[kristi10]

Hi there,

I'd been away from my pc for a bit and when I returned there was a Sonic Installer on the screen telling me it couldn't install without the disc. I clicked cancel and it closed then came back up, started to run, and again told me it needed the disc. Couple of more tries and this continued. Tried to restart but that wouldn't work with the installer open.

Powered down and was able to get back to regular mode but Windows Installer came up, then the same Sonic Installer with the same results.

Just left it on the screen, followed all of your steps below, but again couldn't get restart to work with that installer on, so powered off. Turned it back on and went to safe mode to follow other steps. First went to look at the device manager and the Nvidia display adapter was gone, but I had a yellow question mark next to VGA controller. Details said it wasn't configured correctly, code 1. Sorry if that's perfectly normal, but I wasn't sure so thought I would mention it.

Ran Driver Cleaner Pro and it did remove some items. Emptied recycle bin and restarted. It loaded into regular mode but the Windows Installer then Sonic Installer came back up. Also received a pop up box that the computer had recovered from a serious error. Tried to close that several times and each time it came back up. Thought it might disappear if I sent the error report, but it came back. Sending the error report (which contained BC Code 7F) resulted in receiving a microsoft web page (I had by this point reconnected to the internet to go to nvidia and load the drivers). The microsoft web page said the error was due to a ram problem.

With Sonic Installer and Serious Error message still there, I loaded the 169.21 driver and during installation it said it couldn't load a component because the hardware acceleration was set to none. I remembered that we tried that last night and I guess didn't change it back. Headed off to go change it and received a blue screen before I could. Powered off and restarted and got a black screen. Powered off again and received a blue screen, so one more restart and came to safe mode.

In safe mode, I went and changed the hardware acceleration back to full and rechecked the "Enable write combining" checkbox. I have not restarted.

The system came with a nvidia 6 series. I had it a year, the upgraded to the 7600 I just took out 2 days ago. So it's always been nvidia. I am beyond willing to return the new 8600 and get something completely different, if that might help.

Thank you, Kristi

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Download and run the Windows Installer Cleanup Utilility. That should take care of the installer issues.

If you are willing to try a different card, at this point it sounds like a good idea. Get an ATI card, though. In researching this issue with your machine I have run across literally hundreds of complaints regarding the Nvidia drivers and the vast majority have been on Dell machines. No one procedure has been effective and I'm beginning to believe that the problem lies withing the way that Dell prepares the systems on their machines (sysprep). ATI chipsets do not seem to have these conflicts with Dell machines. Be sure to remove the Nvidia drivers before installing the new card.

It would have been nice to find a solution to this and perhaps help many others with the same issue, but if it IS in the way that Dell sets up their machines there simply may be no solution other than a different chipset. Another good reason to build machines rather than buy them off the shelf...more control over how the system is set up. I have three machines running Nvidia cards flawlessly...one is running two Nvidia cards configure SLI.

Let me know how you make out......

[wannabe1]

Download and run the Windows Installer Cleanup Utilility. That should take care of the installer issues.

If you are willing to try a different card, at this point it sounds like a good idea. Get an ATI card, though. In researching this issue with your machine I have run across literally hundreds of complaints regarding the Nvidia drivers and the vast majority have been on Dell machines. No one procedure has been effective and I'm beginning to believe that the problem lies withing the way that Dell prepares the systems on their machines (sysprep). ATI chipsets do not seem to have these conflicts with Dell machines. Be sure to remove the Nvidia drivers before installing the new card.

It would have been nice to find a solution to this and perhaps help many others with the same issue, but if it IS in the way that Dell sets up their machines there simply may be no solution other than a different chipset. Another good reason to build machines rather than buy them off the shelf...more control over how the system is set up. I have three machines running Nvidia cards flawlessly...one is running two Nvidia cards configure SLI.

Let me know how you make out......

[kristi10]

Thanks a ton...........I'm on my way to the store in a bit, lol. At this point I hate Dell AND Nvidia.

Will probably be this evening before I'll have it done, will definitely let you know how it turns out.

Kristi

[kristi10]

Hi wannabe1!

I'm back.

Bought an ATI Radeon HD2600 Pro. Followed all of the pre-install steps from earlier today for the Nvidia drivers to make sure all Nvidia was removed, etc. During the install of the new drivers I received the following at one point:

InstallShield: 1607: unable to install InstallShield scripting runtime

Clicked okay, which was the only button offered, and the install continued on its own. At the end, it told me it couldn't finish the install because another install was in progess, which is the Sonic Update Manager I have been unable to get rid of. More on that in a moment.

The Sonic Update Manager has a cancel button, and after you cancel the box closes and there is a small delay before it starts again. Clicked cancel and the video driver installation immediately moved ahead and completed and told me to restart. By this point the Sonic Update Manager was back up, and my system refuses to restart with that going, so I powered down and back up and entered regular mode with no problems.

On the Sonic Update Manager, I tried the cleanup utility you provided but it tells me it can't install that until the current installation that is in progress is complete. The current installation is the Sonic, so I'm stuck on that one. I found a fix for the sonic issue on Dell, link below, but when I try to install the provided fix I get a message that it cannot write to a certain file, program files/common files/installshield/updateservice/_ispmres.dll.

http://support.dell....o...lang=en&cs=

While researching the sonic problem before I went to buy the new card, I got a blue screen so I shut down. When I returned, I tried researching it again and got a blue screen also. I figured if the new card takes care of my woes, maybe I could stay on the web long enough to accomplish something, so I went ahead with the new card install.

Almost all of my blue screens have occured at start up, but the very first one and a few since happened while I was surfing. I guess then that the best thing to do with the new card and drivers installed is to surf a bit, but dang I don't want to.......if I get another blue screen now I will likely be scarred for life.

I'll stop here atm though, until I hear from you, cause you're the guru and therefore the boss!!

Thanks so much!! Kristi

[wannabe1]

Believe it or not, I worked on a machine once that was just as stubborn as your machine is being. We managed to get that one fixed up and I'm sure we'll get yours running right, too...eventually.

Right click on the Taskbar and choose Task Manager. Under the "Applications" tab, is the Sonic application listed? Then click the "Processes" tab...do you see anything related to Sonic listed in the running processes?

[kristi10]

Sonic Update Manager is running under applications. Don't see anything that looks related under processes.

My computer is near the top of your list of most stubborn machines you have worked on?!?! Yikes, that's bad, haha.

[wannabe1]

We'd have to go about another 15 pages of posts to catch up to the last one I considered stubborn...I think this one will be done long before that benchmark.

In Task Manager, click on the Sonic application and then on the "End Task" button. Close Task Manager and try your install again.

[kristi10]

Hehe, I might get confused here.......... you mean the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility install, yes?

[wannabe1]

Yep...that would be the one.

Did your ATI drivers install completely? Have you had any blue screen errors since installing the ATI card?

[kristi10]

The Windows Installer Cleanup Utility loaded and I was able to use it to remove the Sonic Update Manager.

The ATI drivers did appear to install completely. It said it was finished and I needed to restart, but I had to do it by powering off. No blue screens yet, but I have not yet tried restarting the system yet, not have I done much surfing.

I take it it's time to get brave and try those ideas?

Kristi

[wannabe1]

Yeppers....let's put it to the test.

Reboot and then do some surfing...let's see if we've got this stubborn streak whooped or if we have more work to do.

[kristi10]

And that's as long as it took, blue screen 0x00000007, on the web when it happened.

Guess I can stop mumbling under my breath about Nvidia now.

Kristi

[wannabe1]

I'm not so sure this one is related at all to the video card and may be coincidental to the blue screens that were. Let me have a little closer look at what's going on in there.

Download WinAudit and run it on the machine. Save a report in HTML format and e-mail it to me as an attachment. I'll PM you with my address.

There is a guide for creating the WinAudit Report HERE. The guide will tell you to attach all three of the files it generates...I only need the one name right.html.

It will take me a bit to wade through the report then I'll post back here with what I find.

[kristi10]

Geez I'm sorry that you're having to spend so much time on this. You are wonderful!

I'll start working on the WinAudit. At least I'm learning new stuff!

Kristi

[wannabe1]

Found something that may be the problem...let's see if we can rule it out.

Have you disabled the original integrated graphics in the BIOS? I've found a few errors relating to a video driver being called, but not starting. It's not an ATI file and it's not an Nvidia file.

How are you in navigating the BIOS Setup screens?