301.42 PhysX bug! Interesting Story!

[kimiraikkonen]

Hi guys,
I updated my GPU drivers in order to get rid of random pink screen happens when i watch flash movies. I did the update by obeying the procedure described and done just like updating before. I uninstalled Nvidia Display driver from "Programs And Features" then rebooted in safe mode, then ran Driver Sweeper, checked "Nvidia Chipset, Nvidia PhysX and Nvidia Display" as well. All went fine. Rebooted again and installed 301.42 BY selecting Graphics Driver, PHYSX and HD Audio Driver. It SEEMED to install just fine whereas when i looked at "programs and features", physx was visible but no Nvidia Icon next to it. And after installation i viewed the installation report saying "PHYSX was NOT installed because newer or same version was present on this machine!". So i suspected something was wrong. Ran GPU-Z 0.5.8, what would i see! Phyx was unchecked unlike my previous installations!!!

The weird thing is i see physx installed properly when i see Nvidia Control Panel. How can this be?

Prior to 301.42, I NEVER EVER have experienced that kind of Physx installation problem but i was installing the whole package which differs from my current selective driver package installation?

How can i verify this quirkiness? How can i tell whether i have physx installed properly?

Thanks a lot!

Note: I updated from 296.10 to 301.42 WHQL for my GTX 460! And ran Fluidmark Physx benchmark with various configurations and it runs with no error!

[kimiraikkonen]

Any ideas? After skipping the initial shock, i concluded that this messy was caused by Driver Sweeper, however Driver Sweeper isn't the culprit, the culprit is Nvidia 301.42 driver installer that skipped PhysX installation by recognizing Physx as installed. That's why GPU-Z wasn't able to recognize Physx installation properly due to previously deleted registry entries by Driver Sweeper for the sake of next fresh installation that's supposed to be performed by Nvidia 301.42 driver installer!

So the conlusion, uninstalling "Nvidia Graphics Driver" from "programs and features" applet in control panel and uninstalling Physx registry entries DOES NOT uninstall Physx files.

Any enlightening comment is greatly appreciated.

[dstrakele]

How about trying an NVIDIA clean install of the 306.02 BETA from Windows Safe Mode?

[kimiraikkonen]

dstrakele wrote:
How about trying an NVIDIA clean install of the 306.02 BETA from Windows Safe Mode?

Yep but i'm still waiting to see it as WHQL. 301.42 is the latest WHQL you know.

[dstrakele]

With the exception of 285.62 WHQL, my opinion is the WHQL releases seem to have as many issues as the BETA's, yet the BETA's provide much better performance than WHQL's and even resolve some of the issues of the WHQL's. As an example, the 296.10/296.16 WHQL had horrible PSOD issues which were quickly resolved in later BETA releases.

I've never read where someone reported an NVIDIA BETA just totally hosed their system, so the advantage of running only NVIDIA WHQL releases escapes me...

You just create a Windows System Restore Point prior to NVIDIA BETA installation, and in the worst case scenario you can easily return to the WHQL driver.

I DON'T feel the same about other software product releases, however.

[Noflak]

kimiraikkonen wrote:
Hi guys,
I updated my GPU drivers in order to get rid of random pink screen happens when i watch flash movies. I did the update by obeying the procedure described and done just like updating before. I uninstalled Nvidia Display driver from "Programs And Features" then rebooted in safe mode, then ran Driver Sweeper, checked "Nvidia Chipset, Nvidia PhysX and Nvidia Display" as well. All went fine. Rebooted again and installed 301.42 BY selecting Graphics Driver, PHYSX and HD Audio Driver. It SEEMED to install just fine whereas when i looked at "programs and features", physx was visible but no Nvidia Icon next to it. And after installation i viewed the installation report saying "PHYSX was NOT installed because newer or same version was present on this machine!". So i suspected something was wrong. Ran GPU-Z 0.5.8, what would i see! Phyx was unchecked unlike my previous installations!!!

The weird thing is i see physx installed properly when i see Nvidia Control Panel. How can this be?

Prior to 301.42, I NEVER EVER have experienced that kind of Physx installation problem but i was installing the whole package which differs from my current selective driver package installation?

How can i verify this quirkiness? How can i tell whether i have physx installed properly?

Thanks a lot!

Note: I updated from 296.10 to 301.42 WHQL for my GTX 460! And ran Fluidmark Physx benchmark with various configurations and it runs with no error!

by watching your post i had the same issue. thnxs for he post mate then doing what other have told ya uninstall nvidia drivers. and re installed it again. but uninstallfirst physx driver then the rest leave display drivers for last. Or check my post where it tells ya how to fixsthe issues. http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?22768-Complete-guide-to-uninstall-nvidia-drivers.-Fixs-pink...

[kimiraikkonen]

Update, i tried to re-install PhysX System Software v0213 (my desired version over existing one, same version) to fix missing registry entries. I get MSI error like here:



Error 1316 was caused by MSI installer during modify/repair options of installation operation. What should i do?

I found a tool that's supposed to fix corrupted installations here, by Microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/mats/Program_Install_and_Uninstall

But i'm not sure whether it'll damage my current Physx installation permamently (unrecoverablly) ????

Any working direction is appreciated!

Thanks!