Dell Chipset Utility driver - necessary with reinstall of XP?

I've just reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled XP SP2 on a Dell
Dimension 4700. (What a pain that was removing the hidden Dell partition
and all their recovery tools I needed a Win 98 bootdisk with the latest DOS
Format utility for NTFS partitions).

I started reloading other software and drivers for all the peripherals.
As soon as I installed this, I had trouble:

Chip Set: Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility, Driver,
Windows 2000, Windows XP, Multi Language, Multi System, v.6.0.1.1002, A09

http://support.dell.com/support/down...s&cs=19&l=en&s
=dhs&releaseid=R79695&formatcnt=1&libid=0&fileid=1 04426


The USB mouse locked and wouldn't move even when booted in safe mode.
I had to use the keyboard to do a system restore to a point about one hour
earlier.

When I checked the troubleshooting part of the readme file for the utility,
sure enough it mentioned conflicts with USB mouse and keyboard devices.
I'm assuming "A09" in the utility description refers to the BIOS.
Therefore, if I upgrade to A10 BIOS, am I correct in thinking I shouldn't
load this utility upgrade anyway? It says optional on the site.

If someone has some knowledge of this particular upgrade, please explain
how it would improve the performance of the computer.


One other question. Since the OS seems to be running perfectly without it,
doesn't Windows XP load its own driver or set of compatible drivers for the
Intel Chipset on the mobo?

wrote:
> I've just reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled XP SP2 on a Dell
> Dimension 4700. (What a pain that was removing the hidden Dell partition
> and all their recovery tools I needed a Win 98 bootdisk with the latest DOS
> Format utility for NTFS partitions).
>
> I started reloading other software and drivers for all the peripherals.
> As soon as I installed this, I had trouble:
>
> Chip Set: Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility, Driver,
> Windows 2000, Windows XP, Multi Language, Multi System, v.6.0.1.1002, A09
>
> http://support.dell.com/support/down...s&cs=19&l=en&s
> =dhs&releaseid=R79695&formatcnt=1&libid=0&fileid=1 04426
>

The generally held convention is that the chipset driver should be
installed prior to ANY other drivers.

Did you install other drivers first?

<> wrote in message
news: ...
> I've just reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled XP SP2 on a Dell
> Dimension 4700. (What a pain that was removing the hidden Dell partition
> and all their recovery tools I needed a Win 98 bootdisk with the latest
> DOS
> Format utility for NTFS partitions).
>
> I started reloading other software and drivers for all the peripherals.
> As soon as I installed this, I had trouble:
>
> Chip Set: Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility, Driver,
> Windows 2000, Windows XP, Multi Language, Multi System, v.6.0.1.1002, A09
>
> http://support.dell.com/support/down...s&cs=19&l=en&s
> =dhs&releaseid=R79695&formatcnt=1&libid=0&fileid=1 04426
>
>
> The USB mouse locked and wouldn't move even when booted in safe mode.
> I had to use the keyboard to do a system restore to a point about one hour
> earlier.
>
> When I checked the troubleshooting part of the readme file for the
> utility,
> sure enough it mentioned conflicts with USB mouse and keyboard devices.
> I'm assuming "A09" in the utility description refers to the BIOS.
> Therefore, if I upgrade to A10 BIOS, am I correct in thinking I shouldn't
> load this utility upgrade anyway? It says optional on the site.
>
> If someone has some knowledge of this particular upgrade, please explain
> how it would improve the performance of the computer.
>
>
> One other question. Since the OS seems to be running perfectly without
> it,
> doesn't Windows XP load its own driver or set of compatible drivers for
> the
> Intel Chipset on the mobo?


Have a look at device manager.

Absolutely 1000% accurate! Install chipset drivers first, IMMEDIATELY after
installing the operating system... Ben Myers

On 2 Nov 2006 02:37:36 -0800, "Alex Flaherty" <>
wrote:

>
> wrote:
>> I've just reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled XP SP2 on a Dell
>> Dimension 4700. (What a pain that was removing the hidden Dell partition
>> and all their recovery tools I needed a Win 98 bootdisk with the latest DOS
>> Format utility for NTFS partitions).
>>
>> I started reloading other software and drivers for all the peripherals.
>> As soon as I installed this, I had trouble:
>>
>> Chip Set: Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility, Driver,
>> Windows 2000, Windows XP, Multi Language, Multi System, v.6.0.1.1002, A09
>>
>> http://support.dell.com/support/down...s&cs=19&l=en&s
>> =dhs&releaseid=R79695&formatcnt=1&libid=0&fileid=1 04426
>>
>
>The generally held convention is that the chipset driver should be
>installed prior to ANY other drivers.
>
>Did you install other drivers first?

"Alex Flaherty" <> wrote in
news: ups.com:

> The generally held convention is that the chipset driver should be
> installed prior to ANY other drivers.
>
> Did you install other drivers first?

I think I installed the video adapter driver.

chipander...@yahoomy3sons.org wrote:
> "Alex Flaherty" <> wrote in
> news: ups.com:
>
> > The generally held convention is that the chipset driver should be
> > installed prior to ANY other drivers.
> >
> > Did you install other drivers first?
>
> I think I installed the video adapter driver.

Wak wak oops.

"Alex Flaherty" <> wrote in
news: oups.com:

>
> wrote:
>> "Alex Flaherty" <> wrote in
>> news: ups.com:
>>
>> > The generally held convention is that the chipset driver should be
>> > installed prior to ANY other drivers.
>> >
>> > Did you install other drivers first?
>>
>> I think I installed the video adapter driver.
>
> Wak wak oops.
>

If the troubleshooting part of the chipset readme.txt indicates that
there's a conflict with a USB mouse device, as does Dell's support area,
does it really make sense to install this particular utility?

What exactly would this upgrade do that isn't being done by using MS XP SP2
default drivers?

Alex,

Good question. Windows XP, no matter which service pack, includes only drivers
for motherboards which existed back when Windows XP was first shipped. In my
experience, this includes only the early Socket 423 motherboards plus Pentium
3's, of course, and some AMD-type chipsets. Motherboards with Intel CPUs and
any one of the 845, 850, 865, 875, or 900-series chipsets do not have drivers on
the XP CD to support them correctly. The result is that chipsets which depend
on the motherboard chipset, i.e. ALL of them, are highly likely to work
incorrectly.

The so-called default motherboard chipset drivers installed by Windows when it
cannot find the right drivers is VERY VERY basic, and they do not necessarily
mesh with the other devices in the system. With XP, MIcrosoft made some
progress with its dumbed down default motherboard chipset drivers which
communicate with IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drives using virtually any motherboard
chipset. With earlier versions of Windows, if you somehow did not copy the
chipset and other device drivers onto the hard drive before installing Windows,
then your CD-ROM drive would not work, and the only way to install them was via
floppy, which might not even have the capacity to contain a driver file.

As a general rule, immediately after installing Windows (ANY version or
release), go to Control Panel, click the System icon, then look at the list of
devices in Device Manager. If you see ANY devices with yellow or red markings
next to them, you need to install device drivers. If you ALWAYS start by
installing the drivers for the motherboard, you will not mess up the system
software.

And that's about it... Ben Myers

On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 19:56:07 -0600, wrote:

>"Alex Flaherty" <> wrote in
>news: roups.com:
>
>>
>> wrote:
>>> "Alex Flaherty" <> wrote in
>>> news: ups.com:
>>>
>>> > The generally held convention is that the chipset driver should be
>>> > installed prior to ANY other drivers.
>>> >
>>> > Did you install other drivers first?
>>>
>>> I think I installed the video adapter driver.
>>
>> Wak wak oops.
>>
>
>If the troubleshooting part of the chipset readme.txt indicates that
>there's a conflict with a USB mouse device, as does Dell's support area,
>does it really make sense to install this particular utility?
>
>What exactly would this upgrade do that isn't being done by using MS XP SP2
>default drivers?

Ben Myers <> wrote in
news::

> Good question. Windows XP, no matter which service pack, includes
> only drivers for motherboards which existed back when Windows XP was
> first shipped. In my experience, this includes only the early Socket
> 423 motherboards plus Pentium 3's, of course, and some AMD-type
> chipsets. Motherboards with Intel CPUs and any one of the 845, 850,
> 865, 875, or 900-series chipsets do not have drivers on the XP CD to
> support them correctly. The result is that chipsets which depend on
> the motherboard chipset, i.e. ALL of them, are highly likely to work
> incorrectly.
>
> The so-called default motherboard chipset drivers installed by Windows
> when it cannot find the right drivers is VERY VERY basic, and they do
> not necessarily mesh with the other devices in the system. With XP,
> MIcrosoft made some progress with its dumbed down default motherboard
> chipset drivers which communicate with IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drives using
> virtually any motherboard chipset. With earlier versions of Windows,
> if you somehow did not copy the chipset and other device drivers onto
> the hard drive before installing Windows, then your CD-ROM drive would
> not work, and the only way to install them was via floppy, which might
> not even have the capacity to contain a driver file.
>
> As a general rule, immediately after installing Windows (ANY version
> or release), go to Control Panel, click the System icon, then look at
> the list of devices in Device Manager. If you see ANY devices with
> yellow or red markings next to them, you need to install device
> drivers. If you ALWAYS start by installing the drivers for the
> motherboard, you will not mess up the system software.


Very good advice. I'm going to take it and reinstall XP, then
immediately install the Chipset utility and see if there's no conflict
with the USB mouse this time.

One final question - should I install the A10 BIOS upgrade immediately
after installing Windows XP or after the chipset utility is run.

In my first message, I noted that the chipset utility has an A09 listed
in its description. I'm assuming that refers to the BIOS.

If I had to guess, I should probably run the Intel Chipset utility first:

Chip Set: Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility, Driver,
Windows 2000, Windows XP, Multi Language, Multi System, v.6.0.1.1002, A09

http://support.dell.com/support/down...s&cs=19&l=en&s
=dhs&releaseid=R79695&formatcnt=1&libid=0&fileid=1 04426

wrote:

....
> One other question. Since the OS seems to be running perfectly without it,
> doesn't Windows XP load its own driver or set of compatible drivers for the
> Intel Chipset on the mobo?

thank you people for your replies. i'm in a somewhat similar situation, in
that i have redone XP, but i still have a PCI device that comes up Yellow
in device manager, unfortunately there isn't any more information that seems
to help me narrow it down to what driver i need to reload. any ideas?

i'm hoping the answer doesn't include "Start over" because it'd bite to
have to wade through the upgrades i've already done again. or is there any
way to just redo the devices only?

thank you for your help,


ant