So the nVidia ForceWare drivers work on all of Dell's XPS 600 motherboard components?

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@CTskydiver wrote:
Ok, now I'm concerned.

As I mentioned, I had success reinstalling the OS and adding the drivers later (ignoring the F6 prompt).

I have to ignore the F6 prompt as I do not have a floppy drive in this system.

Any chance a USB thumb drive would work?

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My understanding is that Windows will only read from a floppy at this point in the setup... I happened to have a floppy in another machine and used that.

As for the BIOS... My original hardware from Dell was A09, but the new motherboard I received on Friday was A06, and I didn't upgrade it until after the Windows install.

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@CTskydiver wrote:
Let me see if I understand you... (forgive me for being dense).

You solved your blue screen problem by creating a floppy with SATA drivers from the nVidia provided package to use during the F6 Install prompt when loading Windows.

You did NOT use SATA drivers either downloaded from Dell or present on the XP DVD during the F6.

You did NOT install the complete ForceWare package you downloaded from nVidia at any time after the OS install was complete. You used only the Dell provided drivers [1]-:emotion-14: listed above??

Thanks...

Also, one more question:

Do you have a multi-drive system that you set up in Raid 1, Raid 0, etc. when you encountered the blue screen ... or were you installing the OS on a single SATA (non Raid Array) drive?

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You got it all correct. This was installing on a single SATA drive, no Raid involved. Simply use those SATA drivers during Windows setup, on a floppy, and you should be good to go. Following that, use the drivers from the Dell site for everything else, though I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem to use nVidia's, but I didn't try.

I'd actually be interested to see if this problem doesn't occur for you when you use the drivers Dell provided hahaha Only because I plan to make sure Dell is made *very* well aware of this problem after everything I went through and the countless numbers of hours and days of downtime.

The only drivers I used during Windows setup (press F6 and install from a floppy) are the SATA drivers. Yes, there are SATA drivers provided by Dell on the MCE reinstall disc, and Windows will install with them, but following install is where my problem occured.

When you use the SATA drivers, Windows setup will tell you they're older than the ones on the disc...use them anyway. Once Windows is done installing, you'll need the other drivers you mentioned to get all your hardware up and running. I grabbed them all from the Dell site and put them on a CD to install with. I didn't use any others from the nVidia website...just those SATA drivers.

Let me see if I understand you... (forgive me for being dense).

You solved your blue screen problem by creating a floppy with SATA drivers from the nVidia provided package to use during the F6 Install prompt when loading Windows.

You did NOT use SATA drivers either downloaded from Dell or present on the XP DVD during the F6.

You did NOT install the complete ForceWare package you downloaded from nVidia at any time after the OS install was complete. You used only the Dell provided drivers [1]-:emotion-14: listed above??

Thanks...

Also, one more question:

Do you have a multi-drive system that you set up in Raid 1, Raid 0, etc. when you encountered the blue screen ... or were you installing the OS on a single SATA (non Raid Array) drive?

The reason I ask is,

I have 5 hard drives in my system, but none of them are part of a Raid Array.

I never got a blue screen when reinstalling the OS (after formatting the system drive).

My system drive IS an SATA drive (I'm pretty sure. I do have another drive the same size on the one PATA interface - but i don't think that is my boot drive).

I'm currently running BIOS "A02" but was planning to finally upgrade to "A09" before the format and reinstall.

I want to make sure BIOS "A09" is not the reason you got a blue screen after your reinstall of the OS.

I want to reformat because I've been getting frequent system lock-ups (freezes) somewhat randomly but often associated with copying files from one hard drive to another. I may have an issue with freezing when trying to access idle drives.

Ok, now I'm concerned.

As I mentioned, I had success reinstalling the OS and adding the drivers later (ignoring the F6 prompt).

I have to ignore the F6 prompt as I do not have a floppy drive in this system.

Any chance a USB thumb drive would work?

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@CTskydiver wrote:
So the nVidia ForceWare drivers work on all of Dell's XPS 600 motherboard components?

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I can't say for sure...I only used the SATA drivers in the ...\IDE\WinXP\sataraid folder. All other motherboard drivers (SMBus, Ethernet, etc.) I downloaded from the Dell site following Windows install and installed manually.

As far as I can tell, Dell offers the following drivers for our XPS 600's with nVidia chipsets (on a Dell motherboard):

[1]
nVidia Chipset SMBUS Software - Dell Driver v.A00 (7.03) "R103150"

[2]
nVidia MediaShield SATA Storage Application v.6.19 - Dell Application v.A00 "R105794"

[3]
nVidia MediaShield SATA Storage Driver v.5.10.2600.546 (at OS install time only) - Dell Driver v.A00 "R105373"

[4]
nVidia nForce Network Access Manager v.5.10 - Dell Application v.A01 "R105603"

[5]
nVidia nForce Networking Controller Diagnostics v.5.18 - Dell Diagnostics v.A03 "R112500"

:emotion-14:
nVidia nForce Networking Controller Driver 5.09 WHQL - Dell Driver v.A04 for DimXPS-600 on WinXP "R112439"

[1] Being specifically for the "Chipset", [2] & [3] relating to the RAID controller, and [4] - :emotion-14: relating to the onboard gigabit ethernet.

Which of these did you NOT install, and were there parts of the current nVidia ForceWare drivers (nVidia nForce4 SLI Drivers, Intel Edition - WinXP 32-Bit (2005'11'02) "nForce4_intel_7.15_winxp2k_english_whql" ) that you specifically did NOT install?

Thanks!

(I'm about to do a format / partition and reinstall of my MCE OS)

David

Message Edited by CTskydiver on 07-10-200612:24 AM