A8N-E Question

[Zakman3]

I've just set up a new rig with the following:

AMD Athlon X2 3800+
2GB PC3200 DDR
1x 36 GB Raptor
1x X550 Sapphire passive video card
Asus A8N-E
Win XP Pro w/SP2
1.005 BIOS

Made POST on my first try and Windows install went smoothly. I'm moving over from an Intel machine and am not too used to installing drivers on AMD rigs- been looking around on the net for a few hours without much luck as to what order and what drivers I should install for a stable system. I do know that I should avoid the IDE and built in firewall drivers.

So here's what I need to install (after SP2)- is this order correct or am I missing something?

1- Nvidia Chipset drivers (6.53 or 6.66?)- this should cover my ethernet with no need for another driver?
2- DirectX 9.0C
3- AMD Dual Core Driver
4- ATI Cats 5.9
5- Audio software- do I use the Asus Realtek driver or the Nvidia Unified Driver?
6- All Windows updates
7- All other Asus utilities- PC Probe, nTune, Cool n Quiet, AI Booster
8- All other programs

Am I forgetting something important, or is there any change I should make to the above order when installing these drivers? My apologies for such a basic question- I guess I'm just nervous about my first AMD rig.

Regards,
Zak

 

[danklumpp]

All you should need to do after installing windows are the Nvidia chipset drivers (latest from Nvidia will work), dont' worry about DirectX, then the AMD dual core next, and then get the latest video drivers from ATI. For audio, I would just stick with whatever the Nvidia drivers come with.

After that, it doesn't really matter at all.

 

[Zakman3]

Thanks for the advice- anyone else have any thoughts on Nvidia vs Asus audio drivers?

 

[Pabster]

Just use the ASUS drivers.

 

[mechBgon]

Trivia item: Service Pack 2 includes DirectX 9.0C, so you're good there (until they release something beyond DirectX 9.0C, anyway)

You may need to install .NET before your Cats, too.