nVidia Driver Install issues

[Pic0o]

I have not been able to update my nvidia drivers on my 460 GTX to anything beyond version 270.61. 275.33 and the latest 280.26 drivers just fail and don't give any good indication why. Digging around on a cause has been slim pickings, as the nvidia forums are more into flaming people than fixing things.

 

I did finally manage to find some info besides 'reinstall os' or dick around in safe mode to no improvement. Peep this HardOCP thread for some decent info on why these newer drivers are failing, from what I can tell this is pretty common. It seems that the newly changed control panel is the grief on getting the latest drivers installed.

 

So, yeah. That has been my saga now, since a little before Alice MR came out on PC. As the OCP link mentions, if you can force the driver to install the old Control Panel instead, you shall get all you need, sans needlessly more annoying to install CP.

 

Fix!

Props to this man, Nazo!

Ok, I found a sort of solution. Ish. Since the control panel install is borked and its failure to install is what causes the driver install to fail, I replaced the script file (the .NVI file) in the 280.26 for the with the "DisplayControlPanel" directory with the one from 270.61. It installs correctly, the control panel reports the correct driver version, and that one game I needed the fix for now runs well. I may be missing out on some new nVidia control panel features or something since it doesn't install all of those extras that appear to be in the control panel directory in 280.26 (whereas the 270.61 only had one DLL file in addition to the script and no more,) but, at least I'm not missing out on having newer drivers... Nvidia needs to get off of their rears and fix the control panel install portion of their driver installers.

 

Be sure to Delete the contents of C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\280.26\, then install your modified installer. Extract the .exe with WinRar or the like, so you can make the above edits! :P

[J0k3r]

I am assuming this has already been done, but it will help my post count :P

 

 

Did you uninstall the current drivers before trying to roll the new install? I mean full uninstall, delete of files, reboot and pray?

 

-d33

[Pic0o]

Oh so many. :o Found my fix, edited op.

 

I also noticed I had the old CP versions of the Performance Monitor and CPTweak Overclock module. Removing those for shits, since they don't work with current version.

Edited September 23, 2011 by Pic0o

[Pic0o]

The Control Panel tweak in OP also works for the 285.27 Driver version.

 

Don't forget the run the setup in that extracted install folder, once you replace the .NVI with an older version. :dunce:

[Pic0o]

No dice for the 295.73 driver with the above tweak. It looks like the old CP means has been removed.

 

To get your old User CP back, install the 270.61 drivers with the Clean Install option. Once they finish, you can reinstall your previously working modded drivers. In my case, these are 285.62 Drivers.

[Pic0o]

Bringing this thread back up, as I am seeing similar issues on my new build.

 

I didn't have this issue until I rolled my 460 GTX into another PC and put a 560 TI in it's place. Looking back, the previous machine also had a previous gen Nvidia card before I went to the 460 GTX.

 

Driver Sweeper games and the like didn't change anything. Digging around to see if I can find a blast any reference to the 460 GTX. Shit to shove, I'll put the old card back in, try to reinstall the Nvidia drivers, then do a full uninstall if they see the 460 OK. Drivers installed fine, before I swapped out from a 460 to a 560 in my current PC / Windows 7 x64 install.

 

I can however, point Device Manager to the updated drivers and they will become active. I'd just really rather had the installer actually work, since updating the supplemental components will prove to be a PITA over time.

 

So yeah, my current theory is you are likely to see this when changing out video cards on the same OS install.

 

Change of thought

I recently set custom TEMP and TMP variables for Windows to a fixed local folder. I am restoring them to default locations and trying again. If I had to guess, the custom Temp variables were active on both machines.

 

FYI, here are the default parameters for the Windows Temp variables:

(Properties of Computer | Advanced System Settings | Environmental Variables)

User Variables:

• temp= %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp
  
• tmp= %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp
  System Variables:
  
• temp= %SystemRoot%\TEMP
  
• tmp= %SystemRoot%\TEMP
  

 

- Nope, still no install with temp paths reverted. HOWEVER, this guide fixed me up. Essentially, the installer fails because it doesn't keep Admin Privileges throughout the whole install. Follow the steps pasted below and your installer should complete. This was successful.

 

The biggest change I saw, was a file transfer window briefly coming up when it installed the Driver files. Do note that my temp path was also restored to default for this run. Quoted steps I used to run install below.

 

To resolve this, I discovered a utility that must somehow force executables to run as administrator and therefore workaround the preceding problem. Here is how I got my install for the 285.62 drivers to run:

 

1) Download PsTools from PSTools Download.

2) Extract PsExec.exe from the PsTools.zip file, into the Windows system32 directory.

3) I had already run the nvidia installer previously, so all the files had been unpacked into C:\NVIDIA\.... If you have not done this, please see the note below.

4) Use PsExec to run the setup.exe file in the installer directory:

psexec -s -i -d "C:\nvidia\displaydriver\285.62\winvista_win7_64\english\setup"

5) Everything installed fine using the above command.

Note: I suspect that you could also call the downloaded driver file directly using this method and have success, you could run: psexec -s -i -d "<your download location>\285.62-desktop-win7-winvista-64bit-english- whql"

- Step 5 works, as I just installed the Beta 3xx.xx driver with this method.

Edited May 1, 2012 by Pic0o
Working Driver Install

[Pic0o]

301.42 Driver went up today. I followed the quoted in my previous post, as the standard install is still a no-go. Execute the setup as above, and I was all in the good.

[Pic0o]

With the 306.xx drivers, my update install did not need the previous method (PsExec).

 

However, I am enjoying a Sony PS3 3D Display ("24) from local @ $160. Picked one up for the Mrs. and shortly learned how this one was for my face. Sadly you cannot be on the 30x.xx series drivers to use this display as a 3D device. Another tweak you'll need to do, is update the Display Driver for your Monitor. Modded Inf Guide

- Shortened steps for Sony PS3 3D Display:

• Download the inf
  
• Install the latest 29x.xx
  
• Install the latest 3D VISION usb emitter driver
  
• Expand the Computer and then Monitors nodes (Device Manager)
  
• Find your TV (most likely Generic PNP Monitor), right click, and select Update Driver Software
  
• Click Browse my computer for driver software
  
• Click Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer
  
• Click have disk…
  
• Browse to the location of the inf downloaded in step 1, select it, click Open, and click OK
  
• If multiple models appear, select Generic for the manufacturer and then select NVIDIA Unsupported 3DTV (EDID Override)
  
• Click Next, wait for the installation to complete
  
• Reboot (and get excited)
  

 

That's when you'll want to go back to 296.10. If you hit any snags on reinstall, especially from having 3.0xx drivers, backup and blast out your cached installer folder:

C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation

 

From there, you will either need the $40 3D Vision (3DTV Play) program from nVidia, or can use the 14 day trial.

 

After getting the 3D to work, PC mode is better off in non-3D, as this display requires you to run @ 1280x720p for 60Hz 3D play. I find the glasses powered off without 3d, give a superior effect over 3D.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Pic0o
3D PC IMO