What is the ATI Northbridge Driver?

[Guest]

I have the Visiontek Theater 550 MCE video card and I'm using the latest 7.1
drivers for Vista. I noticed that there is the Catalyst driver, the Theatre
550 Pro drive and an ATI Northbridge Driver.

If I install the Northbridge driver, it causes my mouse and other USB
devices to no longer function, so I don't install it.

Is it necessary? Here is my hardware setup:

ASUS A8N-E Motherboard with nForce Ultra chipset
AMD 64 X2 4200+
2 gigs of RAM
ATI X1950 Pro PCI-E w/256MB memory
Visiontek Xtasy Theatre 550 Pro MCE
IR Blaster
250Gig Seagate Baracuda SATA II
310Gig Seagate Baracuda SATA II
NEC DVD RW 16X IDE
Floppy drive (yeah, I know!)

I just wasn't sure if the Northbridge driver was necessary or is this for
ATI chipset motherboards?

Thanks!

 

[Don]

...I noticed that there is the Catalyst driver, the Theatre
550 Pro drive and an ATI Northbridge Driver...

I'm not just picking at grammar nits, honest, but the phrase
'there is' is ambiguous. Installed by default, offered by
Windows Update, available from the mobo manufacturer?

More details, please.

 

[Guest]

No biggie. When I launch the Catalyst installer, it lists the following
drivers to install:

Catalyst Driver
Theatre 550 Pro driver
ATI Northbridge Driver

I was just wondering what the ATI Northbridge Driver was for? I've been
having issues with Vista Media Center bombing out on me when it tries to do a
scheduled recording, so when I checked, I noticed that the 550 Pro drive and
the ATI Northbridge Driver were not installed, but when I had installed the
Northbridge Driver, it caused my mouse and other USB devices to no longer
function until I removed it.

 

[Robert Moir]

No biggie. When I launch the Catalyst installer, it lists the following
drivers to install:

Catalyst Driver
Theatre 550 Pro driver
ATI Northbridge Driver

I was just wondering what the ATI Northbridge Driver was for?

It's a driver to support a particular ATI brand of motherboard, I should
imagine. Is the motherboard on your computer made by ATI?

 

[Glenn Shaw]

I have the Visiontek Theater 550 MCE video card and I'm using the
latest 7.1 drivers for Vista. I noticed that there is the Catalyst
driver, the Theatre 550 Pro drive and an ATI Northbridge Driver.

If I install the Northbridge driver, it causes my mouse and other USB
devices to no longer function, so I don't install it.

Is it necessary?

No, it's not necessary. IIRC, the ATI Northbridge Driver is only for
motherboards with ATI chipsets; yours has an NVIDIA nForce chipset, and, as
you found out the hard way, installing the (incompatible) ATI NB driver
screws things up.

 

[Guest]

It's a driver to support a particular ATI brand of motherboard, I should
imagine. Is the motherboard on your computer made by ATI?

That's what I figured. My board has an nVidia chipset (nForce 4 Ultra). The
board is an ASUS A8N-E, and that's what I figured the driver was for, so it
doesn't apply to me, but I wanted to be sure.

Thanks!