System: Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe v1.01 (Aggressive setting in BIOS), 3200+ CPU, matched set of OCZ EL Dual-Channel PC3200 Ram (512x2), Enermax 430 W power supply, Seagate ST3200822AS HD (Serial ATA) x 2 (RAID 0), ATI 9600XT All-In-Wonder, Plextor PX-708a & Toshiba SDM-1612 CD-ROMS, Maxtor 6Y120LO IDE HD (as backup).
I found all of the latest drivers (v5.10) for NVIDIA’s nforce2 ultra 400 chip to be trouble-free except for one: v2.6 IDE ATA/ATAPI controller driver.
Let me explain. I couldn’t play CD’s on either of my IDE CD ROMS without cut-outs and hangs. The first place I looked was the IDE ATA/ATAPI controller in Device Manager. I didn’t find anything out of order except that the controller had designated one of my CD-ROM drives as PIO mode. Knowing that I needed DMA mode to play CD’s, I switched to “Let BIOS decide which mode to use” and rebooted. I then checked Device Manager again and saw that the controller had designated PIO mode again—it wouldn’t list the drive as DMA no matter how many times I changed the setting. Even on the one CD-ROM that was listed as DMA, the problem of cut-outs and stops while playing CD’s happened on that drive, too.
I knew it had to be the IDE controller as the culprit because I could play CD’s on my external USB CD-ROM drive (doesn’t go through the IDE controller). So, I went back into Device Manager, double clicked on IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers and hit Update Driver. My SP/2 version of XP has “the latest” IDE drivers so I hit the Manually Select From A List on the Update Driver Wizard and found the old version of NVIDIA’s nforce2 IDE Controller and selected that and installed it in place of the v2.6 driver.
Sure enough, after rebooting all of my music playing problems off of CD’s disappeared!
This whole episode tells me that if you are having troubles with any device on your system, go search for other drivers—even older ones . . . they just might work. Don’t be afraid to substitute drivers from bundles like NVIDIA’s set of chipset drivers.
I found all of the latest drivers (v5.10) for NVIDIA’s nforce2 ultra 400 chip to be trouble-free except for one: v2.6 IDE ATA/ATAPI controller driver.
Let me explain. I couldn’t play CD’s on either of my IDE CD ROMS without cut-outs and hangs. The first place I looked was the IDE ATA/ATAPI controller in Device Manager. I didn’t find anything out of order except that the controller had designated one of my CD-ROM drives as PIO mode. Knowing that I needed DMA mode to play CD’s, I switched to “Let BIOS decide which mode to use” and rebooted. I then checked Device Manager again and saw that the controller had designated PIO mode again—it wouldn’t list the drive as DMA no matter how many times I changed the setting. Even on the one CD-ROM that was listed as DMA, the problem of cut-outs and stops while playing CD’s happened on that drive, too.
I knew it had to be the IDE controller as the culprit because I could play CD’s on my external USB CD-ROM drive (doesn’t go through the IDE controller). So, I went back into Device Manager, double clicked on IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers and hit Update Driver. My SP/2 version of XP has “the latest” IDE drivers so I hit the Manually Select From A List on the Update Driver Wizard and found the old version of NVIDIA’s nforce2 IDE Controller and selected that and installed it in place of the v2.6 driver.
Sure enough, after rebooting all of my music playing problems off of CD’s disappeared!
This whole episode tells me that if you are having troubles with any device on your system, go search for other drivers—even older ones . . . they just might work. Don’t be afraid to substitute drivers from bundles like NVIDIA’s set of chipset drivers.
