Should drivers not live on my hard drive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brad
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Brad

Brad

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I noticed in another thread about soundcard drivers, it was suggested that the drivers that have been downloaded from a website be saved to floppy. Is there a reason for this? I think I left mine in a folder on the hard drive. I have random blue screen crashes in WinXP and my computer throws the sound card drivers as often as a mountain pack horse throws a shoe.

Could the fact that the drivers are residing on the hard drive be the cause of my problems?

Dear kreist, if that has been my problem all along, I am gonna shoot myself in the nuts.

Please tell me why the floppy is suggested?

Thanks,
Brad
 
Brad said:
Please tell me why the floppy is suggested?
Click to expand...
I don't see any other reason than for backup purposes. I have, just like you, my drivers on my hard drive in case I need them again.
 
Do you have any problems with your computer?

Random crashing, drivers mysteriously taking a powder?
 
I guess there could be a problem if you have some extra .dll files floating around but it shouldn't make a difference. That sounds like an old Win95 issue.
 
Well, screw me. I can't believe I am still having problems with my stuff.

I give up.



No, really, I give the hell up.
 
Brad said:
Well, screw me. I can't believe I am still having problems with my stuff.

I give up.

No, really, I give the hell up.
Click to expand...

Computers and creativity don't go well together. Computers should only be used for unimportant stuff like work, games and porn. Well I guess porn is important but you get the idea.
 
Brad!!! Shame on you for not consulting me and Slackmaster before getting XP!!!

At the studio, we had the same problem with the digi001 cards driver loading in corrupt every other boot! We decided not to use it anymore. Fuck digidesign anyway!

Get Windows 2000 and be done with it. It is still the least problematic PC OS for recording, and I can almost assure you that anything that can run on XP will also run on 2k just fine. The driver maturity for 2k is much higher, and the OS doesn't have all the other crap going on like XP that could be causing your problems.

What card are you using anyway? While I am not a fan of XP, I have managed to get a very stable dual Athlon system running at the studio using XP and a Delta 1010 card. I have had Sonar freeze on me, but I haven't had the computer actually "crash" and the 1010's driver seems to stay put. Maybe you have a soundcard driver issue. Consult the manufacture about it or post your problems in a bunch of PC Recording forums to see if others might be having the same problem with the same card/chipset you are using and XP. It might be as simple as installing a patch, a service pack for XP, or an updated driver. Might be as bad as the driver for the card on XP sucks the big one.

Ed
 
Oh, and that thing about the drivers being on a floppy. I remember how on 98 it was difficult to get a driver install to direct to anything other than the floppy drive, thus, it was best to have all driver on floppies to assure that you could install them. Certainly, there is no way to "install" driver for the OS on a floppy. The drivers reside in the registry. In 2k, there is no problem installing drivers from any drive.

So, there is another problem going on. Make sure that after you install a driver that you reboot the system. If you install a driver, and the system crashes before you reboot, then you could lose the driver that way. If upon reboot you are lossing the driver still, I would look at a shutdown problem with XP. I haven't heard of any, but who knows. Make sure you have Service Pack 1 installed for XP too. If you haven't installed it, then there is a chance your problem will go away after you do. Also, install ANY Critical Updates for the OS that you can find at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;DOWNLOADOVER .


Ed
 
I did consult you guys before I made my final decision. I think Slack said to go 2000 and you were on hiatus or vacationing with my mom or something.

I don't remember why I chose XP, I seem to remember Slack being somewhat on the fence, not wanting to tell me to do one thing over the other, just sharing his experience. Which is fine - that is what I wanted. I think maybe XP is appealing to former Mac people because it is close to looking like a Mac OS. I have XP on two non-audio machines and it is rock fucking solid. Of course, those are pre-configured store bought boxes, and my DAW is custom, put together by my lame ass.
I dunno, either way, I went with it and have had my share of blue screen problems. I guess the first thing is to get critical updates. Then, if problem persists, start checking all hardware possibilties.


Sound card is a Delta TDIF, which I believe gut-wise is very similar to the 1010 or the 66, but with the TDIF interface.
 
I wouldn't blame XP if the vendors can't get off their ass and write drivers that work instead of just drivers that drink!

XP has some very cool features and I don't regret the choice for my DAW.
 
BSOD crashes are almost always a result of a hardware problem. That problem could be the hardware itself or the drivers. I have a Delta 1010 on XP pro and the drivers seem stable. You could have other hardware issues though. Sometimes just removing everything and reseating it will do wonders. That's what I would start with.
 
I don't regret it either, doc. I know it can be stable, because of my other machines, but something just ain't right with my DAW.

Thanks HangDawg, I will probably do that. I have long suspected that the one area that I skimped in was my firewire card. I got it on the cheap and I don't think it said it was XP compatible. I can almost garauntee a crash when using the firewire card, but it crashes sometimes when I am not running anything through it, so...

Anyway, that will be my first hardware change, a better 1394 card - though I have been told that 1394 is such a standard, that it would be odd for the firewire card to be causing the problem, but... like I said, it was the one thing I skimped on.
 
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