reference drivers when they call your shop?

The reason I ask this is because some companies make decent drivers and maintain updates while others make bloated drivers and rarely update.

Thanks for your input.

**kato** · June 13th, 2002, 01:41 PM

I always go with the reference NVIDIA drivers. They offer the best opportunity for stability because they are utilizing the "Base features" of the chip and do not contain any card/manufacture specific tweaks than can cause instability. And I always use official releases, unless I have a specific reason not to. For example, If I know the person I'm building for is going to play a lot of Open Gl games then I may install a leaked driver that will work with the refresh rate fix. Otherwise it's official NVIDIA releases only.

**Ahcoraj** · June 13th, 2002, 01:43 PM

I usually go with the manufacturers drivers, and tell the customers about the detonator only if I feel they will use the extra performance they offer. Ive had some builds of the nvidia drivers be very unstable, I've rarely had a manny's driver give me problems. I don't support the reference drivers so if they want to ue them theyre on their own.....

**The Rifleman** · June 13th, 2002, 05:24 PM

When I build a system, I always update EVERYTHING.
Windows, drivers, any software apps.
Drivers, I always install the latest chipset (generic)drivers because they seem to produce less problems.
Updates are released for a reason, to fix the average users problems. If they are needing a specific problem fixed that requires a different driver, then I will of course use it.

**Budd** · June 13th, 2002, 05:33 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by The Rifleman:
[QB]When I build a system, I always update EVERYTHING.
Windows, drivers, any software apps.
QB]<hr /></blockquote>same here, i update everything. if its someone i think can handle it, i encourage the customer to run windows update and check for new drivers. if i don't think they can handle it, i tell them "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

**tk421** · June 13th, 2002, 05:45 PM

i don't update anything unless there's a reason to. most customers are biz class or basic users. if i'm builing a hi-end machine for a gamer then i'll update. otherwise, there's not enough margin in this game to waste my time with that garbage.

**EvilCabbage** · June 13th, 2002, 06:06 PM

Nvidia referance drivers. Been using Detonator / Nvidia referance drivers since day dot.

**sardo_numspa** · June 13th, 2002, 09:01 PM

A good percentage of the computers we build are geared towards gamers. That's why I asked the question(s) in my original post. At this time I put the manufacturer drivers on the custom rigs but I was contemplating changing this procedure and putting detonator builds on the PC instead. The only draw back is that certain manufacturer builds contain built in over clocking features and the reference drivers do not. This may pose a potential problem w/ some customers.

**EvilCabbage** · June 13th, 2002, 09:15 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by sardo_numspa:
The only draw back is that certain manufacturer builds contain built in over clocking features and the reference drivers do not. This may pose a potential problem w/ some customers.<hr /></blockquote>Uh... if someone is keen on overclocking, they surely have enough nouse to download some tools to do it. If they are _serious_ about it, they will also be competant enough to install extra cooling measures in their PC's, either way, if people are overclocking their cards without having the knowledge, or going to extremes with it, I would suggest the customer _is_ a potential problem, not the PC.

My 0.2c

**sardo_numspa** · June 13th, 2002, 10:19 PM

Customers are always a potential problem. That's a given.

**Ruslan** · June 14th, 2002, 07:43 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by sardo_numspa:
Customers are always a potential problem. That's a given.<hr /></blockquote>Exactly!

One of our customers did overclocking of his built-in motherboard TNT2 videocard (motherboard he had bought from us) and that videocard died after that (thus, motherboard also)...we found overclocking utility on his harddrive...and as addition, his friend told us what he did overclocking with all videocards he ever had.

Fortunatly for him, our supplier replaced that motherboard (we didn't say about his overclocking experiments <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> ) Fortunately for him, but he was given final warning.

**Stalemate** · June 14th, 2002, 08:08 AM

I don't build PC much anymore, but when I do (in my own time) I tend to go with the "latest and greatest" drivers available for everything.

That may change as I've just learned about the refresh problem with WinXP. I'd probably go with whatever recent drivers can accomodate the refresh fix.

As for PCs built at work, I tend to go with whatever drivers came with the hardware unles there are specific issues against it.

**format c:** · June 16th, 2002, 11:40 AM

I have found that whth my MSI g3ti200 pro 128 card, I had to install the drivers that came with it or the reference drivers would not install properly, I had the yellow exclamtion mark on the device manager after the reboot and 16 colors max
I was runnin a raid o back then so that may have been the problem
I run XP home

**cookin chef** · June 16th, 2002, 01:24 PM

When doing builds, I usually use the latest drivers for almost all hardware components depending what they are. That includes reference drivers for geforce or radeon based video cards, Same thing with via chipset or intel chipset drivers and intel application acceleration patches. I want to make sure the system is stable before it leaves. I do not apply any special tweaks in the registry or a tweaking program. I'll let the customer do that at their own risk. I'll fiddle with my own systems for stuff like that. Also a good idea to update any issues with microsoft update and other misc software. I didn't used to update the antivirus programs when installed because I believed it was the customer's responsibility to do that. That was a big mistake!!! I always get the latest virus updates for Nav 2002 and maybe mac cough cough cough phee!
Some things also need patches or updates to work with win xp.

**NooNoo** · June 16th, 2002, 02:56 PM

I have always advocated getting the latest and greatest, but saving the previous version just in case.

Today I was tripped up by the latest and greatest - big time, the driver it actually likes was written for 2k, the three xp drivers I have (including the native win xp driver) are not at all stable with a promise ata133 tx2 card. GRRRRRRRRRRRR

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