Windows Update; what's it for? -- ATI PCI Express (3GIO) Filter Driver

Question

The ATI PCI Express (3GIO) Filter Driver showed up today in Windows Update as an optional download. I Googled it and for the most part found only sites that either provide the download or posts in forums and blogs stating that it's a disaster. Here's an example:

http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=853247

(Scroll down past all the Google ads.)

One forum post I found suggested that it might be related to the motherboard. Given what info I've run across, I doubt I'll download it but would still like to know what it's about. Anyone know?

I'm just glad that because I'm on slow dialup I don't let Windows automatically download updates to my machine.

Edited to add:

Just discovered that this update was released in November 2006: "ATI Technogies Inc Other Hardware software update released in November, 2006" (info from the Windows Update page). I've had this machine for about 4 months, so why am I only now getting this notification?

BTW, I forgot to mention that I had searched the ATI/AMD site with no luck. The best I could come up with was this page, which is far too technical for me and doesn't appear to address the specific driver anyway:

PCI Express: An Overview

Message Edited by OldMom on 11-15-2007 04:36 PM

mombodog · Answer

'ATI PCI Express (3GIO) Filter Driver '   I saw this today in my windows updates, I chose to hide the update as I Never use any of Microsoft's drivers. Went back and did the unhide, guess what, It is not there any more. I did check the date of the driver the first go round, noticed it was 2006.   Never use Microsofts drivers for any hardware you have.

OldMom · Answer

Ohhhhhh, I didn't realize this was a  Microsoft driver for another product. Very interesting.   While you were posting, I was editing my post with similar info about the release date. ;-)   Just checked, and it was still hidden in my update panel. I was able to successfully unhide and rehide it again. (Today's the first time I finally figured out how to hide updates I don't want. I started a new thread about that.)   BTW, I like your new avatar! As well as its size. I'm on slow dialup and sometimes have to wait a very long time for the larger avatars to open before I can even click on anything else on that page. Just thought I'd mention it.... :-D   Thanks for your post and the info, mombodog!

Canufixit · Answer

Yup - I got Bit with this ....  Suddenly, my Sound card would not work and my screen changed resolution and quality ...  I checked my auto updates and sure enough, it was auto installed (my auto updates is NOW turned off!) .   It took me some time to realize what happened and it cost me some debug time to realize this was the issue.   Ref Thread -   http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsupdate&tid=d5500c21-3796-43d1-9fb5-d83707065dc8&p=1   Anyway ...  it took me hours to remove the driver, re install the orignial drivers (as stated in the above ref thread) - but after that I also lost all my settings I had made since my machine was new (and it was running perfect until this nasty driver was installed. Other change I had to re do manually were - Modem set up string (for a tweak to my modem to ensure it connects at at least 48k), turn off the modem flag to allow the computer to wake up, re set the screen resolution and text size, etc. etc...   I also had to re-download the original drivers from microsoft (why they were not found on my machine, I do not know - unless the stupid 3GIO driver install deleted them ..    Oh, and by the way - I did originally try to roll back my install point - but that kept erroring out ....   Anyway, I think I'm all set - but I'd like to get my hands on the Microsoft 'Einstein' that allowed that driver to auto download in my computer - especially since it was release dated months ago !!!   So ...   If you are having display - or other PCI buss hardware issues - check to see if you downloaded it (approx Nov 15th 2007 was the date it was installed on my computer).   If so - you want to delete the driver and, reboot and let the system auto replace with the old drivers - and be sure to check all setting in the drivers you see changed back/reloaded ....  It took a long time for me to find, fix and finish this .....  a Real waste of time for a stupid driver mistake...   Be Careful out there !!!     Canufixit

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Windows Update; what's it for? -- ATI PCI Express (3GIO) Filter Driver

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