Mwarhead Remixed Nforce Drivers

***Zardon*** · Sep 27, 2003, 03:01 PM

Disillusioned with the current state of offical Nforce driver packages? Mwarhead sent me an email today explaining about his remixed Nforce drivers and needed some help with mirroring. He has made various sets based on nvidia nforce drivers with modifications. You can look into these modifications in more detail on his home site here.

To download these drivers head to the bottom of this page in our download section

NEW UPDATED DRIVERS: Mwarhead's 2.45a Remix For Win 2k & Xp

So why this release??? Aopen leaked a Nvidia Nforce driver set version
2.62. I examined the drivers and found that the Ethernet driver was
actually older so I left the 3.39. The Gart, the SMBus, and the Memory
controller were the same. The IDE In the Box driver is newer, can't tell
you whats new about it other then Nforce 3 support, which may or may not
work with my 2k ide driver as I don't have nforce 3 to test it on. The
audio driver is also newer, but does not seem to work with the control
panel I have merged part of the 3.62 with the 3.48.

This Release contains for these drivers for 2k & Xp

Audio driver 3.48 With 3.62 OpenAl files (For Improved
Game Performance)
Audio utilities 3.48 International Version
Network driver 3.39 (WHQL) (Actually newer the leaked 3.46)
GART driver 3.34 (WHQL)
Memory controller driver 3.38 (WHQL)
SMBus driver 3.38 (WHQL)
Installer 3.42
USB driver

XP Only Drivers

SW Ide Driver 3.44
In The Box 3.43
Firewire 1.1 (Install manually if needed)

This Release contains these drivers for 2k & Xp

Audio driver 3.48 (WHQL)
Audio utilities 3.48
Network driver 3.39 (WHQL)
GART driver 3.34 (WHQL)
Memory controller driver 3.38 (WHQL) + TOT.nvu
SMBus driver 3.38 (WHQL) + TOT.nvu
Installer 3.42
Display drivers 44.03
USB driver

XP Only Drivers

SW Ide Driver 3.44
In The Box 2.70
Firewire 1.1 (Install manually if needed)

2k Only Drivers

Mwarhead's Nforce Winxp to Win2 conversion IDE driver 1.4 based off of Nvidia XP driver

DISCLAIMER: As with all modified drivers, please install at your own risk, Driverheaven is not responsible for any possible loss of data, so at least make sure you backup data before installing.

Discuss in our forum by clicking the "view article comments above"

~~craig588~~ · Sep 27, 2003, 03:24 PM

hmm interesting. Downloading now.

RIV@NVX · Sep 27, 2003, 03:32 PM

Weren't some problems reason why NVIDIA avoided including IDE driver for XP (and thus recommended using standard Windows drivers)?
Because now VIA doesn't included it either (at least for Win2k3).

~~craig588~~ · Sep 27, 2003, 03:36 PM

Zardon do you use them? How well do they work? The site doesn't provide much information about what was done to these drivers or why.

***Zardon*** · Sep 27, 2003, 03:41 PM

I havent had the chance to try them yet, ive been reinstalling my main machine as my power supply took out my barton, motherboard and 9800 pro recently. but ive heard good things about these sets, they combine all the best parts of the newer sets....... if you read the lower section on his site he explains some of his modding.

I will try them as soon as I get back up and running, I think the Driverheaven members will be able to test these drivers well, we have a good educated bunch of guys on this forum.

As always if you are unsure, please dont install.

~~craig588~~ · Sep 27, 2003, 03:43 PM

Whoa, and I thought I got hit bad from losing just my r9800.

***Zardon*** · Sep 27, 2003, 03:44 PM

ive replaced the motherboard and the barton and im using the quadro FX atm, so its not too bad

ok guys lets have some feedback on these nforce drivers, lets hear what you think !

Mwarhead · Sep 27, 2003, 04:53 PM

The SW drivers are optional, but the performance is better with them. The list of known bugs is in the readme.

When in the installer it will ask you if you want to install Nvidia SW IDE Drivers. Yes or No.

Opps its not in the readme for the current release.

What are your drivers optimized for?

The point is to provide the latest driver versions and performance. It's to make it easier to get everything in one package.

The SW IDE Driver- What are the issues?

1) Does not work with some CDRW Software such as CDRwin
Try installing force aspi as it may fix this. Do a search in google for it.

2) Does not work with all CDRWs/ DVD Rws
Try setting the mode manually if it's a older burner try setting on PIO mode.

3) Hdd Shut down bug- Hard drives attached to the Nvidia IDE controller (not other controllers or SATA controllers) may turn on and off real quickly when doing a warm boot (restart) this can be potentially damageing to the drive if done frequently. Work around is to shut the computer off and then turn back on.

4) I use SATA should I install these? I assume you only use SATA for the HDD. If you have an IDE HDD or a high speed burner that isn't performing well, then yes if you want the best performance and understand the issues. If everything is SATA or you have no issues then no.

Remeber the SW ide drivers are completely optional, the Remix will not install them unless you click yes. I do recommend people try them as they offer much better perfomance and if they don't work for you usually you can just switch back the the Generic IDE driver or the In the Box driver which is also included in my remix.

// Yes I just hinted at the fact that I am working on a new release for 2k and XP.

BWX · Sep 27, 2003, 05:18 PM

Is there any way I can JUST install the updated ethernet driver?

PoopyTheJ · Sep 27, 2003, 05:46 PM

What is TOT.nvu? Anyone know?

Mwarhead · Sep 27, 2003, 07:02 PM

Yes you can install just the ethernet driver. You can do it manually. In device manager.

I have no clue what the tot.nvu means it's nvidia talk. It's in nvidia's read me for that part of the driver.

In the next release I will cut it out so not to confuse anyone.

Chaos · Sep 27, 2003, 07:12 PM

I tried them without a clean install and had problems, but after a format and re-install all seems well...3DMark01 seems a bit slower have not done any other testing yet

DarkFoss · Sep 27, 2003, 07:21 PM

Mwarhead does an excellent job of remixing the drivers. I've used past sets before after visiting nforcershq where his work is well known. The only problem I had was with a past sw ide driver, after installing it it turned my cd-roms to scsi devices and I lost burning capabilities. I'm going to give these a whirl when I reformat and give the sata raid a try. Hopefully the newer version of the sw ide driver will not have the same problems.

BWX · Sep 27, 2003, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DarkFoss
Hopefully the newer version of the sw ide driver will not have the same problems.

I just bought an Nforce2 board and installed the IDE drivers from the disc- I think they were the most recent- I had all those problems w/ the IDE devices too- I got rid of those IDE (SCSI?) drivers as fast as I could.

Mwarhead · Sep 27, 2003, 08:13 PM

If it is reporting them as SCSI then its the In The Box XP driver.

BWX · Sep 27, 2003, 09:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mwarhead
If it is reporting them as SCSI then its the In The Box XP driver.

Now that you say that, I remember now that I used the downloaded drivers from the ABIT site. I was gonna use the disc, but figured it must be outdated. I ultimately used the ones from Nvidia- the latest ones, with the outaded ethernet driver. I wonder why they did that?

WildChild · Sep 27, 2003, 09:15 PM

Ive been using his drivers for awhile ...I'll agree he does a great job mixin em up for the nforce boards

Mwarhead · Sep 28, 2003, 01:20 AM

New version 2.45a

Get it at www.mwarhead.com

~~HawK~~ · Sep 28, 2003, 01:54 AM

Hi Mwarhead how is life

Vampyromaniac · Sep 28, 2003, 02:12 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mwarhead
The SW IDE Driver- What are the issues?

1) Does not work with some CDRW Software such as CDRwin
Try installing force aspi as it may fix this. Do a search in google for it.

2) Does not work with all CDRWs/ DVD Rws
Try setting the mode manually if it's a older burner try setting on PIO mode.

3) Hdd Shut down bug- Hard drives attached to the Nvidia IDE controller (not other controllers or SATA controllers) may turn on and off real quickly when doing a warm boot (restart) this can be potentially damageing to the drive if done frequently. Work around is to shut the computer off and then turn back on.

4) I use SATA should I install these? I assume you only use SATA for the HDD. If you have an IDE HDD or a high speed burner that isn't performing well, then yes if you want the best performance and understand the issues. If everything is SATA or you have no issues then no.

Is there an older IDE driver that has good performance, but without these issues? If so, why not use that one instead?

The_Neon_Cowboy · Sep 28, 2003, 02:22 AM

nvidia ide drivers suck!

Mwarhead · Sep 28, 2003, 02:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vampyromaniac
Is there an older IDE driver that has good performance, but without these issues? If so, why not use that one instead?

Nope thats the problem

Vampyromaniac · Sep 28, 2003, 02:42 AM

"doh"

***Zardon*** · Sep 28, 2003, 03:43 AM

2.45a now available for download from the same page on driverheaven downloads.

Judas · Sep 28, 2003, 07:15 AM

I think i might give these drivers a try WHEN i get my NF7-S..... erg...