Guild Wars 2

Ever since i switched from an AMD to Nvidia video card and back to AMD i have had crash problems with GW2. I came up with a hypothesis and I need help in seeing if it works.

I think the problem is the chipset drivers. When I went from AMD to Nvidia video card, I uninstall all AMD drivers and DriverSweeper’d it. I’m thinking the chipset drivers were removed also. then windows just installed generic or incorrect versions. Now you might say I can just get that off the amd website catalyst package. I downloaded the chipset drivers listed for my OS. When you run install manager, it DOES NOT show the drivers but if you go the folder it extracted onto your C: drive, the drivers are there. I know that you can update drivers via device manager but I dont know how to do it and also the names are different because they are using windows7 drivers. This is probably why the install manager doesnt show the chipset drivers. Because by using Microsoft Win7 drivers, they are under a different name in the device driver. I read of one instance where the win7 driver for PCI bus in the device manager had a driver from microsoft was like version 6 – Jul 2006. But when he manually updated/delete previous driver using the 13.4 catalyst version, it became Pci bus, notice the case difference, and the version was 8 – Nov 2012.

Please help me install my chipset drivers.

Win7 x64
Asus mobo – m4a785-m (785G/SB700 chipset)

The chipset driver file i am using is from here:
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/raid_windows.aspx#2

Edit:
I believe that my system is not using the correct chipset drivers. That the drivers Microsoft has in its system is wrong. The Microsoft drivers are giving my chipset an identity that is not recognized by the AMD install manager so therefore i cannot get any chipset drivers from the install manager. I dont know if this was even safe but i just wanted to see what it would do, I have tried to uninstall the pci bus or smbus via the device manager. Screen flickers into the low resolution and pc freezes up. Im guessing the chipset drivers got removed. But when you load up windows again, it automatically detects that hardware and installs their incorrect generic Microsoft chipset drivers. How do you uninstall the current drivers and install the correct AMD drivers before windows can install their version?

I wonder if this issue could possibly be the one thing in common among the people who have GW crash errors. Microsoft has bunk generic chipset drivers so that means when you load up that motherboard, windows automatically puts their wack drivers, you run your chipset driver install manager but it cant find your device so it installs everything else it can and says ok its complete. Is this even viable?

Just download and install the latest driver packages for your mobo from the Asus website.

You don’t need to uninstall the Microsoft drivers for this to work.

I know that i wrote a block of text but I am telling you that I cannot install the driver package via amd or asus. Whether you download the chipset of amd or asus, the package comes in a Catalyst Install Manager package. It will first scan your system and then only give you installation options for devices it detects that you have. But i am telling you that it does NOT detect my chipset. This is the whole point of the thread. If i look through my my devices in device manager, a lot of my system devices are using MICROSOFT drivers dated June 2006.

Catalyst Install Manager CANNOT detect my chipset and therefore will not install chipset drivers. I am not saying the package doesnt have drivers, all i am saying is the install manager cannot detect the chipset. You cannot run the installer in safemode because the installer relies on a driver to figure out the system devices. If the driver cant run, it cant determine what updates you need, and you get nothing.

Chipset drivers are also known as “Southbridge” drivers. Try this driver package, it should work (scroll down):

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M4A785M/#support_Download_30

If that doesn’t work, there is another way that will work. I use an open source program called “Driverpack Solution”. It’s a large download, but I have tested it on Windows XP and 7. It will update your chipset drivers (use ADVANCED mode to see the drivers). Scroll down for the dvd version:

http://drp.su/download.htm