Hey,

I am having some serious problems with my new motherboard ( at least, I assume it's caused by the motherboard requiring these drivers ).

Currently on Vista 32-bit Home Premium.
Specs : E6600
Gigabyte P35-DS4 Rev.2
8800GTS
4GB OCZ RAM

My problem lies in these **** realtek drivers. Every so often, my Vista BSODS on me and as usual, its the
Driver_not_less crap.
Now, this is every so often - so not much. There is no pattern as to when it happens; it just does.

I've updated to the latest Audio and LAN drivers from REALTEK and I am hoping this wont happen again. Although I have a feeling it will.



My last BSOD was the biggest one - It crashed and then it failed to boot into Vista, so I had to "repair computer" with the Vista installation disk. This also happened to me on my ASUS P5N-E SLI.

Is it just me, or do these realtek drivers really fail beyond reasoning? If so, why the hell are people still using them. All I see is problem after problem with these drivers.

Any known fix or way to prevent my computer going into a nice BSOD again?

Any help is highly appreciated. Thanks.

Quick question: Did you increase RAM voltage?

No, my RAM voltage is at normal. Ah yes, RAM can be the cause of this as well. I will check it out, but it's been incredibly stable so far.

Should I increase my RAM voltage?

If it needs more than 1.8v yes, increase the voltage.

Hm, no. The required voltage is 1.9-2.1

Mine is at 2. So it's not that. I was pretty sure it wasn't the RAM, because if it was it would have been happening more often ( I had a RAM issue on my P5N-E )

Looks like a driver issue.

Yeah, I figured so far. But its the latest drivers that are causing the problem. Realtek have always been bad on Vista - basically, what you are implying is that there is no fix, correct?

I hate realtek.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a driver fix, since you used BETA and current drivers. Why not spend $20 and grab a Vista compatible NIC? It could also be a driver conflict with some other driver (ie. printer, graphics,etc)

are you using drivers from the gigabyte website or realtek's website? I say try the ones on realtek's website, they are always more current than the ones on gigabytes (this is also true with audio)

Alright, now it's really serious. When I shut down my computer, and then turn it back on, it will refuse to boot into Vista. It passes POST and then restarts ( note, I have a boot selector as I have Leopard installed on this computer as well ).

So I un-installed my realtek HD audio drivers and my LAN drivers. Rebooted and Vista installed the Realtek HD Audio drivers again. Hopefully, as I didn't install it, this will work now. I hope.

If not, I will have to get a sound card and an NIC. Or the other option is to try the downloads from Realtek. Thanks for the help.

EDIT - I checked the HD audio drivers that are on the Realtek site, and they are exactly the same as the ones I installed ( RC1.94 ), so that's not a solution anymore.

Hey Zimmer, what happens if you disable the HD Audio and LAN in the BIOS? I ask this just for testing purposes only.

I need to ask ppl about Realtek drivers myself. I noticed that Realtek has drivers at R1.94 while Gigabyte has them at R1.92. Gigabyte is behind or what?

I also read that WinXP SP3 isn't supporting the HD Audio and that you should follow some steps first before installing? Or that is only if you're going to update WinXP to SP3?

Anyway, I would try the disabling of the HD Audio and LAN (not loading the drivers) and see if Vista posts. If it does, that suggests one or the other is causing problems. If it still doesn't post, then either one is not causing the problem. Anybody else think that might be a good idea or perhaps, it is an insignificant test? I don't know but it's just a suggestion.

P.S. My mobo is Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R (2.1).

Doh! I completely forgot that OP was on Vista. If you are on Vista, there are compatibility issues with the Realtek drivers. This also applies to XP with SP3. Best bet is to just get a <$20-30 NIC that has Vista certification, same goes for sound.

I have used this NIC on a Vista build:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6833106121
$23 Intel Gigabit Ethernet NIC
Drivers:
http://support.intel.com/support/n [...] 012904.htm
http://support.intel.com/support/n [...] 006120.htm