optimized nForce chipset driverpacks for Vista (32/64bit)

[Fernando 1]

@ all Vista users with an nForce 4/5/6/7 series chipset mainboard:

Actual information (dated 01/14/2010):
Although I had stopped the support of this thread in October 2009, I have now updated my modded "NF4-7 Performance Packs" and "NF4-7 Actual Driverpacks" for Vista and Win7 (32/64bit) again.
The main reason was, that I have realized some additional defencies within NVIDIA's actual Vista and Win7 nForce driver sets 15.49/15.51/15.53:

1. The WHQL signed SMU driver does not support the device "Coprocessor" of all related MCP chipsets.
2. The INF file of the original Ethernet drivers v73.xx have some wrong entries, which might affect the proper installation of this driver under Windows 7.

Although I have not been responsable for these defencies, I decided to correct them within my modded driverpacks.
At this opportunity I have updated some other parts of my modded driverpacks.

• This does not mean, that I will restart the support of this thread.
• Users, who want to know the best suitable driverpack for their system, should read this post carefully and maybe test different sets.
• Please don't bother me with PM's or eMails.

Thanks for your understanding!
Fernando

Preliminary notes
Many users with an nForce chipset mainboard, who are running or going to install Vista (32/64bit), are searching for actual nForce chipset drivers, which are suitable for their special chipset and will give them the best possible performance and stability of their system. NVIDIA itself doesn't offer them.
This was the reason why I started this thread.
Besides some other nForcersHQ Forum members it was mainly TwL, who helped me to find the best nForce driver mixture for each nForce chipset series. Whithout their assistance I wouldn't have been able to present these "Best for NF4-7" chipset driver packages.
If you want further informations about TwL's benchmark results and his review about the properties and features of all actual nForce IDE drivers and the impact done by different Ethernet driver versions, you should have a look into this special thread.
For whom are these driverpacks suitable?
The installation of my driverpacks makes sense for owners of an nForce chipset mainboard, who ran into problems with NVIDIA's official packs (for example NF4 RAID users) or who are searching for a driverpack combination, which gives them a better performance (owners of all NF4-7 chipsets).
Important:

1. Only my "NF4-7 Actual Driverpacks" are optimized for the advanced AHCI features, which are supported by the newest nForce chipsets from MCP65 up. Users, who want to run their SATA hdd(s) in full "AHCI Mode", but avoid to install any modified driver, may take NVIDIA's official driversets.
2. All my packages contain the untouched original NVIDIA drivers (that are the files with the extension ".SYS"). The customization of my "modded" driverpacks concerns just the associated text files (with the extension ".INF") to make the original drivers compatible with other nForce chipsets.

Here are my actual nForce chipset driver packages for Vista x86/x64:
Last update: 01/14/2010
Changelog:
- updated: modded 32/64bit "NF4-7 Performance Packs for Vista (now v6.0)
- latest updated: modded 32/64bit "NF4-7 Actual Driverpacks" for Vista and Win7 (now v7.2)

A. "Vista WHQL Driver Packs":

1. "Special WHQL Performance Packs"
(usable with MCP51, MCP55, nForce 680i/650i and nForce 780i/750i chipsets)

Changelog:
- nothing

Here are the download links to my "Special WHQL Performance Packs" (with multilingual installer):

32bit driverpack v5.9 for Vista x86:
Main download link (eSnips)
Mirror (MediaFire)

64bit driverpack v5.9 for Vista x64:
Main download link (eSnips)
Mirror (MediaFire)

These are the components:

Code: Select all

Ethernet Driver (v67.89) WHQL
SATAIDE Driver (v9.99.09) WHQL 
SATARAID Driver (v9.99.09) WHQL 
RAIDTOOL Application (v9.99.09) "Sedona" 
SMU Driver (v1.71) WHQL
SMBus Driver (v4.69) WHQL
HDAudio Driver (v1.00.0.55) WHQL
optional IDE driver registry cleaner (made by TwL)
Installer (v6.14)

Informations:

• Compatibility:
  • My "WHQL Performance Packs" are fully supporting nForce 430/410 (=MCP51), nForce 590/570/550 (=MCP55), nForce 680i/650i and nForce 780i/750i chipset mainboards. Users with other chipsets, who want to enhance their performance, have to take one of the "Modded Vista Performance Packs" (see below).
  • These packs are not designed for systems, where the SATA hdd(s) is/are running in "AHCI mode". Users, who are searching for an suitable driver set, which will fully support the AHCI features, should take the suitable "AHCI Driverpack" (see below within the "Modded Vista Driverpacks" section).
• Performance details:
  The nForce IDE drivers v9.99.09 of my "Performance Packs" are as rock stable as the 10.3.0.46 ones, but have a better performance. Users will get the best results, if these IDE drivers are combined with Ethernet drivers, which do not drop the speed. The Ethernet drivers v67.8x series obviously are the best choice as partner of the 9.99.09 IDE drivers (tested and reported by TwL, look here).

2. "Special NF4 RAID WHQL Driverpacks"
(approved WHQL driver combination for NF4 RAID systems)

Changelog:
- nothing

Users with an nForce4 RAID system may run into problems, when they try to get Vista installed with the newest nForce SataRaid drivers from scratch.
This is the reason why I still offer these special WHQL signed Vista driverpacks for users with an NF4 RAID system.

Here are the download links (with multilingual installer):

32bit driverpack v5.7 for Vista x86:
Main download link (eSnips)
Mirror (MediaFire)

64bit driverpack v5.7 for Vista x64:
Main download link (eSnips)
Mirror (MediaFire)

These are the components of these special Vista packages:

Code: Select all

Ethernet Driver (v67.89) WHQL
SATAIDE Driver (v9.98) WHQL 
SATARAID Driver (v9.98) WHQL 
RAIDTOOL Application (v9.99) "Sedona"
SMBus Driver (v4.69) WHQL
optional IDE driver registry cleaner (made by TwL)
Installer (v6.14)

Notice:

• Contrary to NVIDIA's officially offered nForce chipset driver sets these packs are fully supporting nForce4 RAID systems. Users with such hardware configuration can use the included nForce IDE drivers v9.98 even from scratch by loading them during the Vista installation. For further details you may look into this guide.

You may use all above presented packages at own risk.

Any feedback is much appreciated - whether you succeeded with the driver installation or not.
Please add a short information about the OS, the used package and your nForce chipset.


Attention:

Update of the Ethernet drivers:
The Ethernet drivers, which are part of my nForce chipset driver packages, are running fine with nearly all nForce chipsets, if they are installed the correct way:

• The running Ethernet drivers should not be just updated! You have to uninstall the previously loaded Ethernet drivers before you are going to install a new Ethernet drver version.
• If the Ethernet ports are in teaming mode, you have to set them to normal mode before you are going to update the Ethernet drivers.
• After the installation of the new Ethernet drivers you should verify, that the hidden device ("View" > "show hidden devices") named "Bus Enumerator" has been updated too. Otherwise the Ethernet Controller will not work. Some nForce chipset mainboards need more than 1 reboot to get the Ethernet devices (Bus Enumerator and Network Controller) completely and properly installed.

Update of the nForce IDE drivers:

1. It is always risky to replace previously installed nForce IDE drivers by other ones, especially with nForce RAID systems, but you can minimize the risks. After having run the installer of the suitable nForce chipset driver package with checked "Storage Driver" or "MediaShield" update, you should NOT REBOOT unless you have checked, that all NVIDIA related Storage and RAID devices have been successfully updated.
   This is what you should do:
   1. Open the "Device Manager", select "View" and check the "Show hidden devices" option.
   2. Open the "Storage Controllers" section and look for the actual driver version (right click > "Properties" > "Driver") of ALL listed "NVIDIA RAID Controllers" and ALL listed RAID Devices (with the name of your RAIDed hdd's). If needed, do a manual driver update by loading the SATARAID driver folder content and using the "Have Disk..." option.
   3. Search for devices named "NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller" (within the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" or "Storage Controllers" section) and look for their actual driver version. If needed, do a manual driver update by loading the SATA_IDE driver folder content and using the "Have Disk..." option.
   4. NOW YOU CAN REBOOT.
2. If Vista 32/64bit should refuse the direct update of the running nForce IDE drivers, you may have to manually "downgrade" to the Vista in-box ones (Vista RTM: v8.22, Vista SP1: v8.30/8.33) as first step. The NVIDIA S-ATA and RAID devices with these drivers are shown as compatible, when you try to "update" the drivers as written above.
   Once the "downgrade" is completed and you have rebooted, you probably will be able to get the new nForce IDE drivers installed (maybe even by running the installer of the package).
3. Use of the optional registry cleaner (made by TwL):
   Since NVIDIA has renamed their Vista nForce IDE drivers and due to the fact, that only nForce IDE drivers with exactly the same name will be overwritten by a driver update, it is possible, that previously installed nForce IDE drivers will remain within the system. These "old" drivers can drop the performance and even let the system crash.
   That is why all my Vista nForce chipset driver packs now contain an "optional.reg" file, which is able to erase all registry entries regarding previously installed nForce IDE drivers. You will find this REG file and a text file how to use it within a new folder named "optional after IDE driver update".
4. Driver update via Windows Update:
   It is highly recommended to disable the automatic Windows Update option, because otherwise you risk, that you get nForce drivers installed, which are broken or worse than those you had previously installed yourself. If Windows Update is offering any new nForce chipset driver, you should only accept it, if you are sure, that the update is useful and safe.

Additional informations:

1. None of the above presented nForce chipset driver packages do contain any modified driver file. So all included nForce drivers (IDE, Ethernet and SMBus) are fully WHQL certified by Microsoft.
   What I have done is just putting the newest and best WHQL certified Vista(32/64bit) nForce drivers, which are natively compatible with (almost) all nForce chipsets from nForce4 up, together into 1 single package.
2. You won't find a NAM folder with NVIDIA's "Network Management Tools" within my packages, because they are useless for nearly everyone and may cause problems. Big advantage: The download is much quicker due to the small package size.
3. Although I am very confident, that these new nForce chipset drivers will work with the applied nForce chipsets, I recommend to use these drivers for a clean install of Vista (32/64bit). Especially the update of the nForce SataRaid drivers from within a running OS is always a risk and the success of an update depends on the version of the previously installed nForce IDE drivers.
4. You won't be able to get any nForce IDE driver (not even the S-ATA one) installed by running the installer of any pack unless you have checked the "MediaShield" or "Storage Drivers" option!
5. When you have run the installer of a Vista nForce chipset driver package, you should verify after the reboot, if all nForce chipset drivers really have been updated. It is a known issue of nearly all NVIDIA's Vista nForce chipset driver installers, that they will not automaticly update all previously installed nForce drivers. So you should compare the driver versions and - where necessary - do the driver update manually within the device manager.
6. The new nForce SataRaid drivers require an up-to-date mainboard BIOS and nVRaid BIOS (MediaShield ROM) version.
7. Don't be astonished or even afraid, if you get a "safely remove hardware" icon within the systray after having installed any of the new nForce IDE drivers. This is not a bug, but a feature of the new generation of nForce S-ATA drivers with AHCI support.

Have fun!
Fernando
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Annex:

B. Modded NF4-7 chipset driverpacks for Vista:

Although this thread was started by me with the strong intention not to present any Vista packages with modded drivers, I decided to add them, but outside the regular part of my thread starter.
Reason:
Unfortunately NVIDIA didn't yet present WHQL certified Vista nForce IDE drivers, which are running flawlessly with all NF4-7 chipsets. That is why there obviously is still a need of "modded" drivers. A lot of users are wanting the best suitable drivers for their nForce chipset and don't set a high value on their WHQL certification.

General informations regarding the use of unsigned Vista drivers:

• The presence or absence of the WHQL stamp has no influence at all on the function of the drivers.
• It is not true, that Vista's built-in "Driver integrity check" does not allow to install any modded/unsigned drivers. It is no problem to get my "modded" nForce IDE drivers installed onto a running Vista x86/x64 (nForce RAID users should comply with my special nForce RAID driver update instructions).
  Only disadvantage of unsigned drivers is the installation procedure:
  1. They cannot be loaded from scratch, if users are booting off the Vista SP1 DVD. But once Vista is up, even the "modded" drivers of these driverpacks can be installed.
  2. The driver update has to be forced by using the "Have Disk..." method (otherwise you get the message, that the "best" driver has already been installed).

Here are my actual "modded" Vista packs with the currently fastest nForce drivers for NF4-7 chipsets:

1. "NF4-7 Performance Packs")
(according to TwL fastest nForce driver combination for non-AHCI SATA systems, suitable for all chipsets from NF4 up)

Changelog:
- customized: SMU driver v1.71 (supporting the related devices of all MCP chipsets)
- updated: customized SMBus "drivers" (now v4.74)
- updated: HDAudio driver (now v1.00.0.63 WHQL)

Here are the download links to my "NF4-7 Performance Packs":

32bit driverpack v6.0 for Vista x86:
Main download link (eSnips)
Mirror (MediaFire)

64bit driverpack v6.0 for Vista x64:
Main download link (eSnips)
Mirror (MediaFire)

These are the components:

Code: Select all

Ethernet Driver (v67.89) WHQL
SATAIDE Driver (v9.99.09) customized by Fernando 
SATARAID Driver (v9.99.09) customized by Fernando 
RAIDTOOL Application (v9.99.09) "Sedona" 
SMU Driver (v1.71) customized by Fernando
SMBus Driver (v4.74) customized by Fernando
HDAudio Driver (v1.00.0.63) WHQL
optional IDE driver registry cleaner (made by TwL)
Installer (v6.14)

Compatibility:

• These "modded" actual driverpacks are supporting all nForce chipsets from NF4 up (inclusive MCP79 and all Intel based nForce chipsets) and are working with all non-AHCI SATA and SataRAID systems.
• Contrary to NVIDIA's actual nForce chipset driver sets these driverpacks can be installed onto nForce4 (inclusive AMD Ultra-D) RAID systems without any problems (thanks to Drago for his reports).
  My advice for NF4 RAID users: If you are doing a fresh install of Vista, you should load the WHQL signed nForce IDE drivers v9.98. Once Vista is up, you can update to the IDE drivers v9.99.09 by using this package.
• Attention: Since the nForce IDE drivers are modified (to make them suitable with all NF4-7 chipsets), the included nForce S-ATA and RAID drivers cannot be used from scratch, if you are using a Vista DVD with integrated SP1.

2. "NF4-7 Actual Driverpacks"
(newest Vista/Win7 nForce chipset driver combination for NF4-7 chipsets)

Changelog:
- updated and bug fixed: Ethernet driver (now v73.20 with correct INF file)
- customized: SMU driver v1.71 (now supports the related devices of all MCP chipsets)
- updated: HDAudio driver (now v1.00.0.63 WHQL)

Here are the download links to these actual Vista/Win7 Driverpacks:

32bit driverpack v7.2 for Vista x86 and Win7 x86:
Main download link (eSnips)
Mirror (MediaFire)

64bit driverpack v7.2 for Vista x64 and Win7 x64:
Main download link (eSnips)
Mirror (MediaFire)

These are the components:

Code: Select all

Ethernet Driver (v73.20) corrected and customized by Fernando
SATAIDE Driver (v11.1.0.33) customized by Fernando 
SATARAID Driver (v11.1.0.33) customized by Fernando 
RAIDTOOL Application (v11.1.0.30) "Sedona" 
SMU Driver (v1.71) customized by Fernando
SMBus Driver (v4.74) customized by Fernando
HD Audio Driver (v1.00.0.63) WHQL
optional IDE driver registry cleaner (made by TwL)
Installer (v7.57)

Informations regarding these driverpacks:

• Reason for publishing these drivers:
  Recently NVIDIA has released new nForce chipset driver sets 15.49, 15.51 and 15.53 (look >here<)for Vista and Windows 7 (32/64bit). According to NVIDIA's Homepage these drivers are designed for many different NF4-7 chipsets, but obviously the Company made big mistakes while composing the sets:
  1. As a consequence of missing HardwareID's many nForce users will not be able to get all of these new Vista/Win7 drivers installed.
  2. The INF file of NVIDIA's original Ethernet driver v73.14 has some wrong entries, which may affect its proper installation while running Windows 7 (32/64bit).
  Both deficiencies have been corrected by me.
  
• Compatibility:
  • The drivers of these actual Driverpacks have been customized by me to make them usable with all NF4-7 chipsets. Nevertheless the included nForce IDE drivers will not work with nForce4 AMD/Intel systems.
    Note: Only users with an nForce4 AMD/Intel or similar chipset are affected by this issue, the nForce IDE drivers v11.1.0.33 of my Actual Driverpacks will work fine with nForce 430/410/405/400 chipsets! This issue has nothing to do with my work, but with the structure of the new nForce IDE drivers v10.x.x.xx and v11.x.x.xx series, which obviously are not compatible with nForce4 (AMD/Intel) systems. Affected users should take the modded "NF4-7 Performance Pack" or the "Special NF4 RAID WHQL Driverpack" (for nForce4 RAID users, who are planning a fresh install of Vista/Win7).
  • The nForce IDE drivers v11.1.0.33 do fully support the AHCI features (precondition: AHCI Mode is enabled within the BIOS)
• Performance details:
  Since I didn't yet get any benchmark results from users, who had installed these drivers, I cannot give any performance details.

General Notes:

• Best choice for RAID and non-RAID systems:
  All my driverpacks are working with RAID and non-RAID systems. Since each system is somehow unique, you have to find out yourself the best suitable one.
• NCQ and performance:
  This is what TwL wrote:

  NCQ is good while gaming. disabling it will speed up general disc speed specially with these drivers.

• Which nForce IDE driver has the best performance?
  Due to the big variety of hardware configurations, BIOS versions and user prefererences there will never be any driver, which is "the best for everyone".
• Regarding the update of the nForce Ethernet and IDE drivers please read the previous informations (chapter "Attention").

You may use the offered drivers at own risk.

Any feedback is much appreciated - whether you succeeded with the driver installation or not.
Please add a short information about the OS, the used package and your nForce chipset.

[jrmpls]

clean install of Vista Ultimate x64, ran your "updated" 9.46 package and everything installed flawlessly. Thanks a ton for your efforts! Now instead of having to dig thru 4 different installation packages to get the good stuff, it's all in one convenient place... again ... thanks a ton!

[Fernando 1]

clean install of Vista Ultimate x64, ran your "updated" 9.46 package and everything installed flawlessly. Thanks a ton for your efforts! Now instead of having to dig thru 4 different installation packages to get the good stuff, it's all in one convenient place... again ... thanks a ton!

Thanks for your report.
This may encourage other users to do the same.

[whitedragon]

Thanks!

[TwL]

What did you change on these? Don't see any change on compatible chipsets on IDE section all what is on these are the same which are on WHQL.. Hmm, well maybe I am wrong and didn't check those close enough but I know that there was already 6 HardwareIDs supported on WHQL and there still is 6 HardwareIDs on your modified.

Anyhow, It's still working rocksolid as you said v9.98 IDE/RAID are the best there is for nForce 4/7. I'd go with v10.x modded for 5/6 series since those seems as rocksolid as these on 590 and 630i boards and yet faster by some amount.

[bruce_wein]

Hey Fernnando1

Will those driver be compatible with Windows Server 2008 ?

Also will the RAID drivers be recognized while installing vista/server2008 with F6 and floppy ?

10x

[Fernando 1]

What did you change on these? Don't see any change on compatible chipsets on IDE section all what is on these are the same which are on WHQL.. Hmm, well maybe I am wrong and didn't check those close enough but I know that there was already 6 HardwareIDs supported on WHQL and there still is 6 HardwareIDs on your modified.

Why do you think, that I have modified something?
Please note:
These packages do not contain any modified INF file, otherwise the driver would have lost its WHQL stamp.
What I have done is just putting the newest and best WHQL certified Vista nForce drivers, which are natively compatible with (almost) all nForce chipsets from nForce4 up, together into 1 single package.

[TwL]

What did you change on these? Don't see any change on compatible chipsets on IDE section all what is on these are the same which are on WHQL.. Hmm, well maybe I am wrong and didn't check those close enough but I know that there was already 6 HardwareIDs supported on WHQL and there still is 6 HardwareIDs on your modified.

Why do you think, that I have modified something?
Please note:
These packages do not contain any modified INF file, otherwise the driver would have lost its WHQL stamp.
What I have done is just putting the newest and best WHQL certified Vista nForce drivers, which are natively compatible with (almost) all nForce chipsets from nForce4 up, together into 1 single package.

O.. that explains quite a bit.. hehe.. My bad.. though the WHQL was broken guess not then..

[Fernando 1]

O.. that explains quite a bit.. hehe.. My bad.. though the WHQL was broken guess not then..

Each modification of an INF file breaks the WHQL certification of the associated driver.

[kageon1]

O.. that explains quite a bit.. hehe.. My bad.. though the WHQL was broken guess not then..

Each modification of an INF file breaks the WHQL certification of the associated driver.

Hey Fernando 1, thanks for these drivers, working fine on my nForce 4 SLi (Vista x86) system. However two questions:

1) It seems these packages are missing the SMU Driver or is this not necessary?
So far these are the revisions for the last two releases:
SMU Driver (v1.31) WHQL 15.08 for Vista 32/64
- nForce 680i SLI/680i LT SLI
- nForce 680a SLI
- nForce 650i SLI
- nForce 590 SLI Intel

SMU Driver (v1.34) WHQL 16.08 for Vista 32/64
- nForce 630i
- nForce 610i

2) Would you consider packaging up one for XP32/64 with updated WHQL drivers? (I have a dual boot system.) All these remixed drivers for XP break WHQL certification that's why I'm asking.

Thanks again.