HELP! Quadro FX 580 and Autodesk Maya

Howdy --

Let's say I'm a longtime reader, first-time poster. In asking this question, I'll be revealing myself as a noob and so I'll preface the request by saying, Yes, indeed this is the first nVidia card I've owned -- the first card over $100 I've owned. So I'm hoping the answer is stunningly obvious to someone... My story is a bit longwinded, but I figure I outta paint a good picture.

I had been messing around with Maya for some number of years now and recently decided to build a decent rig and get a card to match. So I put together a Core i7 920, Asus P6T se mobo, 3 gigs of RAM and a Quadro FX 580, plugged into a Dell 2209WA (Japanese version, e-IPS). Running WinXP 32-bit (for the time being...) Should be a decent machine, right? And for the most part it is. But like I said, the idea was to run Maya smoothly.

So finally, machine's running good, everything's up to date (XP sp3, Quadro 190.38 drivers, etc etc) and I decide to install Maya 2010. Installs OK, but when I start it up for the first time to activate it, the machine hangs, then freezes completely. A few mouse clicks then the pointer freezes too. First time that's happened on this machine, period. A little miffed, I decide it must be a bad copy of Maya, so I uninstall and try 2009. Identical problem -- though the licensing is different, I'm able to do that -- when the program actually starts, no splash screen, some CPU action, then freeze, with the activity lamp flickering steadily.

I figure, "must be something to do with my windows install" and I reformat the whole thing, fresh copy of windows, minimal installation of necessary software, and prepare Maya 2010. Installs fine, but I go to run Maya and same problem. Try 2009, same problem.

Desperate, I uninstall the Quadro 190.38 drivers, using nothing instead (Microsoft VGA default) and -- voila -- Maya boots perfectly, except it looks like **** because I have no video drivers installed. But it runs fine.

So, the problem is this: the nVidia drivers are crashing my system when I try to run Maya. I have the HP Quadro FX 580 and am using the newest drivers available from the nVidia site. As the computer user says, "It should work! (goddammit)" What am I missing here? What settings should I tweek?

Is there anyone out there with a Quadro FX 580 running Maya? What driver set are you running?

Really really, I appreciate any advice and or help anyone can offer. Even if it's just "go read this FAQ, dumbass!" (If you do say that though, please link to the FAQ).

Best,

Colin

 

Welcome to Guru3D, sirgarey.

Do you have XP Professional? You need to have either XP Pro, Vista or 7 according to their read-me for Maya 2010 (Maya 2009 only supports XP Pro and Vista):
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=13583898

Try an older driver like the 186.30 WHQL, 186.18 WHQL or 182.65 WHQL:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/Quadro_winxp_x32_186.30_whql.html

http://www.nvidia.com/object/Quadro_winxp_x32_186.18_whql.html

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_182.65.html

 

Thanks for the warm welcome, Cybermancer.

And thanks again for the link. I can't believe I didn't check that site before I set out on my expedition: I see it on the hardware requirements list, printed quite clearly -- a tiny "thumbs down" on running Maya 2010 with a Quadro FX 580....... Unfortunate, but not the end of the line.

So now I wonder, since the Quadro FX580 is not listed on any of the older hardware requirements sheets -- Has anyone gotten any version of Maya to run with a 580? Thanks for your help.

G