p45 chipset problem  

Well alright, I called a friend to help me figure this out because I've been at this for 2 days now and I'm was about ready to throw my computer out the window. So I gave my computer to him to figure out. 30 mins later he calls and says I've got figured out. I did some searching on intel's website and this is what I found.

From intel

The Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility (also known as the Intel® Chipset Device Software) is often referred to as the chipset driver or chipset drivers. This is a common misconception.

What is a driver?
A driver is a program that allows a computer to communicate (or talk to) a piece of hardware. The Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility, however, is not a driver, nor does it include drivers. It contains information files (INFs).

What is an INF?
An INF is a text file that provides the operating system with information about a piece of hardware on the system. In the case of the current Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility, that information is primarily the product name for the piece of hardware. This allows the operating system to show the correct name for that piece of hardware in Device Manager.
Is an INF useful?
If a chipset is released well after an operating system, the INF allows the operating system to identify all the pieces of the chipset. Intel and Microsoft* work together to include information on both current and future chipsets in new operating systems so, in many cases, the operating system will recognize all the pieces of the chipset even without the INF.

Do I need to install the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility then?
The best rule of thumb is that, unless you are installing an operating system, you don't need to install the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility. If you do install the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility after installing the operating system, and the installation program recognizes that some or all of the product names in Device Manager match the product names in the included INF files, it just won't install those INF files.

After reading this he got to thinking you've got the E8400 that is 3.0ghz but you have it OC'ed to 4.0ghz. So I'm thinking the reason it's not installing is because the chipset doesn't recognize your processor as being an e8400 3.0ghz. It thinks it is something else so it's not going to install.

So what he did is restart go into the bios, hit F7 for optimized defaults. F10 to save. Then reboot again. At this point everything in the bios is at factory defaults. He choose to go to my win7 install and when it starts up, he gets a message in the lower righthand corner where the clock is and it says "device found" then device installing. Last, device/hardware ready to use. Something like that. I think you know what I'm talking about.

After that, I go into my device manager and what do you know, my chipset drivers are there underneath system devices and also at the top is my display device and it show my video card.
Ok, cool he figured this out.

So I get it back from him and bring it home. I go to install all my programs and vid card driver. Everything is installed and working good. Alright, I go to restart and back to my bios to load my overclock settings back. Save, restart, boot to win7 and what the hell. I'm back to the beginning. I go to device manager and no chipset drivers nor video card is showing up now. So I go to screen resolution and what does say "default monitor". I just don't understand why it would do that.

I go back to bios, load optimized defaults. Boot back into win7 and chipset and vid card drivers are all there again in device manager. So I'm thinking it might be a win7 problem because 7600 is a beta version. So I will leave this alone for now until I get the final version come the 22nd. I'm getting home premium.

I thank everybody for helping me.

Zardoc said:

qwade29 said:

Well alright, I called a friend to help me figure this out because I've been at this for 2 days now and I'm was about ready to throw my computer out the window. So I gave my computer to him to figure out. 30 mins later he calls and says I've got figured out. I did some searching on intel's website and this is what I found.

From intel

The Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility (also known as the Intel® Chipset Device Software) is often referred to as the chipset driver or chipset drivers. This is a common misconception.

What is a driver?
A driver is a program that allows a computer to communicate (or talk to) a piece of hardware. The Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility, however, is not a driver, nor does it include drivers. It contains information files (INFs).

What is an INF?
An INF is a text file that provides the operating system with information about a piece of hardware on the system. In the case of the current Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility, that information is primarily the product name for the piece of hardware. This allows the operating system to show the correct name for that piece of hardware in Device Manager.
Is an INF useful?
If a chipset is released well after an operating system, the INF allows the operating system to identify all the pieces of the chipset. Intel and Microsoft* work together to include information on both current and future chipsets in new operating systems so, in many cases, the operating system will recognize all the pieces of the chipset even without the INF.

Do I need to install the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility then?
The best rule of thumb is that, unless you are installing an operating system, you don't need to install the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility. If you do install the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility after installing the operating system, and the installation program recognizes that some or all of the product names in Device Manager match the product names in the included INF files, it just won't install those INF files.

After reading this he got to thinking you've got the E8400 that is 3.0ghz but you have it OC'ed to 4.0ghz. So I'm thinking the reason it's not installing is because the chipset doesn't recognize your processor as being an e8400 3.0ghz. It thinks it is something else so it's not going to install.

So what he did is restart go into the bios, hit F7 for optimized defaults. F10 to save. Then reboot again. At this point everything in the bios is at factory defaults. He choose to go to my win7 install and when it starts up, he gets a message in the lower righthand corner where the clock is and it says "device found" then device installing. Last, device/hardware ready to use. Something like that. I think you know what I'm talking about.

After that, I go into my device manager and what do you know, my chipset drivers are there underneath system devices and also at the top is my display device and it show my video card.
Ok, cool he figured this out.

So I get it back from him and bring it home. I go to install all my programs and vid card driver. Everything is installed and working good. Alright, I go to restart and back to my bios to load my overclock settings back. Save, restart, boot to win7 and what the hell. I'm back to the beginning. I go to device manager and no chipset drivers nor video card is showing up now. So I go to screen resolution and what does say "default monitor". I just don't understand why it would do that.

I go back to bios, load optimized defaults. Boot back into win7 and chipset and vid card drivers are all there again in device manager. So I'm thinking it might be a win7 problem because 7600 is a beta version. So I will leave this alone for now until I get the final version come the 22nd. I'm getting home premium.

I thank everybody for helping me.

Chipset Device Software, is the first thing that you want to install on a clean system. Windows usually always has an .INF (as mentioned) file for chipset on install cd whether it be Nvidia, Intel, AMD, SIS, VIA and so on unless the board has a chipset built after OS release then you will more than need to install the chipset driver in order for the OS to properly recognise your hardware.

The word chipset driver was a proper term in the past because most packages included the AGP or Gart driver, IDE ports etc. etc.

It is still always wise to install .INF files after a clean install to make sure that the OS properly identifies your hardware (like in the case of your card or screen) because you could get confused and think that you either have an issue with the hardware or the OS.

In your case, it seems that there is an issue with the bios and chipset communication. Intel will not give support (even on RTM) until it's official release.

You can check to see if .INF files are installed or install them manually this way for Win 7.

************************************************************
* 9F. INSTALLING THE Windows 7* INF FILES AFTER
* OS INSTALLATION
************************************************************
Some Intel(R) chipset platforms already are supported by
Windows 7* so it may not be necessary to use the INF
files provided by this software to update Windows 7*.
The following steps describe the installation process of
the Windows 7* INF files. You may need to repeat these
steps to update all Intel(R) chipset devices not supported
by Windows 7*.
1. Copy the contents of the
<INF Extract Directory>\XXXX\Win7
directory to the root directory A removable media,
such as a USB flash drive (UFD) or floppy disk (A:\).

NOTE:
XXXX is the directory name for the chipset
of interest. Refer to Section 8 for more details.

2. Close all programs currently running on the system.
3. Click on Start.
4. Select Settings.
5. Select the Control Panel.
6. Double-click on the System icon.
7. Click on the Hardware tab.
8. Click on the Device Manager button.
9. Select "Devices by connection" under the View menu.
10. Click on MPS Uniprocessor PC -OR- MPS
Multiprocessor PC.

NOTE:
Only one of the above items will be
displayed for a given system.

11. Click on PCI bus.
12. Right-click on the line containing the description
PCI standard host CPU bridge
-or-
PCI standard ISA bridge
-or-
PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
-or-
PCI System Management Bus
-or-
Standard Dual PCI IDE Controller
-or-
Standard Universal PCI to USB Host Controller
(This line will be selected.)
13. Select Properties from the pull-down menu.
14. Click on the Driver tab.
15. Click on the Update Driver button.
16. Windows 7* will launch the Upgrade Device
Driver Wizard. Select Browse my computer for the driver software.
17. Enter "A:\" in the Combo Box
18. Ensure that the Include Subfolders checkbox is checked
19. Select Next
20. The window Will Display the Device that was installed
21. Select Close
22. Reboot the system if prompted to do so.

I'm just trying to figure out why I can't have overclocked. I have to run it at stock settings on win7 to have chipset and vid card show it device manager. you think a bios update would help? My board is rev. 1.1 with F7 bios.