GFX Card installation
 

OK dumb question time again.

My nVidia 8500 GT arrived today. Now I have an ATi X300 sitting in the PCI-E slot right now with all the ATi drivers etc.

So do I just swap out the card then delete ATi drivers on restart and install the nVidia ones. The manual is unclear on this one.

I always delete the old drivers before removing the old card. That way, when I boot up the PC after installing the new card, I can install the new drivers straight away rather than having to delete the old drivers first.

Exactly. Also manually search for remains from the deistalled driver (files, folders, registry entries), use a registry cleaner after having rebooted.
Then set in the new board, and then install the new driver.

Uninstall drivers -> restart -> tirn pc off and remove card then install new card -> boot up and install drivers -> reboot and good to go.

This how it worked for me as well.

Cheers

OK new card installed and running well so far.

jlstiger, I removed my CPu fan and cleaned all the dust off the heat sink. Using Sandra to check CPU temp it was way down back to about 38 degrees C.

Oh MBM 5 doesn't support my board I have to frig it to work, so are there any other low overhead monitoring progs that can tell me CPU temp etc?

What are the best nVidia drivers to have at the moment?

I just updated the drivers for Nvidia at their site. SH4 plays nicely!

I ran IL-2 1946 and set graphics at perfect, it played bu i lost all my scenery, i could fly and fight but it was like being in space, set back to normal and everything came back.

As for temps Sandra is coming back with board temp 27 C/CPU 39 C/PSU 27 C

IL2 plays in open GL I think? Perhaps that is the issue?

I chose OpenGL I'll update drivers and have a fiddle.

You do not need to remove the drivers first, but it is probably an OK idea. Unlike what is written above, if Windows does not detect the device on boot-up, it will not load the drivers for it. The same holds true for a USB device for example, or a CD-ROM device, or anything. If windows sees the device exists, it looks for the appropriate driver to load.

Anyway, unloading the drivers before installing your new toy is not going to hurt anything, so its not a bad thing. About the best you will get from it though is the CCC control panel won't start on boot-up.

Now for the fun part! If you have dual PCI-E slots - leave both cards in and have multi monitor fun! I used to have two different video cards in my system in the past to fullfill my need for multiple monitors. In the not to distant past, the only way to have more than one monitor was to have more than one video card in the system.

-S

I use SpeedFan.

I concur. Works good. Has the potential to crash some systems however, but no permanent damage - just reboot and all will be well if this happens. Seen Speedfan take down probalby one in 20 systems. And the 1 in 20 systems it did take down it didn't blue screen it all the time, only maybe 1 in 10 start ups of the program.

-S

Yep all fine.
SUBMAN you seem to know a lot about PSUs, my voltages are stable though my 12 volt line is reading a constant 11.88 volts when just sitting still, that's a 1% drop. Drops a little when playing IL-2 but everything else seems normal, fans run up and temps stay within norms. Tell me I am worrying about nothing. I know with PSUs you pay what you get for but £50 is a lot for me else I would have paid more. Maybe I will keep an eye and save up for one of those Antec things or whatever was in your links. End of the month maybe.