Small oddity

[Dazzler Desiderare]

So the other day I installed the new Nvidia driver set 93.71, anyhow I went about my normal way of doing updates. I removed the old forceware/drivers and installed the new ones. But an odd thing happened after rebooting. In the toolbar on the rightside of screen I now have an icon to "safely remove hardware".

Dont know where this came from or why it all of a sudden popped up. If I double click it, it brings up a window asking me to select which items for removal, 1st one being my DVD drive, 2nd one being my Harddrive... I dont want to remove either obviously heh.

So any idea why this happened, or how I can turn off/get rid of icon? Nowhere in the window does it allow me to cancel the operation. Or now am I stuck looking at this icon for eternity!? :( Its a small thing, doesnt cause any ill effects on my performance, but its driving me crazy knowing its there....guess im a bit anal :twisted:

Any suggestions or ideas are appreciated.
Thanks all

[Fozzik]

You installed the Nvidia motherboard drivers, including the driver for the IDE controllers (which includes parallel and serial ATA devices).

Part of the serial ATA specification is that the drives and controllers are set up to handle hot-swapping (just like USB). This means that in a server environment, if a hard drive fails, you could yank it out and plug in a new one without shutting down the machine. On a home computer, it's probably a bit less useful unless you are using external SATA devices. It is, however, possible to hot swap those devices. Because of that, Windows treats them like any other hot-swappable device when the proper driver is installed. Just like when you plug in a PCMCIA card in a laptop...that "safely remove hardware" icon is going to show up.

[Dazzler Desiderare]

Well that explains it rather well, and I do greatly appreciate it. Is there a way to get rid of the icon, or should I just uninstall everything nvidia and start fresh? I do remember it asked me if I wanted to install the IDE controller, obviously I chose yes. Choosing no wouldnt cause any trouble I assume?

[Fozzik]

If you go into add/remove programs and select the Nvidia drivers...it will ask you what you want to uninstall. You should be able to check "uninstall ONLY this"...and then check the IDE controller driver.

Once you uninstall and reboot, windows will reinstall the generic MS driver. Should make the icon go away. Unless there are other hot-swappable devices connected. :D

[rabb1t]

I just have my bar set to 'hide inactive icons' as well as 'auto-hide the taskbar'. I never see it. :)

PS- As Foz said, you installed the motherbaord drivers, the "nForce" set, which have nothing to do with the graphical drivers, the "ForceWare" set.

PSPS- Are you aware that the 590 has special ram you can use? You may see beter performance with the correct "SLI Ready", such as this Corsair XMS2 2 gig kit (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145034).

[Dazzler Desiderare]

Yep that did it , thanks Fozzik :D Always get good tech here on the good ole SV!

Rabb1t, I actually found out about the "SLI Ready" ram about a week after I built my rig, but figured since im not running SLI yet *still debating the 8xxx switch as opposed to buying another 7900gto* But im sure I will bite the bullet at some point and go for the 8 series times 2. At that point your recommendation will be put into use.

In any event, my current ram will more than likely end up in the Wifes rig when it comes time for her build. Shes not quite as nutty as wanting the best of the best, she just wants VG to run well enough to keep up with me ;)

[rabb1t]

Rabb1t, I actually found out about the "SLI Ready" ram about a week after I built my rig, but figured since im not running SLI yet

Errrrumm SLI for Ram and SLI for GPUs are exclusive. You don't need to be running dual GPU to use the SLI ram feature. I think this is why they've been focusing on calling it 'enhanced performance profile'.

You can find a brief on it here (http://www.nvidia.com/page/search.html?keywords=epp).
Wiki on it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Performance_Profiles).
And here at Nvidia's site (http://www.nvidia.com/page/nforce5_amd.html).

*still debating the 8xxx switch as opposed to buying another 7900gto*

Did you see in the DX10 thread where I've got benchmarks? Totally worth it. A single 8800 GTX would outperform dual 7900 GTXs in addition to having the DX10 cert. :D

But im sure I will bite the bullet at some point and go for the 8 series times 2.

You are aware that you'd need an 800w or higher PSU for that? As well as needing quad PCIe x16 lines if you go dual GTX.

At that point your recommendation will be put into use.

Again, SLI is just their buzz word. The EPP / 'SLI Ram' cert has nothing to do with dual GPU type SLI. You can use one and not use the other.

[Slide]

you can run msconfig and force the tray icon to always be hidden.

[Fozzik]

you can run msconfig and force the tray icon to always be hidden.

Hm... yeah! I hadn't thought of that.

Actually, I stopped using the Nvidia IDE driver after I discovered it was causing my computer to blue screen every so often. :eek: The MS driver works just fine and doesn't cause a drop in performance. The only thing missing from the MS driver is the ability to enable/disable NCQ.