M17x Drivers thread

Confirmed, if you set a program to prefer max performance, the 2nd card does not downclock properly, but it does when set to adaptive.

Basically it seems that when you load a program with these settings, it locks the 2nd card in that mode unless you force it back to adaptive either by rebooting, or doing the boost performance/save power trick I've mentioned before.

Apparently we're now doing Nvidia's QA testing for them.

 

very nice driver. this is with physx on to show the performance of these drivers


i will put more up. batboy i highly suggest you to unload all your stuff on this one.

 

i notice when gaming and when i press pause. the gpu downclocks very fast. but when returning to the game, it takes about 5-10 seconds to speed back up.

 

i personally renamed the new physx and placed it in the driver setup folder replacing the previous one. so it thinks it installs the previous one. lool

 

I just tried 195.81 to replace 186.82, with Hybrid-SLI set up. Finally the black screen issue on start-up has gone and so has the stuttering when playing Borderlands.

However, I did notice this morning that on power up that the default was set to "Boost Performance" so the 280's were in use - I normally have it set to the 9400 for both battery and a/c. I checked the Win7 advanced power settings (viewing extra settings) and I cannot see the option to set this any more. It's not a big issue as I'm happy to finally be able to upgrade to more recent drivers, but it's annoying nevertheless.

I'll play around with it a bit more and see if I'm missing something - I remembered with older 18x drivers that the Win7 power options were in flux and kept changing, sometimes actually display nonsense options. Perhaps nVidia are messing about with them.

What is still annoying is that I still cannot run 3DMark Vantage as the SystemInfo keeps bombing out. I've removed and reinstalled it several times, followed the troubleshooting from their forums, tried applying the patch but it always says I already have a new version, and it still won't run. It only ever ran a few times before this.

 

so 195.81 drivers are good for everyone? they didn't work for me. im using 187.66 still.

 

I still haven't had time to try the driver again... any further info on the behavior you mentioned don? Any slight FPS lag as a result of the upclock delay?

Thanks again to all who have been testing this one. Aristotelhs2060, Gadget, Photo, Taomyn (as well as don for the benches ) are doing us all a solid with their tests... thanks guys!

Looks like I need to update one of my articles...

 

i got some fps lags but they are rare much less than other drivers more than 186.82

 

ok. Tonight. I will do a full test on the driver when I get off work. And compare it to some other drivers that I have already.

 

i honestly can't run these test. i try and the problem i am having is i'll be running at 80fps then the sli bar will drop all the way down and i'll get 20fps and it stays there.

here is more 195.81




i tried to compare it to 182.46 which are my favorite but i can't because of this issue. it is not the driver.

 

I've had zero issues with the new 195.81 drivers. And accelerated Flash is a very nice bonus.

 

Quick question guys. I recently put in the 640GB HDD into my M17X to use as a storage drive. Now my laptop begins to start windows, and then cycles back to the Press F10 for respawn...screen. It does this from a cold start up. When looking in system information, and playing around in there I found that I had a bad plug and play driver. I might be able to get the screenshot up later. Does anyone know what driver controls this? It looked like there were two similiar drivers. I just got thie computer a few days ago so I might try and change the driver. Are there older verisons of the driver? Thanks guys

Oh, and in a system check the error I get says
Repair:System files integrity check and repair
Result: Failed Error code = 0 x 490

Can this be an issue of ATA vs AHCI? Maybe I need to change that. I'll try that when I get off work.

 

ahci is faster and better

 

Lol this is weird. 195.81 rocks and the cards have no downclocking issues (in adaptive mode). Also when browsing they stay low clocked but as soon as I enter this forum both cards kick to their MAX and stay there until I leave/minimize. Can anyone confirm the same?

 

I have firefox with multiple tabs open, a video call with skype at the same time and the clocks are changing speeds they don't stay stucked.

 

Do they hit max clocks ?
For comparison in vista I never had temps on the GPUs climb to 50c (from 40-43c idle) just while browsing. But at the same time the temps would go much higher when gaming. I guess that's something I'll have to accept.

 

Yes the clocks max out occasionally, but the temps while not gaming never exceed the 45 even with the clocks at max.

 

That's ok since I'm not using a cooler pad and my room temp is 27c

 

Yes 27 is quite hot for ambient temperature and without a cooler 50s sound normal to me

 

I wonder if it's possible to set the GPU clocks manually for a specific program?


Edited: I can restrict the program to utilizing just a single card through the Nvidia control panel , but how to set clocks to min?

 

Use NVIDIA system tools and assign a profile with the settings you want. I can't think of something else right now.

 

Do you know if that version works well with Win7 64?

 

I haven't tried it since I had vista. After a clean install of win 7 I kept my installation as free as possible from extra software so I can't confirm it. I hope Aikimox will try it and tell us both

 

No way Browsed a few forums with negative feedback on W7 compatibility. I too am trying to minimize the garbage in this clean and smooth install. Will wait till ntune is supported under W7. All I'm looking for is the way to set clocks to min while in Firefox. Don't need OC'ing tools for that. But I guess ideally, will have to wait till Nvidia updates its drivers for W7....

 

Since I have the hybrid enabled, what I do when I just browse is to deactivate the 280s and leave the 9400 only. No need to reboot, the change is done on the fly.

 

I found that when enabled 9400 adds some 5-6c to the MCP79 temps and same for the CPU. I keep it disabled unless absolutely necessary.

 

Really? That's weird. I was curious and monitored the temperatures to see if there was any difference after enabling or disabling the GPUs. There was none. I had to close for a while the GPU-Z for the change to take place but the temperatures stayed at exactly the same level. 5-6 degrees are a noticeable difference...

 

the 9400m is in the same physical chip as the MCP and on the same cooling network as the CPU, I would expect it being enabled to effect their temperatures

 

Yes, no mistakes here. I've been monitoring this issue for several weeks on both Vista and W7 , idle and @load. The steady difference is 5-6c both on MCP and CPU. Try Everest Ultimate and you can see the MCP temps when 9400 is disabled.
You may wanna check here for more details.

 

I downloaded everest as you suggested and took 2 screenshots, the first was with Hybrid enabled. The second was with the 9400 deactivated from the bios. The MCP and the CPU had the same temps before and after the deactivation. I don't know if this could be driver related though. That's actually a reason why I like those drivers, the temperatures are low and I can swap between integrated and dedicated on the fly. By the way I don't know if I should post this on the thread you suggested to read instead of this one.

 

This is interesting indeed. MCP and 9400 are on the same chip so it's hardly ever possible that with 9400 enabled you get the same temps.... What if you do the same test without the cooler pad?
And BTW, we have the same driver, so it should be something else...

 

Actually it might be quite logical that with a cooler pad you just don't see the difference at all, and I already tried 3 different drivers with the same result. It's hardly a hardware issue.

 

Has anyone tried the 186.81 driver for W7?

 

its 186.82 and yes i tried. its the windows update driver anyway. its one of the best if not the best but we are looking for the latest ones with more features.

 

Actually there is 186.81 but I haven't tried it

 

I have not been able to get 186.81 to load on windows 7. Have not tried 186.82

 

Suggest forgetting about 186.81. NV released 186.81 and a few days later 186.82 was found on Windows Update. Thanks to (I believe ZFactor) for posting it in the thread I made for the 186.81. Dont have a link, but my testing notes are in the thread - somewhere here. 186.82 was the winner out of the two.

 

Well, tried 186.81 anyway and got black screens on boot both with 9400 and without. Also tried 186.91 and got higher temps and strange colors. For now reverted to 195.81 but the GPU up-clocking during web-browsing is starting to get on my nerves. Will try 186.82 next.

 

bat did you try 195.81 yet...

 

Yep. Didn't like it with the downclocking and I'm not one to disable PowerMizer, just a personal preference. Still haven't found the time to re-test it by installing over 186.82. Perhaps later. Overall, I liked the 195.81. The 2nd GPU DCing was The Deal Breaker for me. I'm content with the 186.82 for now. Does what its supposed to and is fine with the games I play. When I find some free time and am in the mood I'll try installing it over 186.82 and see if the GPU DC issue remains.

 

i was playing ninja blade and i didn't have it do it anymore i think i set the settings to max performance instead of adaptive in nvidia control panel.

i have work in the morning when i get off i'll check it out.

 

ok so I tried 186.82 for W7 and it's a no-go. weird colors and the brightness locked on minimum.... back to the future - 195.81 is the best for me so far...but still not perfect.

 

Have you seen this link?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_system_tools_6.05.html

Seems to me that it has W7 support...

 

It is for desktop cards.

 

no it works for notebooks as well.

 

Gonna give it a try then,...stay tuned.

 

Here is a link to a video I made to show how to create a profile for OC or DC of the video cards for specific apps using NVIDIA system tools 6.05:
I used specifically to OC my M1730 cards during certain games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPkdHJiC4tA

This was made originally for the M1730 users and very quickly but you should be able to use as a reference.

 

Hey has any buddy had issues in mw2 in sli on the 195.81 driver.
mw2 seems to stutter when going around corners and stuff but i don't think the FPS are dropping it just is like frames are being delivered out of sync almost its weird, and when i change it to run on one card it works fine.

 

Have noticed one issue since installing 195.81 - when I put the laptop to sleep, when it wakes Aero has stopped working e.g. taskbar no longer is transparent. at first i simply restarted, but last night i left it for while and Aero woke up, along with my wifi/bluetooth disabling/enabling.

Weird, there are definitely beta but I've had no other issues playing Borderlands and Dragon Age etc

 

I see that some are having better luck with this 195.81 driver when installing it over the older driver.Is there any special technique to this process and does it automatically do the 9400 card as well?