Latest Nvidia driver version?

Asked here a while back about updating my graphic drivers (around 2 months ago) but someone advised me not to as there was an issue with them.

But I'm having an intermittent problem with a game and the drivers could do with updating as it is those that are the problem apparently. But looking on Dells site, it is showing the latest drivers as being 307.12 A01 - and says they were released in December which doesn't sound right at all? I'm sure there was a newer one than that? Were they withdrawn or something?

 

You could try the latest beta from NV, dell rarely update video drivers. See this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/721878-nvidia-320-18-driver-warning.html for details of what's been happening recently...

 

I'm pretty happy with the 326.80 Beta drivers

 

Latest Beta might work well for you, if they don't you can always roll back.

 

Sorry for the late reply here!

It is Final Fantasy 14 I was having issues with - the screen was intermittently going black before the picture came back on. But it even the latest drivers still have the same issue. Apparently, what is happening is, that the drivers are closing down for a few seconds, then restarting. It is an issue with the game and needs patching, so I have left my drivers alone for now.

I'm just such a newbie at updating drivers and I had thought you needed to stick with the official Dell version if you wanted the machine to still switch between the graphic card and inbuilt graphic gpu?

I have been curious about updating just to see if I can gain the odd fps here and there on the games I play. But I'd need an idiots guide to update them properly :/

 

Well, the issue sounds like a TDR problem (too much wait time in the interrupt table). You have identified it correctly, the video driver is timing out and restarting. It seems widespread ATM and I am wondering about some windows update or other that has triggered this. Dozens of people over in the NV forums with this.


The dell published drivers are simply the ones dell have tested and they want to use for testing when you call in. Gives them a known configuration to start from. You only loose graphic switching if the driver is faulty or you have installed a card that is not on the approved hardware list. Driver version 314.22 is the last good one that many of the people with problems are finding sorts them out.

NV may finally come out with a good working driver as this has been going on for around 7 months now!

Edit: Third or fourth person pointing at a windows update triggering this issue: https://forums.geforce.com/default/...-driver-feedback-thread-released-9-30-13-/38/ post #566

 

Perhaps try out these:

http://developer.download.nvidia.co...ok_win8_winvista_win7_64bit_international.exe

It is the only driver that is newer than 314.22 that is stable for me. Try them out.

 

widezu, I'm curious, what kind of instability were you having? My drivers were crashing (Video Hardware Error in Event Log/Reliability History) about once every couple of weeks, but I think I cured it by raising the voltage one notch. Now I'm wondering if it was just the drivers fault.

 

No that probably would be due to the voltage. Your solution is correct. The problem I was getting was in benching at super high overclocks. At speeds over 1GHz, at any voltage, Heaven and 3DMark 11 would crash within a few seconds. Rolled back to 326.98 heaven will run indefinitely. I'm currently investigating the issue. Could be due to a specific windows update.

 

Cheers for the response widezu, good luck with your investigations!