chipset drivers, when needed and when not

[blakerwry]

Just wondering your guys' opinions on when chipset drivers (ex VIA 4-in-1's) are needed and when they are not.

For example, Last time I installed win2k I felt it necessary to install the VIA 4-in-1 drivers, however I would not install them on a winXP box because they are not needed and actually seem to hurt overall performance.


I guess the popular chipset drivers are 1) Intel Application accelerator 2) VIA 4-in-1's (aka Hyperion), and 3) the NVidia Nforce Unified drivers...


Personally, i wouldn't install either the VIA or the Intel drivers on winXP or later. Everything goes for 9x and 2k however.

 

[honold]

i don't install 4-in-1s on xp unless i have problem, i install it on everything else

i do install intel's chipset infs (which impacts performance and gets some question marks out of device manager) and iaa on everything i personally use but usually not on cluster boxes at work/etc

 

[Clocker]

What do you guys think about the SiS735 drivers?

C

 

[honold]

hm, i use one at work and i don't believe i have their stuff (gart/ide/etc) installed. all my benchmarks are fine.

 

[Tea]

Old rule-of-thumb: Install the 4-in-1 but don't install the IDE component.

New rule-of-thumb: install the 4-in-1

With XP, if you have a working system in the first place, don't touch the damn thing! (There may, in fact, be advantages to installig 4-in-1s on XP. I wouldn't know. And, when you get right down to it, I don't care.

You see, there are only two kinds of XP users: (a) techies like your good selves, and (b) morons who believe that Colgate really does make your teeth bigger. (Or greener, or whatever it is that Colgate is supposed to do for teeth.)

Members of group (a) are capable of making their own decisions and undoubtedly know Windows XP better than I do. Therefore I leave their system alone. Members of group (b) won't know the difference anyway (if there is a difference, that is) so why bother loading drivers for them?

Non-VIA drivers: load them but avoid that ztupid Intel Application Abominator like poison. All it does is cheat on benchmarks and crash things, so why bother?

 

[blakerwry]

Old rule-of-thumb: Install the 4-in-1 but don't install the IDE component.

New rule-of-thumb: install the 4-in-1

With XP, if you have a working system in the first place, don't touch the damn thing! (There may, in fact, be advantages to installig 4-in-1s on XP. I wouldn't know. And, when you get right down to it, I don't care.

You see, there are only two kinds of XP users: (a) techies like your good selves, and (b) morons who believe that Colgate really does make your teeth bigger. (Or greener, or whatever it is that Colgate is supposed to do for teeth.)

Members of group (a) are capable of making their own decisions and undoubtedly know Windows XP better than I do. Therefore I leave their system alone. Members of group (b) won't know the difference anyway (if there is a difference, that is) so why bother loading drivers for them?

Non-VIA drivers: load them but avoid that ztupid Intel Application Abominator like poison. All it does is cheat on benchmarks and crash things, so why bother?

I wonder what Tannin's take is on things.. It looks as though you took a bite of something that didn't agree with you and you might not be thinking clearly yet.

 

[Howell]

I wonder what Tannin's take is on things.. It looks as though you took a bite of something that didn't agree with you and you might not be thinking clearly yet.

Better ask Kristy for an authoritative opinion.

 

[Tannin]

Kristi iz on holidayz, unfortunately. That meanz I have to do all the work. Tannin just watches. He calls it "supervising".

 

[Tannin]

Oh, and I was a little confused by the "taking a bite of something that didn't agree with me" bit. I finally twigged juzt now. Alas for good stories, there is no magig to the switch from "load the 4-in-1 without the IDE" to "load the whole lot". It's just that the VIA IDE drivers sucked a bit and the Microsoft ones worked more reliably and (according to Skallas) faster. So we used to leave the IDE bit out.

But the current VIA IDE drivers seem to be perfectly trouble-free and (if I remember the numbers Cougtek linked to a while back) faster too, so now we use them as routine.

I have, however, had trouble with that stupid Intel Aplication Asasinator. No more than once or twice, but that is enough to make me steer clear of it.

 

[Tannin]

Oh and Tea, stop using my login, please!

 

[Buck]

Non-VIA drivers: load them but avoid that ztupid Intel Application Abominator like poison. All it does is cheat on benchmarks and crash things, so why bother?

The IAA does wonders for the EIDE performance of iPaq systems using the i810 chipset. No, I wouldn't build or sell such a system either, but I have had to work on them and noticed a marked difference with the IAA installed.

 

[Buck]

Kristi iz on holidayz, unfortunately. That meanz I have to do all the work. Tannin just watches. He calls it "supervising".

Good for Kristi, I hope she is enjoying her vacation and time away from the Redhill computer store. So, are the customer's shocked to see the old man doing all the work while Kristi is gone?

 

[Tannin]

"Shocked". Hmmmmm ... Yes, I think that's the word I would have chosen myself. Vlad and our friend The Wanderer, no doubt, would say "gobsmacked".

I was a little gobsmacked myself: I'd forgotten how hard you have to work at juggling all those conflicting priorities on a busy day. But I soon got the hang of it again. Lots of help from Mutiah and the Soup Nazi too - it was a hectic week, but we managed.

 

[zx]

If anyone cares D) AMD chipsets work much better with chipset drivers installed. I can't get DMA working with the 768 chipset with the default windows drivers.

 

[blakerwry]

If anyone cares D) AMD chipsets work much better with chipset drivers installed. I can't get DMA working with the 768 chipset with the default windows drivers.

heh, I had completely forgot about the AMD chipsets... But I've heard the same thing (run better with the chipset drivers)

 

[Buck]

Yes they do, and they're nice chipsets too.