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[kitz]

hmmmm...  Suddenly I seem to have encountered some annoying issues that are driving me nuts.   I fear the W-Update (I thought I set it to manual but obviously not!) has updated all my drivers, and Im now seeing some weird issues that I cant seem to fix.

The Logitech issue is back - thats annoying because apps wont open if Im using set-point, but I need set-point to use the functions of my mouse & keyboard.

There's weird graphics stuff going on, and damnit Ive got the latest graphic drivers again (thanks w-update for silently installing those).

Im also wondering if Ive brought something across from the old system by using one of my backups for restoring some things.

Im back to seeing LAN speeds restricted to 10/100, and an annoying issue that it takes 5mins after boot-up before the PC can find the LAN.  Spent all weekend trying to resolve this and it appears it may be a known issue with the .NET framework that causes the later.

I fear that the .NET framework issue may have been my own doing, as I installed an old program and not watching properly what I was doing let it install an older version, which may have messed things up. Because .net is part of windows now, then its no easy task to get rid.  (I have found a last resort clean-up tool).


However in view of the various annoying things, and spending a fruitless weekend trying to resolve various issues, Im at the stage where I want to start a total clean install again.
Putting windows back on isnt a problem, its all the other programs & settings that take the time.

This is just a general moan post, cause Im not relishing the thought of a total clean install and how time consuming it is.    This time I intend to do separate backups at different stages.   Because my current backup isnt going to be any help.

[Ronski]

Sorry to hear you're having more issues. I didn't think Windows Update would automatically install drivers, I might well be wrong though.

You might well be surprised just how quick installing Windows is on an SSD, there is also a website where you can create a custom install package for a lot of common programs, can't remember what it is but i'm sure someone will.

[kitz]

I definitely didnt update them so I dont know how theyve been updated. 
Im now showing as having 9.18.13.3165 installed  but I want 9.18.13.1106

...  and the really sad news is Im stuggling now to find the version I want as the nVidia site only retains a years worth and its dropped off the bottom of the list
Ive been scratting around - downloaded one set from softpedia and when I look inside the package its actually different version number.
Another couple of sites Ive tried have all wanted me to install additional bulk crap or download managers.
Everything worked fine until I updated those drivers last year, and Ive had nowt but trouble ever since.

Signing off now anyways as whilst Ive been typing this, screen has gone weirded, which normally means anytime soon I'll have to either reboot or windows will do it for me.

[Ronski]

I have some Nvidia drivers, not sure if any are of any use to you or what cards they cover - mines  a 680, so I would have download the 600 series drivers, see attachment for the ones I have.

[kitz]

Several hours later & I really want to cry right now...

W-update DOES automatically update the nvidia drivers and now installs the WHQL which is what appears to be causing me the problems.  There is a setting hidden away somewhere which includes 'important hardware updates' and automatically installs them in the same way that it does for Windows.

My Graphics card is Nvida GeForce GTX 550 TI.   It worked perfectly until an auto update last Nov.   A clean install after the failed HDD issue* worked perfectly fine for a few weeks - until the update.  Unfortunately I didnt keep a copy of those drivers, thinking Id be able to get them again.

It took me about 10 mins to reinstall windows, then about an hour and a half to install the updates.  I'd still not found a suitable graphics driver so I installed the suggested windows certified verion.   

BAM..   Im now staight away back to the problem with unstable graphics and my network not starting straight away.  Incidentally I just found this..
So is it something nvidia related thats also causing the slowness to find the network after boot.   You can see my problems only started after the update of my graphics drivers here.  Perhaps its not .NET afterall - Ive not got it installed aside what comes on the OS.

ATM I have a fairly bare system, installed in this order,
Win7 Pro,
Mobo drivers etc from CD, 
windows updates,
MSE, MSE updates,
Firefox 

All seemed OK but as soon as I installed the graphics drivers the network started the slow to find network..  and now its hanging after a few mins of use and I have to shut it down.  Windows then has to recover from serious error yada yada


Thanks for zipping your driver but they all are marked WHQL so likely wont be much use to me :/   You can see in the other thread, that it is a driver related problem - seemingly to do with WHQL.   
I shall continue a search to see if I can find 9.18.13.1106 again... or at least a version that doesnt include WHQL.




*part of me is now wondering if the constant blue/black screen issues caused by the nvidia driver problem caused the early failure of my OCZ drive

[Ronski]

Not sure if any of these links are good.

http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/driverdetails?driverid=C9N91
http://www.oldapps.com/nvidia.php

Edit: WHQL just means the drivers have been tested and passed those tests, they should in theory be less likely to cause problems.

[kitz]

Thanks for the links, ill go look now.

>>>  WHQL just means the drivers have been tested and passed those tests

Sorry my mistake, 
I thought that was related to the un-needed bloat-ware, they package with the drivers. 
Its since they have been releasing the drivers bundled with the 3D stuff and NvStreamSvc the network service for nVidia Shield (I dont have either of them) that Ive been seeing the problems.

PS that is a biatch

I just noticed that my VIA soundcard drivers that I had installed from CD, just a few hours ago have now been replaced by 4x "NVIDIA High Definition Audio". 
I certainly didnt ask for it to do that either.   I was quite happy with my VIA drivers thank you.   Why is NVIDIA taking over my PC and installing stuff I dont need. 

Ive just been trying to read their forums, what a mess, and still unhappy customers regarding the black/blue screens that started last Nov...  It still doesnt seem to have been sorted properly :/

[kitz]

I give up - at least for tonight or the fing PC is gonna go out of the window. 

Just did a speed test.. whoopie do... peaked @ 12Mbps. 

[Ronski]

I feel your pain, I've steered well clear of reinstalling my own PC, the installation is years old now, although I do fairly often install Windows on various computers.

I do wonder if all your trouble stems from NvStreamSvc and it's associated bloatware that Nvidia force upon us, it is also tied in to networking. I've recently been having problems with my own PC, it normally runs very quiet but is overclocked to 4Ghz, so it doesn't take much for the fans to kick in which on several occasions I've noticed and looking in task manager show multiple instances of NvStreamSvc  processes using lots of CPU. When it first started to happen I disabled the service. Then when I updated the driver my troubles would start again. What I did a few weeks ago was completely uninstall all Nvidia stuff. Then I did a custom install of the latest drivers only selecting the graphics driver and physics X, note there is no option for NvStreamSvc, but I think it is only installed with the sound driver, end result there was no NvStreamSvc service listed. There is also an option for the Geforce Experience, that has also given me trouble, so that got left off as well, see the attached picture (note I didn't untick the check boxes as I wasn't installing anything and just cancelled out), the option off the bottom of the list is for PhysicsX.

Your VIA sound drivers have not been overwritten, your graphics card has a built in sound card, very useful when connection via HDMI to a TV or monitor with built in speakers. The VIA sound card will be part of your motherboard, if you right click on the speaker icon in the task bar and click 'Playback devices' you should see them all listed, I have eight Nvidia HDMI devices (4 for each card I presume) which is odd as I chose not to install the driver, but it appears to be using one from June 2013, and also my motherboard sound card listed.

I would suggest uninstalling the Nvidia drivers, or even completely installing Windows again, make sure Windows update is only set to notify of updates, then install the latest Nvidia driver using the custom install option and only install the graphics driver and PhysicsX parts. If installing Windows again make sure that the activate option is turned off, I only ever activate when forced to by a Windows update or once I'm happy the installation hasn't gone pear shaped.

[Blackeagle]

Dunno if this is any help, but it purports to be the 9.18.13.1106 version.  Certainly the date of 26^th Feb 2013 of the files in the cabinet would suggest it's around the right era.  Unfortunately, it doesn't specify whether it's 32 or 64 bit 

http://download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/driver/drvs/2013/03/20541072_5e7775bac444ee4192dda74c4421baa3bb8ef48f.cab

Also, I hesitate to say it, but all your woes kitz are excellent reasons for moving away from that unfortunate OS 

[kitz]

Thank you

Ive just gone through the PC (whilst it has hardly anything on it) and deleted just about anything I can find on the PC relating to nvidia aside from the actual driver files and dlls etc. 
Gone are 3D Vision, GFExperience, NVStreamSvc. Deleted the crap it puts at the rootof c:/ & uninstalled the Updater.

This is all I have left now - I need the CPanel to run dual monitor. I dont seem to have had any issues in the past with PhysX
I just noticed theres still a user ecperience driver component hidden somewhere as nvxdsync.exe, so perhaps I should try track that down too.

Thanks for the explanation on the sound devices. Interesting that you chose not to install them, but they did.  Its also interesting that you had issues with GFExperience. Newtron Star also had issues with 332.21. 

I 'think' and judging from bits of info I could pick up on the NVidia forums, its GFExperience that installs NvStreamSvc.  This is a network Service for streaming to the nVidia Shield. I saw mention somewhere on their forums that there's an suspicion it doesnt deal with TCP Rwin very well (ie not at all), which could explain why I was getting very erratic speeds.  Last night I did a TCP test at Visualroute. I wish I could kept the results to show because they were really abysmal with hundreds of retransmits and dropped packets and showed an average of just 3Mbps to their London server.   

Anyhow as soon as I removed everything, my speeds went straight back to 72Mbps,  and it now takes 5 seconds to boot into windows and about 4 seconds to connect to the network which I can cope with - much better than 5 mins.

Ive been running it like that for > 5 hours and I dont seem to have had any artifacts or screen freezes and touch wood it seems stable.


Im beginning to suspect that its the GFExperience and all of its bulk for sure that is the main part of my issues.  If you arent careful then this will autoinstall.  I can definitely confirm that GFExperience is installed as part of the update via w-update and it WILL install it without giving you any option as it classes the NVidia drivers an important update.


I'll leave it like this for today, I want to see if it continues to be stable before going through days of installing everything back on.   Ive not even put mail back on cause Office/outlook takes ages, and I dont want to mess with my backups. 

Im not happy that there may be still bits of unwanted nvidia garbage hanging around what I think I may do is do another fresh install of Windows, having the drivers I want ready (see reply to BlackEagle)...  or I could use another nvidia version which unlike the w-update gives you more control over which parts you install.
Unfortunately that takes me to Weds & Thurs, which means no time to do anything much.  So its probably going to be weekend before I can even start getting my system up and running again properly.

As it stands right now - I am 99% sure that NVStream causes the network issues, and fairly certain GFExperience is what is causing the Blue/Black & frozen screens.
Either way I will just have to ensure that neither of them go any where near my PC again.

[kitz]

@ BlackEagle.

Thank you very much for those drivers they're 32bit, but by using the file name reference, I was able to backtrack and find a 64bit version.

I'll reference here in case anyone else is looking 

Vista/Win7/Win8 x32 = 2013/03/20541072_5e7775bac444ee4192dda74c4421baa3bb8ef48f.cab
Vista/Win7/Win8 x64 = 2013/03/20541077_3cdf18b8840f06c4a2ea18a11897a80f1e94500a.cab

64bit version can be downloaded here

Re Windows, whilst Vista wasnt great, XP was stable, I ran it for >10yrs on various machines without any issues.  Win7 was fine too and that is very stable.. or was until I encountered the nvidia issue last Nov.  Just go look at the nvidia forums and see what a god-damn mess of things they have caused for so many people... and still theyve not resolved it.   Until the nvidia episode Id not seen a blue screen in well over 12yrs.

There's reports on there of the nvidia driver causing physical damage to hardware and even some of the previous fanbois have admitted that they would never have thought that a software issue could cause hardware damage - until now.   

Makes you wonder about my OCZ drive doesnt it.  The amount of blue screens re the nvidia issue I was getting, could this have contributed towards the drive failure?  I dont think it will have helped. :/

[kitz]

Because I've come to the conclusion that I will having to do another fresh install of Windows, I decided to do some testing just to satisfy myself that this is a problem with the nvidia drivers or not.  These are the results - draw your own conclusion.

-----------
START

At the start of the test  I was getting

~ 72.5 Mbps speeds on TBB speedtester
~ Network would take on average 4 seconds to connect (I can speed this up a tad - Im still using DHCP)
~ Id had no Screen freezes since uninstalling the previous nvidia software (>6 hours)

-----

INSTALL DRIVER PACKAGE

Installed nvidia drivers 335.23 direct from their website and let it do an express install.



This is what it installed:
Red x shows what new items were installed, the tick shows just an updated driver no.




It took 6 mins to discover my network and get an internet connection after a cold boot.
I went to TBB and did a speed test.



I did a Line quality assesment at Visualware



I'll add the full results as an attachment - its a bit to big to post in the thread, but it makes interesting reading

Just 15/20 mins after installing the driver package I encountered my first screen freeze and had to do a full & ungraceful reboot of the system.

------------
UNINSTALL


Uninstalled most of the nVidia stuff via CP add/remove.



It still leaves an awful amount of rubbish on your PC
Theres a large file at the root of C: which is no longer needed.
Below is just some of the files left behind which shouldnt be needed in  C:/progs/Nvidia/Installer.
c:/Program Files(x86)/Nvidia/ seems relatively clean and just contains what I need for the Control Panel, PhysX & a few dll files.



It takes 4 secs to discover the network after a windows boot,
and this is a speedtest from TBB

[burakkucat]

Do you actually need to load any nVidia software? Is it possible to use the hardware in purely basic VESA mode?

If the answers to the above are unfortunately "yes & no", then maybe time has come to replace the nVidia graphics controller with something completely different? 

[Ronski]

Nice bit of research there Kitz, amazing just what affect it had on your PC, what's it coming to when we get all this rubbish installed on our computers, it should be a clear option to install it.

I think the answer is to do a custom install, and only install the graphics driver and physX, and make sure Windows Update is not set to automatically install drivers.

I think if Nvidia keep up with this rubbish then my next graphics card purchase will be from AMD, and considering I'm running two 680's in SLI that's a fair chunk of money.