[newbe]

I have the following situation: (Windows XP Home SP3) 3rd party Driver scans show that the following drivers are needed to be updated: Nvidia nforce Networking Controller from Ver 50.1.1.0 -> 67.8.9 Nvidia nforce PCI System Management from...

I have the following situation:

(Windows XP Home SP3)

3rd party Driver scans show that the following drivers are needed to be updated:

Nvidia nforce Networking Controller from Ver 50.1.1.0 -> 67.8.9
Nvidia nforce PCI System Management from 4.5.0.0 -> 4.6.9

If I pay, I can click the icon to have these automatically downloaded for me but I resent paying for anything that should be free.

Drivers are available on the Nvidia site but I just need some guidance to ensure I am going about this the right way:

First, in Device Manager the PCI SM driver shows that it is not required or not loaded. Does this mean that the driver is on the system (and hence may show up in a driver update scan) - but the corresponding device is not in use and therefore the driver and ergo the update are not required?

Second, in Device Manager I notice that there are the following 2 entries:

Nvidia network adapter (version 50.1.1.0) and Nvidia network bus enumerator (50.1.1.0).
I'm guessing that both these entries are part of the "Network controller" found in the driver scan...

Third, my motherboard is not an "nvidia" motherboard. It is a gigabyte board, with some Nvidia devices on it. When I go to the nvidia site, it lists driver updates for:
nforce series 4:

SLI x16 AMD
SLI AMD
ultra AMD
AMD

There are also updates for intel chips but my motherboard is an AMD one.

My motherboard is described as having an nVidia nforce 4 series chipset 4-4X.

Now I notice on looking at each of the four nforce models above that the driver to download is called "Release 15.23"

and release 15.23 contains:

Ethernet 67.8.9 WHQL .........note..same version as my requirement
Network Management Tools 67.91 "Sedona"
SATA IDE driver 10.3.0.42 WHQL
SATA RAID 10.3.0.42 WHAL
RAID TOOL 10.30.42
SMU driver 1.61 WHQL
SM Bus driver 4.69 WHQL .....assume same version as my requirement
Away mode driver 6.0.6000.107 WHQL
Installer 6.14.

Now I'm guessing that this is a whole package to update the chipset of the motherboard described on the nvidia site, not my motherboard. And that in fact not only do I not want all those drivers but to install some could be downright dangerous as they may be totally unsuitable for my situation.

However I downloaded the package and saved it on my computer - I cancelled out of the set up.
Now on the computer is a folder called NVidia nforce...and in that folder is a number of files and subfolders.
One of the files is the setup which runs the installation of the whole package.
The folders are listed as for example "Ethernet" "SATA" "SM Bus driver" etc and I guess the installation calls on each of these to install the various bits and pieces.

I went to device manager and clicked to update the Nvidia network adapter by manual means. It asks for the file nvnetfd.ini.

When I open the ethernet folder from the download, there is a separate setup file in there (probably called upon by the master setup file in the main folder). Within this ethernet folder is a subfolder and within that there are 2 files nvnetfd and nvnetbus.

What I think I need to do is to select nvnetfd from this folder and use it as the update file for the Nvidia network adapter. Then to go back to the network enumerator bus and update it using the nvnetbus file from the same ethernet folder. Alternatively, perhaps I could run the setup from within the Ethernet folder and it would install them both

Then, if I require the PCI System management update, I would do the same clicking on the PCI System management entry in device manager, and browsing to the SM Bus driver folder and finding the matching ini file there.

Now my only concerns are:

(1) Just because these are the correct files names and versions, would it be safe to use them on my system even though they are part of a package for a different motherboard...ie does the same driver for the same device come in different flavours depending upon what it's environment is, or is each one the same driver irrespective of how it's placed with other motherboard components?

(2) I'm assuming that I would need only the 3 ini files that I have described above. How do I know whether any of the other files in the nvidia download are required to run alongside these ones I have picked out? After all I only happened on the Nvidia network bus enumerator by noticing the other ini file in the ethernet folder and by doing searches on driver scan sites this seemed to crop up all the time as part of the network controller driver ....

I guess I will be told I've got nothing to lose, I can always roll back driver, but I want to make sure I get it right in case I do something horribly wrong and the computer doesn't boot up at all. (We have had issues of non-booting computers because of driver incompatibilities before, in fact that's why I'm looking to do these updates...every time nVidia updates the video driver the computer won't boot past the windows logo screen...have to go into safe mode and download the latest driver to fix it.)

Thanks