NVidia Drivers can't be installed?

[Miguel De Anda]

Ok, I'm on my second install of Windows XP Pro (this one has lasted me a
full 2 months), and I am having problems with my video card drivers. I have
an NVidia 440 MX and XP has given me grief about the card during this entire
install (of the os).

The first time I installed the drivers, I kept getting errors whenever a
program tried to use gpu acceleration (such as games). I would get an error
message about the geometry or something being bad. It gave me the option to
continue or cancel, I had to press continue about 30-50 times until the
program would start (Ghost Recon in particular).

I recently started taking a class on OpenGL and I wasn't able to run the
programs at all because the error message never got past the continue/cancel
stage. I ended up reinstalling the video card drivers but only to get myself
into bigger problems. I now find that XP doesn't remember that I have
installed the video card drivers. Every time I boot, it says it finds new
hardware and asks for drivers and such. I have gone through and installed
them a few more times but it doens't seem to remember.

Now I guess I can go and install windows 98 back on my laptop (a different
machine) but that would mean possibly breaking my linux install (which is
using the entire 10 gig drive). I would almost be ok with losing gpu
acceleration for now (until class is finished) except that the everything
runs slow now. I can't even scroll text or move a windows because it takes
up so much cpu time.

Short of reinstalling XP again, what can I do?

The first time I installed the video card (and drivers) was during my first
install of XP and it worked fine. So I don't think its the video card that
is giving problems. The video card also works fine when I boot off my 2nd hd
to linux.

 

[Quaoar]

Ok, I'm on my second install of Windows XP Pro (this one has lasted
me a full 2 months), and I am having problems with my video card
drivers. I have an NVidia 440 MX and XP has given me grief about the
card during this entire install (of the os).

The first time I installed the drivers, I kept getting errors
whenever a program tried to use gpu acceleration (such as games). I
would get an error message about the geometry or something being bad.
It gave me the option to continue or cancel, I had to press continue
about 30-50 times until the program would start (Ghost Recon in
particular).

I recently started taking a class on OpenGL and I wasn't able to run
the programs at all because the error message never got past the
continue/cancel stage. I ended up reinstalling the video card drivers
but only to get myself into bigger problems. I now find that XP
doesn't remember that I have installed the video card drivers. Every
time I boot, it says it finds new hardware and asks for drivers and
such. I have gone through and installed them a few more times but it
doens't seem to remember.

Now I guess I can go and install windows 98 back on my laptop (a
different machine) but that would mean possibly breaking my linux
install (which is using the entire 10 gig drive). I would almost be
ok with losing gpu acceleration for now (until class is finished)
except that the everything runs slow now. I can't even scroll text or
move a windows because it takes up so much cpu time.

Short of reinstalling XP again, what can I do?

The first time I installed the video card (and drivers) was during my
first install of XP and it worked fine. So I don't think its the
video card that is giving problems. The video card also works fine
when I boot off my 2nd hd to linux.

At this point, I would bite the bullet and reinstall XP without the card
installed. Then install it as if it were a new card, following the
install procedures exactly. With XP's flawed hardware manager, there is
little else that is productive in cases like you are experiencing, IMO.

Q