Apple: Nvidia causing Vista Quicktime bug!
VLC proves otherwise – Quicktime code just sucks.

Quicktime and SATAI’ve been pulling my hair out over the last few days at a serious and logic-defying problem with Apple’s Quicktime software on Windows Vista. I have tough hair so my fibers remain.

Whilst Apple might make angel-crafted software experiences for the Mac and iPhone with beautiful transitions and all that other jazz, they certainly don’t know how to make software for the greater mass, Windows. There’s no debate iTunes on Windows needs work, but they should probably add Quicktime to that list too. At the moment, not only can Quicktime destroy your RAID setups, it might fail to work altogether if you have SATA disks on Nvidia. Watch…

This problem occurs in both of the latest versions of Quicktime, 7.1.5 and 7.1.6 (update: and even 7.2 released today). I couldn’t find any earlier versions to test but I’ll presume it’s the same since Apple didn’t even support Vista at that time.

What ticked me off after spending almost 3 hours uninstalling and reinstalling most drivers in my system is that Apple even recognizes and publically acknowledges this bug in their knowledge base, however points the finger at Nvidia as the culprit. Which strikes me as odd because VLC Media Player can manage the same files just fine as demonstrated.

Who knows how many people this problem affects, considering there’s plenty of Vista users out there (*shock*), Nvidia is a wildly popular chipset choice for both Intel and AMD users, and SATA hard drives are becoming if not already mainstream.

I’m no Apple-hater, I want to use Quicktime, which is why I’m spending so much time and energy trying to make it work. But if Apple’s not going to fix their problems in their software, then there’s no really not much choice left. My message to Apple, “you’ve had more than 3 years to mock Vista, don’t be a hypocrite.”

110 insightful thoughts

  1. Well, why bother with quicktime? Use the quicktime alternative or one of those codec package… it´s much more stable, light and bugless. Maybe someday Apple discovers they´re not perfect…

  2. @Andrew: Quicktime Alternative doesn’t work either. It’s a bug with the Quicktime codec which Alternative uses.

  3. I wouldn’t be too disappointed.. quicktime is a pretty ugly, buggy product.. I’m not sure why anyone would use it.. especially on Vista, where it- and iTunes look like ass because they desire control over the draw of their entire application, destroying any consistency that windows has, such as the drop shadows that distint the windows away from blurring in to one flat mess of textures..

  4. Are there still people who think these problems with Apple software on Vista aren’t intentional?

  5. I’m not a Apple-hater either but I have to say – I can’t stand Quicktime or iTunes and all the little bullcrappy processes they install. Didn’t even know their were problems since I bade them dood riddance ages ago.

  6. Being a Mac guy who uses Windows at the office, I get to enjoy both – and it really gets me just how gigantic a difference there is between the Windows and Mac versions of iTunes/Quicktime. The Mac versions are really nicely done and integrated, but the Windows ones are horrible and they just feel like some sort of cheap bloated knock-offs.

  7. Can I just ask exactly what problems is iTunes creating in Vista? I’m not mocking anyone, I’m genuinely curious because I’ve been using it almost every day since I started using Vista RC1 as my primary IS, and then upgraded to the retail version when I could afford it, and I’ve had no problems with iTunes whatsoever…It performs well and hasn’t crashed once.

  8. typo: “…started using Vista RC1 as my primary OS

    And I should clarify that I do not, and never have had (nor do I intend to ever purchase), an iPod. Is that where the problems are?

  9. @iTunes: iPod problems are one, but the whole inconsistent and self-rendered UI controls is another. For example, there’s issues with the interface when you first load it (it’s all black). It could also ‘reinstalls’ everytime you use it, at least it does for me. Crashes can happen too.

  10. I know what you mean Long. I don’t have Quicktime on my machine, because I like to take care of my system 😉 None of this extra iTunes crap and all this. Whenever I want to view a Quicktime .MOV file, I’ll search through embedded code, find the download, download it and open it in VLC. Yes, it may mean a bit of a trek, but it’s a small price to pay to put crap on your machine 🙂

  11. I have the exact same problem here because of SATA+Nvidia. But I think the problem is bigger: Apple grows too fast. Even the iPhone software is buggy, there are serious issues with the latest Leopard builts (pushed back for that reason?), Safari 3 beta was/is a mess even on Macs. Maybe they haven’t realized whats the most important thing for a software company: “Developers, developers, developers…”

  12. OH dam. So that is a problem.
    I’ve had it for ages. And simply use VLC to get around it.
    But i was wondering what the hell it was caused by.
    I just put it down to crappy nvidia display drivers.

    Hmm.

  13. Media Player Classic and the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack. This little package of software will solve all of your problems. It is small and quick, and has just about any codec imaginable, able to play WMV, SlowTime (TM), and FakeMedia (TM) files. You can even play FLV videos you download of PoorQualityTube (TM).

    Not to mention that QT+iTunes breaks just about every Windows style standard. And yes, I know that MS does this too.

  14. I ran into issues yesterday as well on Vista. I had avoided using iTunes and Quicktime on my Vista machine because of issues I ran into when I installed them months ago. An Apple Software Update push had managed to corrupt my fiance’s Shuffle and render it unusable on her XP machine. Multiple re-installs, reg leans, etc. couldn’t get it back on her machine, so I bit the bullet and installed it on my machine so we could get the Shuffle restored for her to use again.

    All went well, until I rebooted and tried to log back into my Domain. It corrupted the User profile. Lovely.

    They definitely aren’t the bees-knees when it comes to Windows.

  15. That is apple for you, blame someone else. Look when the install viruses on the iPods, they said it was MSFT’s fault

  16. Since I upgraded to Core 2 Duo on an nVidia motherboard, I have run into this problem and it drives me crazy. QuickTime is the only application I have that does not work correctly in Vista.

  17. I have a nForce4 chipset but my SATA disk is connected via a SATA controller PCI card. Everything plays just fine in MPC using the QuickTime 7.1.6 codecs in Vista.

    BTW, small typo in the video: it’s not the Bee Movie trailer. 😛

  18. Just installed v7.2 on my vista lappy…in addition to reset back to the default setting, quicktime seem to have an overtaken the default file association! Argh!

  19. Okay, I get that QuickTime doesn’t work as expected here, while VLC does. But why would you jump to the conclusion that it’s QuickTime’s fault? How does another application working somehow prove that it’s NOT nVidia’s bug? Where on earth did your critical thinking skills go?

    The RAID one you linked to is particularly scary. No matter what, an application *is not capable* of causing such problems. Such problems are driver level. Is Apple installing a driver that stomps all over nVidia’s stuff, causing it to misbehave? No? Then how does QuickTime magically screw up something it can’t actually touch?

    Of course, the answer is simple: it doesn’t. A bug exists in the driver, and an application’s unique behavior just happens to tickle it. VLC’s I/O subsystem is nothing like QuickTime’s. (In some ways it’s rather unfortunate — VLC isn’t capable of frame-stepping, for instance.) If it doesn’t do the same things, of course it’s not going to trip the same bug.

    Claiming the bug is in the application is not only wrong, it’s extremely dangerous: if everyone believes you and the driver bug doesn’t get fixed, then someday another application will happen to trip the same bug and something even worse might happen. The PC industry is already unreliable enough without people making it worse by failing to engage their brains.

    Why are you making such sensationalist claims without evidence? You usually do much better than this!

  20. @Long & Andrew, I’ve got the same problem here, and QuickTime Alt does seem to fix it, however, it requires you to rename it to .hdmov.
    I believe when it does this, it makes Windows search through its DirectShow codecs which are accelerated – unlike QuickTime in general

    Tad irksome to get good playback, but since my Quicktime usage is

  21. QuickTime 7.2 does not solve this problem. What a shame! Got a buffer overrun error message (the first in my life, thank you Apple).

    But from now on, no one has to go to pr0n advertised crack sites to watch Disney’s/Pixar’s movie advertisements in full screen! A tiny revolution.

  22. @Random Reader: Because if another application can beat the native application at its own game with its own file format, then obviously the native application isn’t coded very well. And if Apple hasn’t been able to fix it in 2 3 releases, then obviously they’re not trying hard enough.

    At the same time this is a problem restricted to only Nvidia chipsets, my argument is it’s not Nvidia’s bug because it’s something Apple could ‘fix’ in Quicktime. There’s no problems with Nvidia in any other I/O application so it’s mindblowing how one particular file format just fails when they’re all bits.

  23. @JoeM

    I remember Microsoft’s response to that was something involving some McDonalds MP3 players at that time and that how was it possible that even McDonalds could distribute MP3 players without security issues but Apple couldn’t. Thanks for the laugh reminder.

    But anyways, I’m experiencing the same thing. It’s quite pathetic how Apple seems to think people will hold back on getting Vista because their lousy apps aren’t going to be working.

  24. That reply assumes the problem is with the _application_. Again, this looks like an actual driver bug. Sure, Apple could work around it, but they’re NOT the ones you want “fixing” this problem.

    Suppose, for example, the I/O access pattern that trips this bug (or the RAID one) is one that could be performed by an application using the .NET Framework’s Isolated Storage system. Now a malicious web-launched application can cause a local DoS, possibly leading to data loss, despite passing all the security and best-practice checks in the .NET Framework.

    Would you then say that not only is this Apple’s problem that they need to fix in QuickTime, but it’s also Microsoft’s problem that they need to fix in the .NET Framework? Despite the fact that the actual problem is with nVidia’s failure to release properly coded Vista drivers?

    Come on.

    As for “There’s no problems with Nvidia in any other I/O application”, that may be true for *you*, but you certainly can’t generalize it enough to claim it’s not nVidia’s problem. Hell, just search around, it’s not like this is some isolated thing:

    http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=39717
    http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=30230
    etc.

    You’ll find much of the same with almost any onboard RAID-capable chipset. Trying to blame these kinds of things on the application developers is pure insanity.

  25. @Random Reader: If it is an driver issue, then wouldn’t it affect ALL files on a disk? An I/O request does not discriminate what type of file it is, a MOV has the same physical properties as a DOC or WMV. Which is why I keep referring back to the VLC alternative.

    Obviously Apple is doing something different, something that doesn’t work well. They have the best opportunity to change it. Updating software is much easier and safer than updating drivers.

  26. okok…
    we found a new business way to reduce develope cost

    Steve Jobs:
    Our software’s quailty is state of art…
    If any problem caused, I can only blame someone else

  27. You’re right, but it’s not the filetype that’s the issue here. It’s the access pattern, and that can be performed by anything.

    For instance, QuickTime may do multiple overlapping reads. It’s capable of multithreaded decoding (unlike VLC), so perhaps it even has multiple threads doing simultaneous reads from the same file. (I’m not sure I’d do that, but I can see that making sense for some media framing types.) They may not even overlap at the application level, but they will at the various block-oriented levels used by both the OS’s I/O subsystem and physical drive.

    VLC is originally a network-stream oriented kind of app, and my impression is that the disk reader is just tacked on to that. (It’s also why it doesn’t do frame stepping. It only understands time-based packets.)

    Combine this with the fact that modern storage systems and the SATA protocol itself are capable of command/packet reordering and scheduling, AND that Vista introduces new cancel operations and I/O priority schemes that affect driver developers maintaining who-knows-how-old codebases, and you end up with an insane amount of complexity.

    It’s not as if Apple is just violating some API contract spelled out in the documentation somewhere. It’s a minor miracle they were able to narrow it down to an nVidia issue in the first place!

  28. @Random Reader: I know where you’re coming from, but it just doesn’t make sense when I have tens and twenties of other applications which are far more I/O intensive can work flawlessly. For example, running the latest and greatest games like Supreme Commander should be far more of an I/O challenge than watching Quicktime. I know they don’t use the exact same I/O access method, but if you can do greater, you should be able to do lesser even better.

  29. If things were working as they “should”, you wouldn’t even be making this blog post 😉 All you’ve ruled out with that line of thinking is that I/O intensity has nothing to do with it. You still can’t account for access _patterns_.

    Problems like these are like problems with multithreading. There’s no single metric you can use to test for a problem. Strange things happen for obscure reasons.

    Look at it another way: if QuickTime is at fault, why are the only people having this particular problem using nVidia SATA drivers?

    Or another: what could a QuickTime developer possibly have done that accidentally causes problems only on nVidia SATA devices?

  30. @Random Reader: What could a VLC developer have done so that the exact same file on the exact same hardware work great?

    It seems to me Apple just test there Windows applications inside a Parallels virtual machine on one single Mac mini. BTW QuickTime is the only plugin that causes Firefox to crash. Maybe it’s because of Firefox? Yes it could be. But after trying to test the first Safari 3 beta on Vista, I don’t believe in Apple’s quality.

  31. @tino: We already know what VLC does (source is available). There are no special workarounds, it’s basic file I/O. That’s exactly my point; problems in this area are *driver* bugs, since applications simply aren’t *capable* of doing anything to cause such problems. All they have to work with is the same public API everyone else does.

    We also know Apple does more testing than Parallels. Besides QT/Win existing long before Parallels did, we also know they narrowed down the problem and contacted nVidia about it. That’s something they couldn’t have done without the hardware to work with, since everything Mac is pure intel.

    Apple’s not new at this; they’ve been doing applications for Windows since before the web became mainstream.

    I’m certainly not saying QuickTime is perfect. The Windows version drives me nuts, and I avoid using it whenever possible. That’s no excuse to blame it for a problem that isn’t its fault, though.

    All of the Safari 3 issues I’ve seen have been application-level bugs. Have I missed one that Apple says is someone else’s fault?

  32. @Random Reader: So next time someone reports a bug in my software i should just tell them that it can’t be a bug because it uses a public API? haha

    No body disputes that Apple uses the same public API that everyone else uses, its how that API has been implemented.

    Obviously QuickTime is doing something that it shouldn’t.

  33. LZ,

    Perhaps the point of my spoof entry to your Expression giveaway competition might come into sharp focus now.

    Since I have a brand new DELL 9200 with Vista, NVIDIA graphics, SATA RAID and iTunes/Quicktime I see exactly the fault you describe. Errors made by the tier 1 vendors:

    1. Apple – looks like a fault with QT (I’m not qualified to judge however). Fix it quickly please or no more QT here and I complain about Apple products.

    2. NVIDIA – you might not be guilty here … but WHERE ARE MY VISTA GAMING DRIVERS you lazy freeloaders! I will complain about the general unpreparedness of all major 3rd party vendors for the Vista launch (and it was delayed so many times you have absolutely no excuse!).

    3. Microsoft – I am wowed that your secure operating system can be trashed by an application that isn’t even trying to be malicious (I’ll be generous to Apple). Not only did this minor app. crash the OS it corrupted the file system. I will complain about M$ in every forum I visit and urge others to do the same until M$ start developing OS functions rather than gaming functions. (That includes you LZ! You’re far too nice to M$.)

    4. DELL – your ‘100,000 hours of testing to make sure all customers are wowed by the Vista experience’ has failed dismally. Given that NVIDIA/SATA RAID/iTunes is one of the top 10 most likely configurations your test manager is fired … and I want an independent analysis of the entire test teams results. I will continue to recommend DELL as cheap and nasty.

    You guys need to do some proper testing before releasing products!

    HAND

  34. to 3. Microsoft

    it can happen every now and then that an application crashes in vista. to some this happens often, to others only on rare occassions. luckily i belong to the second group.
    i have never experienced an appliacation crash tho that crashed the OS completely. as far as i have seen vista is extremely stable and can recover easily from crashing applications.

    so i wouldnt use the term “operating can be trashed by an application”. its not the OS fault if the application is coded badly.

  35. @Jonathan Merriweather: Mind the context. We’re talking about the kinds of problems like RAID arrays getting trashed. It doesn’t matter *how* an application uses a standard public API, when even blatant malicious misuse of that API is not capable of causing such a problem.

    If it’s so obvious to you that QuickTime is doing something it shouldn’t, can you point out to me exactly what that is?

    @Marco: In pure general terms, if an application causes damage to the OS, it *is* the OS’s fault. The only problem with that generality is that in order to be useful, an OS typically needs to allow third-party code to extend it (drivers), so it’s not necessarily the OS creator’s fault.

    It is, however, *never* the application’s fault. It’s either a flaw in the OS proper, or a flaw in a third-party component of it (driver).

  36. The other post that talks about iTunes causing RAIDs to fail is just baloney, and probably the notorious Intel iastor problem, where Intel’s disk drivers mistake a desktop PC for a laptop, and install registry keys to turn on power management (which makes a lot of desktop drives cry.) You can read about the problem at my blog here:

    http://www.pdsys.org/blog/2007/04/10/DellAndIntelScrewUpBigTimeIaStorAndWindowsVista.aspx

    As to Quicktime on Vista, I have nothing but problems. I still cannot watch a “high definition” (720 or 1080) clip without some sort of problem, such as:

    1) 5.1 audio not working properly, with both onboard sound card and Soundblaster X-Fi

    2) Video “freezing” then catching up, over and over.

    3) Random crashes.

    This is on a P4 3.2 dualcore, well within the suggested specs, with 2 gigabytes of RAM. And yes, I tried it without Readyboost too. No difference.

  37. This is toooooo much!!! Just imaging the plight of someone who’s lost his RAID setup. Isn’t RAID 0 for peace of mind?

  38. Ok I just tried to get this to happen on my NV board with quicktime. In vista and I cant lol. It works great. I dont use quicktime but have it installed. Sorry but these kind of things will never work. There are way to many people out here that dont have the problem. I mean how knows what you have installed and going on in the back ground or a virus or lol. Get over it. You DONT have to pay for it. There are WAY better FREE players out there.

    Now to the UNWISE.. Microsoft, APPLE, Nvidia, ATI blah blah are NOT going to stop by and read this. You would have better luck sending a letter to Santa Claus. My God if you have to ask about raid 1 0 duh is it 3 or 8.. LEAVE it alone.

  39. Ok, I’m on Vista Ultimate with an Nvidia board and SATA hdd and a Geforce 8800, I’m using CCCP with Media Player Classic for playing my videos. No Itunes installed yet. Ok, I play a .mov file on MPC, it plays silky smooth, no issues there.

    However I have an Ipod, I need Itunes, So I installed the latest one. I tried to play the same .mov file on MPC, and BHAM! Crappy video resolution and jerky playback. So WTF? I tried to play said file in Quicktime 7.2 and BHAM! Still crappy video. Tearing my hair here. I got pissed, uninstalled Itunes and Quicktime, and played the .mov on MPC. Back to silky smooth playback.

    So can the smart ones here tell me this isn’t Apple’s fault?

  40. Here’s another lovely “feature” from Apple. Today’s QuickTime update on Vista made Outlook 2002 stop working. I solved it by using System Restore to undo the Apple updates.

  41. LZ,

    I just want to let you know I feel your pain. I’ve been fighting this same problem with my Alienware desktop since I bought it in May. I’ve tried everything. I wish someone would fix this… Apple, NVIDIA, MS. It doesn’t matter to me.

  42. Thanks for the warning! I was just about to install Quicktime in Vista on my dual booting system (RAID 0)… Could have been a disaster as I have around 400GB of data on there!!!!

  43. QuickTime and iTunes have been driving me crazy on Vista. I just hope they fix it soon….. I suppose I should just drop QT in favor of one of these other players…

  44. I am using Vista Ultimate 64 with a RAID SATA set up and NVDIA 7600 graphics card. I’ve had a nightmare with trying to play a large mov file. Tried QT and all the alternatives. File would not play properly on any player – video didn’t work properly on QT; audio problems and crashing on mpc.

    After reading the above posts, I eventually uninstalled anything with anything to do with QT on it. I had Vista codec pack on it and had to modify that to remove the QT element.

    Then I play said file on mpc. Hey presto! Perfect!

    Anybody know of any evil QT residue that might be hiding that I can delete?

  45. Nvidia has an answer to Apple’s claims that it is the driver causing the issue:

    “NVIDIA has determined this issue isn’t specific to nForce SATA Controllers or its associated drivers. There are no specific performance issues with nForce based motherboards with Apple iTunes. NVIDIA has reported this application issue to Apple iTunes development.”

    I like watching ping pong, don’t you?

    http://tinyurl.com/2l8wng

  46. Thank god it’s true. Been having a slow internet connection up to only 10KB/s and i’ve got a 4MB/s package. Being installing/reinstalling my 64bit Vista Ultimate on my Nvidia based m’board. Been pulling hairs, angrily mocking local ISP helpdesk only to find out it’s my pc that emits the problems.

    Currently on my installation of Vista god knows how many, and it’s still stable provided i didnt install Qt. Even reverting via System Restore didnt do any good. This need to go out.

  47. It’s fixed!! Well, mostly…

    Windows update installed version 9.95 of NVIDIA’s SATA drivers today. Video in Quicktime and iTunes now runs smoothly. Even with DirectX enabled in the Quicktime control panel

    I say mostly fixed because now I’m getting an annoying “RAID Access failure” from the NVIDIA Control Panel whenever I start a movie. But the video runs great!

  48. It is fixed for me, 100% works great.

    details: mobo ASUS M2NPV-VM, get the drivers directly from nVidia or remove the ASUS provided drivers an let windows update get the nVidia drivers.

  49. After Effects CS 3 is now unusable on Vista until Apple releases a better version, i was pulling my hair out yesterday and as soon as i converted all .mov files to .avi files my crashes where cut in half, although when i got an error in after effects it usually pointed to my quick time player, which i currently can not repair or uninstall because i get a 2330 error of some kind, I fear it has also cause one of my SATA drives to be so messed up I can’t even reformat it.

    Because quick time parsing is not built into any programs (i am assuming because mac won’t let that happen $$$) I am reliant on quick time to even start up programs like after effects that accommodate the popular format.

    Here is my tribute: http://www.troyblank.com/temp/images/quickTimeSucks.jpg

  50. Bashing one O.S. over another has always given me pause to think. While I never had any major problems with M.S. operating systms and Quicktime, up to and including XP, upgrading my wife’s computer to Vista threw me a curve. Audio is fine, but video is balky. Sound familiar?

    What’s amazing for me is that playback is just fine if performed from flash drives and burned media, but not the hard drive. While this is a sort of work-around for me it’s not mentioned many places, if at all. Does this fit the same bill? Given that I have other systems to compare with, there is a definite relationship between Nvidia and QT, but I can only hope some resolution will eventually be achieved.

  51. John, NVIDIA’s new SATA drivers (version 9.95) worked for me. Video now runs smoothly from the hard drive. Does your computer have an NVIDIA motherboard? What SATA drivers are you using?

  52. Can anybody tell me where to download this new SATA driver (v. 9.95)? I’m about ready to just return this computer (HP Pavilion a6110n) but want to give it one last chance. What a bummer.

    I have browsed the NVIDIA.com “download drivers” site, but do not see the driver update mentioned here.

  53. The new driver is available through Windows Update, but I don’t suggest using Windows Update to install drivers. It didn’t work the first time I tried it. I used the link in the following post on the NVIDIA User Forum:

    http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=42127&hl=

    There’s no installer. You have to use Device Manager. Unzip the file you just downloaded then open “Storage Controllers” in Device Manager, right click on “NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller” and select “Update Driver Software”. Then browse for the folder you just unzipped and update your drivers.

  54. Thanks for the feedback Matt! I’ve just started to play with Vista and under the device manager, under storage controller is lists an NVidia MCP61 Serial ATA controller. The mother board is made by Gigabyte S-series AM2 64 bit Athlon dual-core setup. I think you’ve got me onto something here. Driver version appears to be 5.10.2600.824, which I believe is an old one?!? Let me know what you think and I’m going to check out these other 2 posts. 🙂

  55. Thanks, Matt.

    I did manage to track that very post down earlier today and attempted a manual driver update. Unfortunately, it gave me the following error:

    “The folder you specified doesn’t contain a compatible software driver for your device. If the folder contains a driver, make sure it is designed to work with Windows for 32-bit systems.”

    Yes, I was using the x86 version (I have a 32-bit machine), and yes, I unzipped the files before attempting the update.

    I’m not sure why the Windows Update did not pick this up for my configuration. I suspect that it is because I do not have a RAID system (only SATA controlled HDDs). No idea why it’s giving me this error.

    In the mean time, I am operating completely off of an external drive as a work around. Frustrating.

    Suggestions anyone? Right now, it looks like I’ll just have to wait for NVIDIA to make the executable available.

  56. Well…no joy. System sees the most current driver present according to Vista and it made no attempt to install?? I even went through the install cd that came with the motherboard. Time to punt!

  57. John, I did some research on your motherboard. Looks like it’s a NVIDIA nForce 430 series. Have you updated your chipset drivers recently? From the SATA driver version you listed, it appears you have not. Try updating your entire chipset to version 15.01 first.

    Go to NVIDIA’s Drivers page:
    http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

    Select “Platform/nForce Drivers”. Then “nForce 430/410/405/400” (with or without integrated graphics, depending on your setup). Then Windows Vista (32bit or 64 bit, depending on your operating system).

    This should update your SATA controller to 5.10.2600.992. Then download version 9.95 using the link I listed above. Make sure you select the right version based on what version of Windows Vista you’re using (32bit or 64bit). Finally, follow the same instructions I wrote in my previous post.

    Let me know if that helps.

  58. Matt, thanks once again. In looing for the 405 upgrades, I missed it in the string of 430/-/400. I was able to bring all operative driver levels up to 5.10.2600.992 without much difficulty. Also downloaded the 9.95 and attempted to install it by way of update drive, but it only insists that it is up-to-date. It will no doubt help system stability and will no doubt never go to 64 bit to increase compatibility problems.

    Something interesting in all this…before updating…in DEvice Manager…Nvidia controller was listed under storage controllers towards the bottom of the list and now it is listed under the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Don’t know what that was all about, but won’t worry about it for now.

  59. Hey Matt! Got my “fix”. I was about to format and re-load, when I decided to restore the system back to pre QT. I decided to once again download the driver file and to my amazement it did not replace the original. Turns out the file I had was about 50M short of what it needed. The file I needed turned out to be nforce_winvista32_15.01G or 77.3M

    I think I could have achieved the same results by allowing an optional Visat update file to download and run, but I usually only just get the standard stuff.

    Thanks again,

  60. Can anyone help me. I have a HPdv6449us and am having the same problems trying to watch a video I purchased through itunes. Itunes won’t help, and Nvidia doesn’t even have customer support. I have a Nvidia GeForce Go 6150 graphics card and I have updated drivers through HP’s site and disabled Direct X and video acceleration through quicktime.

    I think I will just have to wait for Nvidia to give HP the updated driver right?

  61. the post above by cody fixed my problem. I nearly went back to XP! I am happier with vista now.

  62. I can also confirm that the fix mentioned by Matt works. Nvidia’s latest chipset (motherboard) drivers seem to have solved the problem, with one qualifier: I still need to turn off ‘direct3d acceleration’ under Quicktime’s advanced settings. If I don’t do this, playback is still vastly better than it used to be (no more buffer overruns), but it is still jerky.

    Whether the problem lay with Apple or Nvidia is a moot point, at least one of them has done something to fix it!

    In case it helps anyone else, I have a MoBo based on the Nvidia 650i-SLI chipset, and Nvidia’s Nforce 15.08 drivers fixed the problem. Previous versions for the same chipset had NOT helped. Nforce 15.08 includes the v9.95 SATA drivers Matt mentions above.

    Anyone who is updating their MoBo drivers to fix this problem, make sure you download the correct version for YOUR MoBo. If you don’t know what chipset your board has, you can use an app called CPU-Z to find out, then download the appropriate drivers from the Nvidia site.

  63. guess what QUICKTIME SUCKS LIKE A BIG HEAPING STEAM OF CRAP ON OS X TOO!

    a million users keep posting on apple discussion and everywhere that their browsers won’t load the quicktime plugin to play movies videos etc.

    WTF has apple done? NOTHING THEY ARE A BUNCH OF LAZY @SSWIPES WHO DON’T GIVE A FLYING FLIP ABOUT THEIR USERS WHETHER PC OR OS X. GO TO HELL APPLE BURN YOU D&CKWADS!

    APPLE SUCKS AND I HATE THEM AS MUCH AS I HATE THE F&CKERS AT MICROSOFT — MAYBE MORE!

  64. The latest version of the SATA driver V.9.95 solved my choppy itunes video problem. Yes, now the itunes videos play great under vista, but my raid array fails ….

    So, now I play a video and rebuild my array… Isn’t technology great!!

  65. I am having the same issue. Everytime I open a video using QuickTime or iTunes, my RAID freaks out and a rebuild is required.

    I am using an nForce 680i SLI board with 3 SATA disks in RAID5.

    I bought an iPod touch and then discovered this issue. Apple already made me downgrade from 64-bit Vista to 32-bit Vista just to sync with the Touch, and now nVidia’s giving me shit. Grrrrr…

    Is there a way to fix this? I’m sick of having to rebuild my RAID whenever I want to view a movie in iTunes.

  66. Yeah I’ve jus d/loaded the driver package posted on http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/6-vt70188.html?postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=50
    the last post refers to forcing an installation I’m not that savy as to how that’s done any1 here know?
    My problems pretty much the same as every1 elses here….QTime gets the sound and visual gets all choppy even in itunes musis playback, vlc plays sound perfectly no picture so i unistalled QT an tried using QT alternative same thing reinstalled QT an got msg’s…like buffer over run or sumfin…

  67. Misery loves company. Same deal here with Vista 64 and Quicktime. Scared the heck out of me when a perfectly-running system suddenly shows a degraded array. Luckily since Quicktime also sucked under XP (freezing during playback) I *only* had to rebuild the array twice since I suspected Quicktime as the culprit. What fun! My solution was to uninstall it and convert all my Quicktime video to Windows Media WMV using SUPER. No more Quicktime for me until this problem is explicitly stated as having been fixed. Pathetic.

  68. holy cow what a heavy read all this is. Last week I purchased an HP/AMD/Vista Laptop with Nvidia. I also have a kodak digital camera with movie which used to play nuicely on my old windows through Quicktime, and well you guessed it – same issues. My Q is this: I dont know how to rebuild array’s or even know if I need to. How do I tell my file system might be corrupt? after the first Blue screen of Death after the 2nd “buffer overrun”, I uninstalled Quicktime, and am waiting to do something – download updated Nvidia drivers, try VLC or Quicktime Alt. It sounds like all of those has worked for some people but no consensus. I am leaning towards VLS 8.6, but wonder about this possible array fix needed before I do that. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

  69. Steve:

    RAID = Redundant Array of Independent Disks

    I seriously doubt you have one in your laptop.

  70. Isaac. He probably has a sata drive and like pretty much every computer now made has a RAID controller. You dont have to have more than 1 hard drive to have a RAID. He wont have to rebuild it (unless he has some odd stuff going) but it can still give him the errors.

  71. I ended up uninstalling Quicktime and getting the converter so I can use the windows player to see my Kodak camera movie clips, so the errors are gone, the rest of the machine seems to work fine. I think this is part of the whole marketing scheme to try and stick it to Apple; that these three groups of companies cant get along and share the wealth is rediculous. No fixes and no respect for the end user.

  72. I have a HP dv6445us computer with the nvidia graphics and sata controller, and it doesn’t play back movies. I’m in the middle of attempting to “force” the installation of the driver, I’m going to do it by copying the files from the 92 zip file into the system folder. Wish me luck.

    I can workaround this problem two ways.

    1) I can play movies just fine off of a flash disk, I can get a 4GB SD disk and pop it into the slot, and just play my movies from there (if they’re less than 4GB)

    2) I can turn off DMA, and the movies play back without error, but the machine is dog slow

    3) I can try to get my money back and go get a Macbook.

    Thad

  73. As suggested above, the drivers at

    http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/6-vt70188.html?postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=50

    work. I can play movies, with audio, even with the Direct3D acceleration in Quicktime turned on (turning it off before, with the old nforce driver didn’t help.

    I downloaded the zip file, unzipped it, and then justreplaced the idecoi.dll file in windows/system32 and nvstor32.sys in windows/system32/drivers, rebooted, and was in Quicktime nirvana.

    Needless to say, HP’s tech support was useless. We even sent the computer back, and they just reloaded the operating system, to no avail. It’s so incredibly frustrating!

    Message boards are the new tech support. Maybe they always were.

    Thad

  74. Good Info Thad, but a couple of clarifications if you dont mind.
    Although I respect the knowledge most of you who use these forums, I am limited in both time to learn and apply that knowledge. I wonder about “forcing” an installation. If I try this amd miss a step Im screwed and dont want to create a nastier mess. If I use the step by step in your last post, is that it?
    I assume the two files you replaced in System/32 were named the same in the zipped file.

    NVidia doesnt even mention this issue on their website (at least not that I could find) and neither does Apple or HP. Sad.

  75. Yes, exactly. If you go to the “details” section of the “drivers” tab about SATA, you will see that it lists three files that make up the driver. Two of those files are included in the zip file, these are c:\Windows\system32\idecoi.dll and c:\windows\system32\drivers\nvstor32.sys

    I used the Windows Explorer interface to first move the original files, then copied the files from the zip filter to the windows directories, rebooted, and it worked. I was fully prepared (and expecting actually) to have a laptop shaped brick at that point, but it worked.

    I am by no means a windows expert, so I don’t know if there are other ways of “forcing” the installation. Reading the last pages in the nforcershq blog [the link I posted above goes to page 6 of 13], it appears that there might be a later package which will install without forcing, but I haven’t tried that.

    Good luck.

  76. Thanks again Thad. I found only one of the two files you mentioned and the search engine was of little use. In fact the search engine couldnt find the one I do have (nvstor32.sys file), but I did throught explorer and also under the devices listed through control panel: Under IDE ATA/ATAPI CONTROLLERS- nvidia nForce 430/410 serial ATA controlller was only one file, the nvstor32.sys file. I could try only replacing the one file I suppose. My notebook is an HP 2413 and must be set up slightly different?

  77. I suppose what I’d try first is the updated drivers suggested by Fernando, on page 12 of that nforcershq site. Check out the entry at the top of the following page:

    http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/12-vt70188.html?&start=118

    and then download the files at the link referenced by

    nForce IDE drivers v.9.95 WHQL for Vista x86

    I read Fernando’s entry to mean that this driver might be installed through the normal Windows Vista install mechanism, which would certainly be preferable to forcing things that might be irrecoverable.

    My computer is currently in the “not broke” state, so I’m not going to try to “fix” it. If I had read further in the nforcershq comment list, I would have tried to install these later drivers than the one I did, though.

    Thad

    ps. I don’t know if you’re from the US, Steve, but we have a saying here that “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”

  78. lol well i just got this comp and right outa of the box i get errors from quick time i manualy shut it down in task manager then came here I just uninstalled it. 😀

  79. I have an Nvidia board and had exactly the same quicktime/itunes issues, BSOD’s and stuttering under Vista. My fix was to go into device manager and find “Nvidia Nforce serial ATA controller” and then right click and select update driver software and then let Vista use my internet connection to find and update the driver (to 9.95 as mentioned above). The results have been interesting to say the least. Quicktime/itunes now work perfectly and also, as a bonus, Quake 4 (which inexplicably stopped working a few months ago and wouldn’t sucessfully re-install (I think this was after a windows update)) now works fine again. But there is a downside – Vista sleep function has stopped working and the system hangs when entering hibernation mode. The answer to these last two is not to use them, I suppose. If you’ve just bought an i-pod touch or i-phone and you want itunes working on your vista PC then you could try the above but be prepared for sleep/hibernation to break as a result.

  80. this message below came to me email address but I dont find the posting here, which is curious. I checked the link to the hotfix, and it looks legitamate, but I guess I will wait for somebody else to try it and see if it works?

    Author: solutionman
    Comment:
    Getting Nvidia Critical RAID Access Errors on SATA #,#?
    Having studdering problems in Vista with QuickTime?
    Is your Nvidia RAID Array getting corrupted in Vista?
    Do you have in Intel ICH9R and have these problems, too?
    Already upgraded your Vista Nvidia RAID Drivers to 5.10.2600.995 (v9.95) as suggested in other forums, to no avail?

    Here is your solution: IGNORE THE STUPID MICROSOFT DESCRIPTION, THIS HOTFIX WILL RESOLVE ALL OF THE ABOVE PROBLEMS!!!

    Vista Article ID:
    932094
    Microsoft URL:
    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932094/en-us

    Hotfix Filename:
    Windows6.0-KB932094-x86.msu

    I’m telling you, this resolved everything, for me and all my friends. Everything else we read in forums about breaking your array, or reinstalling, or newer drivers, or patching BIOS, or whatever… was all a waste of time. This was the real solution. Good luck.

    See all comments on this post here:
    http://istartedsomething.com/20070712/quicktime-bug-nvidia-sata-vista/#comments

  81. I love the fact that the video I just downloaded from Itunes is secured so that I can’t seem to use anything else to play it. I also love the fact that all the previews work beautifully… but somehow I can’t seem to get the stuff I bought to run. So much for going “legit.”

  82. That guy solutionman is a genuis! The hotfix took care of my RAID problems with quicktime.

  83. I HAVE FOUND THE SOLUTION!!!!!!!!

    steps:
    1.go to the start menu on the bottom side of your computer.
    2.Click on programs>Quicktime>uninstall(dont worry it wont REALLY uninstall).
    3.CLick Repair and wait till it finishes updating.
    4. download your desired movie and Enjoy!!!

  84. Ari’s fix did not work for me. still got buffer overrun upon trying to play .mov files…..this HP and Vista has been a nightmare of malfunction. I will be selling this laptop for half what I paid for it and buying a dell or Gateway with XP so i can have a machine that works right once again…..anyone interested?

  85. Can anyone say for certain whether SP1 has fixed this problem (with latest drivers and quicktime)? I’d like to use itunes again but I’m scared of messing up my RAID again!!!

  86. QT 7 Pro worked on my Vista Ultimatem, SATA, Nvidia laptop until some software update (not a windows update or a QT Update; it seems to be an update of Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Web Premium which did the damage, although that doesn’t make much sense), Now it crashes to blue screen. I know I can use other media players to play video, but I used QT Pro to export my AVI videos to other fornats (usually MOV but not always) and to trim, filter, resize, rotate, etc. It is much more efficient at that than Premiere etc. What lightweight alternatives are there?

  87. SP1 did not work for me, I also tried QT 7 Pro, and that hotfix mentioned above, and those didnt work either (same blue screen – buffer overrun issues). My Nvidia laptop does work well otherwise, so I removed quicktime, downloaded a file converter to make my Kodak camera .mov’s compatible with Media Player (.avi’s I think). The quality is a little bit compromised, (just a litte less sharp) but since I dont download or watch full length movies, (or use I-Tunes) on my Laptop, the fix works for me. But I can tell you next time I am going to get an Apple, and get away from this all consuming Microsoft madness.

  88. You are a life saver!!! I was having so many problems with Quicktime and I have an HP laptop and I really needed to watch about 7 hours of tutorials…I spent so many hours uploading, downloading and reloading….I downloaded VLC in minutes and was up and going..should have looked sooner.

    Thank you!!!

  89. Hi all I had the same problem with my Asus Laptop, VLC player and KLM codecs solved the problems , Now .mov works fine for me

  90. OH GOOD GRIEF. I ran into these problems in June of last year with my new dell precision 390 – sata array workstation. Now it is FEBRUARY of 2009. I cannot google, or Apple.com a solution.

    I’m a student and work in digital video, good grief I need quicktime to access many things from instructors and clients.

    Can anyone suggest an alternative app for quicktime?

    upload, download, upgrade, shut off and reboot nightmare…. how many hours to find a solution that will not arrive? Apple needs to rename the app Qrazytime…..

  91. VLC Player works good but the converted quality video is not 100%. I sold my HP laptop and bought an IMac, everthing works perfect, and finally got the Microsuck monkey off my back.

  92. I got a similar problem a few days ago, after installing iaStor and Quicktime on a Dell Precisison 390 with a Nvidia Quadro FX3450 graphics card. The system is an up-to-date WinXP SP3. It began to crash randomly after a few hours usage.
    See the full problem description at:
    http://handysnippetsnotebook.blogspot.com/2009/10/updates-quicktime-nvidia-quadro-and.html
    The only action that fixed the crashes was removing Quicktime altogether. I hope Apple fixes this bug.

  93. Apple mock Vista? Please! If you expect help from Mac users with your Vista problem you might want to check your attitude. QT is the app but it is obvious by most of the postings there are numerous other variables. I have not encountered this problem with any of my MAC users and only one Vista user (I work in IT) . Try Vishu’s solution.

  94. Zune and iPod: Most people compare the Zune to the Touch, but after seeing how slim and surprisingly small and light it is, I consider it to be a rather unique hybrid that combines qualities of both the Touch and the Nano. It’s very colorful and lovely OLED screen is slightly smaller than the touch screen, but the player itself feels quite a bit smaller and lighter. It weighs about 2/3 as much, and is noticeably smaller in width and height, while being just a hair thicker.

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