This is interesting for signing NVidia drivers in comment @ reddit dot com/r/windows7/comments/1bho35t/gt710_best_driver_version/
I'm trying to track down a problem related with Windows 7 64-bit and NVidia drivers. Maybe someone can help. I've had the Nvidia 472.12 WHQL driver installed for a while, and it worked great on Windows 7 64-bit. Just recently, I swapped out my old motherboard for a MSI Z590 Pro motherboard. The hard drive, graphics card and its drivers are exactly the same as before. Everything looked good until I started using some apps that rely on CUDA 11.4 for iRay rendering. They're now crashing on me, which did not happen before on my old motherboard. Specificlly, the crash is coming from nvoptix.dll, a call to optixQueryFunctionTable(), which says it is built on OptiX 7.4 for the 472.12 drivers. I also use some python apps that rely on python modules like torch that use CUDA 11. They're crashing on me too. Specifically, the crash is coming from cublasLt64_11.dll which torch uses. I tried installing various Nvidia drivers, but I can't get rid of theses crashes. Hopefully, someone knows what's happening here. My graphics card is a RTX 3080 Ti. Specs: Windows 7 Pro 64-bit (SP1) MSI Z590 Pro Wifi i7-11700KF (11th Gen) RTX 3080 Ti
When I first booted Windows 7 on the Z590 motherboard, I had several missing drivers under Device Manager: Base System Device -> ? Ethernet Controller -> Intel I225-V Network Controller -> wifi card PCI Device -> ? PCI Simple Communications Controller -> Intel Management Engine driver? SM Bus Controller -> System Management? Unknown Device -> ? Unknown Device -> ? Would any of these missing drivers cause a NVidia GPU card running CUDA to not function correctly?
If any of these missing drivers are chipset related, then yes because they're needed for propper PCIe handling. If you haven't found any Win7 compatible drivers, try using some drivers update tools like DriverHub (it has been fixed) and Snappy Driver Installer Origin. I'd recommend using more than one because one will offer drivers that the other will not. BTW, did you do a fresh install or somehow managed to boot the same install you were using before the Z590 without getting a BSOD?
I used SetupChipset.exe from the MSI support page to resolve some missing drivers. The download is listed under "Windows 10", but the program runs fine on Windows 7, and the drivers install ok too. It found 3 missing drivers: Base System Device -> Intel(R) GNA - 4C11 SM Bus Controller -> Intel(R) SMBus - 43A3 PCI Device -> Intel(R) (flash) Controller - 43A4 I don't know what they do, but nothing has changed. My apps still crash on me. These are program crashes, not BSOD. This is not a fresh install. I swapped my old drive, as is, with Windows 7 already pre-installed, and it works ok, except for this one thing. Windows is smart enough to re-validate any drivers found under Device Manager, so I shouldn't have to worry about old motherboard drivers causing problems. CUDA 11.4 and Nvidia 472.12 should probably know about this motherboard and its components, if it's doing anything specific, machine-code wise. I checked their release dates, and they have been released afterwards: i7-11700KF (11th Gen) Released March 30, 2021 MSI Z590 Pro Wifi Released May 28, 2021 RTX 3080 Ti Released June 3, 2021 CUDA 11.4 Released July 01, 2021 (R470 driver) Nvidia 472.12 WHQL Released Sept 20, 2021
So this could be it. If you have a spare drive, try a fresh install to see if the problems persist. But first try using some drivers update tools to see if all unknown devices are cleared.
I'd like to keep an open mind, but I'm not sure if that would help. CUDA is strictly accessed through the nVidia graphics driver, so anything related to BIOS or chipsets should not affect it. I would hate to think this problem is deeply rooted in CSM/UEFI somehow, as that would ruin my day if I had to install Windows 10 in UEFI mode just to get CUDA working again. Digging through the z590 BIOS settings, I did notice a setting called "Above 4G memory/Crypto Currency mining" that only works in UEFI mode, but I hope that has nothing to do with my CUDA crash. I can only run Windows 7 in CSM mode. But anyway, if anyone else has a similar problem or similar hardware, I would like to hear your experience. Because something strange going on with CUDA among these 3 things: RTX 3080 Ti Nvidia Driver 472.12 WHQL MSI Z590 Pro Wifi Motherboard
These 475.14 works great on 7xx GT (also 6xx to 3xxx): github (dot) com /dartraiden/NVIDIA-WIn7-Win8-Signed-Driver/releases
Thanks, but I don't believe there has been any changes related to CUDA for 472.12 to 475.14. According to Nvida,these later updates are only security updates: "This is a security-only release, which aims to patch some critical security issues. There are no optimizations for new games, no new features, and no bug fixes." This file, for example, is exactly the same: 472.12 WHQL: nvoptix.dll v7.4.0.0 (09/15/21) (222 MB) 475.14: nvoptix.dll v7.4.0.0 (06/10/24) (222 MB) But, I tried it anyway, and it did install ok, but my CUDA apps still crashed on me. So, I believe the issue is more related to its CUDA implementation, and not necessarily the graphics driver. Something about my new hardware combo breaks CUDA under Win7. BTW, if you do install this driver from this user, dartraiden, be aware he installs two certificates: Atheros.cer dartraiden.cer One of these certificates, dartraiden.cer, is installed in your "Trusted Root Certification Authorities", which is set to "All" under "Intended Purposes". How to view installed certificates: > certmgr.msc I don't fully understand the purpose of this extra certificate, as the Atheros.cer certificate is the one signed to the driver file. Installing root certificates like this could open your system up to malware attacks. Use at your own risk. For me, I immediately deleted this certificate, and re-installed 472.12 WHQL again, as CUDA is still broken.
Hello, I have a GTX 970M. Does anyone know what is the latest version which does not need the test signing hack (Windows 7 and 8.1)? 430.53 runs stable (2019 version, updated to it 6 months ago). Before was using 398.98 (2018 version, since I setup this PC). I never install GeForce Experience and I typically disable the telemetry service. Thank you. PS: 466.79 runs well on Windows 10 LTSC 2019 (Version 1809).
474.11 is the latest with WHQL hxxps://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/474.11/474.11-notebook-win8-win7-64bit-international-whql.exe can't post links replace h"xx"ps with tt
The last signed Win7 driver, 474.11 WHQL, is probably the best driver for your card. I see zero benefit running a modded driver, as the later security releases contain "no new features or bugfixes".
I'm not sure if you've found a solution already, but I can add some useful info. For the last 3 years I've been hacking my way around the nvidia drivers to get a renderer which uses OptiX 7.4+ API to work under the R470 drivers. Despite the OptiX components in R470 drivers being versioned as 7.4, they do NOT fully support the 7.4 API. I spoke with someone at nvidia about this and they told me that any mention of 7.4 in R470 is a mistake and would be recalled (it never was). Accordingly, drivers like 472.12 only have OptiX 7.3 and lower APIs. If you have a program which unconditionally uses the OptiX 7.4 or higher API, you might be able to get it running by replacing some nvidia driver files with their R495+ equivalents from a Win 10 driver package. This is what I have been doing for in order to get my renderer to work under R470. It has worked well in my experience, though the renderer I am using is almost pure CUDA and only uses OptiX for denoising, so your mileage may vary if you are using a renderer which heavily relies on OptiX features. Install an R470 driver and then replace these files with their R495 or higher equivalents: - C:\Windows\System32\nvoptix.dll - C:\Windows\System32\nvptxJitCompiler64.dll - C:\Windows\System32\nvrtum64.dll - C:\Windows\SysWOW64\nvptxJitCompiler32.dll Also, since R510, the neural network inside nvoptix.dll was split out into its own nvoptix.bin file. Make sure to copy the driver package's nvoptix.bin into system32, next to the nvoptix.dll file, if you are using an R510 or newer driver for the replacement files. Now test it. If you are lucky and your renderer does not actually use OptiX 7.4+ hardware/driver implementation features (only the API), it may work. At the very least, you'll get past the error originating from the optixQueryFunctionTable call and get a new error for whatever is missing next. This will work with all drivers from R495 up to R525. Currently I am using the files from 528.49, which provides the OptiX 7.7 API. I am using 474.11 as my base. Starting with the R530 drivers, OptiX now requires CUDA 12, which is not present in the R470 drivers. The R470 drivers include CUDA 11.4. The R495 branch is when CUDA 11.5 was introduced. I have tried to find a way to get CUDA 11.5 or newer working under R470 but have not had any success yet. There are other problems with R530's version of OptiX as well, so R525 is the end of the line for this hack as far as I know. Also on the topic of CUDA, it is important to note that all CUDA 11 minor versions (11.0 through 11.8) have some degree of interoperability. If you have a program which was compiled against CUDA 11.5 or newer, it might use the common CUDA 11.x interface in cudart64_110.dll. And if the program does not actually require hardware/driver implementation features provided by CUDA 11.5+, you will be able to run this program under R470 drivers by supplying the program with the 11.5, 11.6, 11.7, or 11.8 version of cudart64_110.dll. This sadly does not apply to the nvidia driver itself and how it internally uses its own components (i.e. how optix uses cuda), so it wont work for that. Other things you may have to do includes spoofing some driver version checks in things like nvml.dll, depending on how your renderer behaves. The stability of the hack is very good in my experience, owing to the way nvidia designed their driver's API & ABI. I've been running this frankendriver (optix hack + other file replacements, spoofs, and shims for other things) every day for the last 3 years and I have never experienced crashes or errors in non-OptiX applications.
If anyone is having trouble with NVIDIA drivers, I've been running 473.04 since 2022 and had no issues whatsoever. So that should be at least one "known good" version.