SM Bus driver problems

Hi all,

I just got a DFI Lanparty UT nF3 250Gb mainboard with an athlon 64 3000+ (newcastle core) socket 754 processor. I installed WinXP Pro, and all my drivers, but I'm running into a snag with the SM Bus driver. Whenever I install it then reboot, my "loading" WinXP splash screen comes up very dimly, and the machine just hangs there. Hitting the reset button then choosing the 'last good configuration' gets me back into Windows, however the SM Bus Controller device is still listed under 'Other Devices' with a question mark (and exclaimation point) as the driver isn't loaded. Has anyone else experienced this, and if so, what did you have to do to get the driver to install without the machine hanging when it tries to reload windows?

System specs:
DFI LanParty UT nF3 250Gb
2 sticks of 512MB Corsair Value Series PC3200 (DDR 400) (total of 1GB)
BFG 6800GT OC
Audigy 2
Samsung SP1614N 160GB IDE (133) HDD
Western Digital 60GB IDE (100) HDD
Sony CDRW CRX230E
WinXP Pro w/ Service Pack 2
9/17/04 BIOS for the mainboard
All drivers are new and up to date, and are installed and working, except for this SM Bus Controller driver.

Windows and my drivers are the only things currently installed on the system.

Thanks for any help/info/insight into this so I can fix this problem.

Oh, also thought I should mention that I have the SATA controllers turned off in the BIOS, as well as the onboard audio, IRDA, and the floppy controller (since I'm not using any of these devices, however I don't know if having any one of these, or the combination of all of them being disabled has any bearing on the driver for the SM Bus to crash when windows loads.)

Thanks again!

are you installing them manually or using the setup.exe included with the nvidia chipset drivers?

If you load windows without SP2 slipstreamed into the installation itself, it is possible that adding the SP2 creates a conflict. You would certainly have to install SP2 from a CD first then add the nVidia drivers to get around the problem or extract the SMbuss driver and load it separately from the other drivers. About the only work around I see for the situation.

Sincerely, RGone...

Know Nuttin, I've been trying to install them using the Setup.exe in the nVidia driver setup. Should I try 'em manually?

RGone, my WindowsXP CD is pre-SP1, and I've been having the problem since the initial Windows install. It happened right after the XP install, so I used the 'last good configuration' to have the driver not load, and updated to SP1a (as the nVidia Firewall software said it needed SP1 or greater to install/function). After updating to SP1a, I reinstalled the SM Bus driver in the nVidia package, and once again I had the same problem, windows would hang before the 'loading' splash screen finished displaying. I then rebooted and again chose the 'last good configuration' so the driver wouldn't load and then proceeded to install SP2 through Windows Update. Once SP2 was installed, I tried again to install the SM Bus driver (once again using the nVidia driver package), and once again the machine refuses to load Windows, and the 'loading' splash screen for XP starts to come up, but then halts (while it's still dimmed.) I'll try and load it separately and see if I can get that to work. Thanks for the advice/help guys, I really appreciate it.

Now to keep my fingers crossed that I can get it to work. Somewhat on this topic, what exactly *is* the SM Bus driver/controller?

Know Nuttin... Thank You!! I installed the driver manually instead of using the setup program, and now all is well with the world! I appreciate your help very much!

RGone, thank you for taking the time to reply and for trying to help me out. I actually just had to go into my device manager, and choose 'update driver' for the SM Bus controller, and then pointed it to the .inf file that resides in the nvidia folder on the C:\ drive (actual full path was 'C:\NVIDIA\nForceWin2KXP\5.10\SMBus') which was created when I had tried installing the driver through the nVidia setup. Once Windows read the .inf file, it loaded the driver. I rebooted and here I am, back in Windows, with no more devices listed under 'Other Devices' with question marks, and no problems now.

Thank you both for your help, this was driving me crazy!