M17x Drivers thread

Trelawney,
Thanks, right now, I am running the older one that it is on dell, maybe I will have to wait that dell updates the drivers for windows 7 who knows.

Anyway thanks againd and take care

 

is dell -alienware ever going to release a firmware update for can10N? i think its the most common bd player on the m17x?

 

Not sure if it's been reported yet, but Dell released an update on their M17x driver site today. The TS-T633C DVDRW drive got a firmware update for both x86 and x64 platforms.

 

Well spotted JT-3!

 

is there a particular order that these upgrades need to be installed?

Thanks!

 

See THIS LINK for the order as suggested by AW.

First post of thread has been updated with this link as well.

 

Thanks!

What happens if you don't follow this particular order? software errors?

 

You could have driver conflicts.

 

Where's Bios in that list batboy?

 

BIOS is not a driver it reprograms your motherboard. It is not part of the OS, and therefore does not get included as part of the driver list, you can update your BIOS any time you like.

 

for those who didnt see that there is a new alienware command center on dell website. they added colours including white colour which i was searching for. It is also compatible with win7 x64 now on! win7 on its way now on!

also firmware update for the can10 bd rom which i was also searching for.

dell-alienware support is good!

 

Hey guys I have the following issues while playing Aion, they involve white squares on the ground that show up randomly, quest log icons showing up as grey squares, when loading new areas the client decides to crash and microstuttering which I believe is because SLi is enabled but Aion is only using one GPU since the only hot spot is above my wasd keys. Im also plagued by the original issues of the touch pad not lighting up and when booting up the SLi indicator doesnt even show up which requires me to reboot, but nothing severe.

Im currently using the stock 179 drivers that came with my laptop I recieved three months ago. Never had issues with WoW but since switching to this game I guess I need to upgrade my drivers. Only problem is I'm literally clueless because I've never had to replace my drivers in the last laptop I owned.

So far 186.81 drivers seem like a good choice but I dont have much to work from since alot of the choices Ive read had their own issues. Now when it comes to actually installing the new GPU drivers does it require me to install drivers for anything else or can I stick with only installing the new drivers for solely the GPUs because someone commented on driver conflicts which I didnt really understand.

What would I do after downloading driver sweeper regarding installing the drivers, I apologize if you have to cover something you've already posted about.

 

I'm running Aion with the 186.81 drivers but with Windows 7 RTM - not a glitch so far even at full 1900x1200. I use Hybrid mode and when I switch to SLI both cards seem to run up for and during the game.

I know a lot of people say that removing then cleaning drivers before putting new ones on is the best procedure, but I haven't done that to date and would only do so if I encountered problems, which so far I haven't.

 

Thanks for the reply, atleast I know the driver I listed allows you to run aion with SLi enabled. If the white square issue that sometimes shows up on the ground continues It might be a consistancy issue with the client. I usually get around 80-140 fps depending on my location with my current driver that uses one GPU, what fps do you get with SLi?

I hope to eventually switch to W7 considering I hate vista with a passion, but I still need to update my drivers. When you updated yours Taomyn did you just download the drivers you needed and ran the .exe file or w.e file it installed?

 

I haven't tried to check the FPS to be honest, but will do so the next time I'm on and report back.

I installed a fresh copy of Win7, of course ;-) then did a Windows Update to get everything it could find. For everything else or if I found newer versions I either got the drivers from the manufacturer or from the Dell site. They're either stated Win7 x64 compatible or I've used the Vista x64 ones.

Will try and find something to list out all my drivers and post as well - could be useful I suppose.

I'm not saying the whole system is perfect, I don't think that will ever happen - I very occasionally, once every few weeks maybe, have the system BSOD when coming out of hybrid-sleep, sometimes the Fn-F7 doesn't switch to SLI so I have to temporarily change the default in the power-manager to SLI then back and it starts working again (this has gotten better with updates).

Still, I love this machine

 

Appreciate it Tao. Was able to find the 186.81 driver here; http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_winvista_win7_x64_186.81_whql.html , dells site only had 179.85. Still not entirely sure about installing it. Ive read that if you were to use driver sweeper, you would uninstall the Nvidea and PhysX drivers, reboot - enter safemode run d-sweeper, reboot normally and then install the 186.81 drivers I downloaded.

Not sure if this is exactly true/necessary to install them but if I could get an opinion from moo or mandrake I would be set.

 

Try Dell's beta drivers 186.12

 

Personally I would remove the current drivers in Add/Remove programs, reboot, let Vista try install whatever it wants probably just standard VGA and reboot once more. Then install the ones you have found and see how it goes. Like I said, I've rarely had to use any driver cleaners as I find nVidia/ATI have gotten better over the years with their uninstall programs. The use of a cleaner imho is a bit of a hangover from the XP days, alot of which is fixed in Vista/Win7.

 

Hmm, I've been playing AION and I'm using the 186.12 drivers. I've been globally forcing alternate frame rendering 2 because otherwise the game only uses 1 card. I don't know how to otherwise get it to recognize the other card and use it. The forced alternate frame rendering seems to work ok -- the only trouble I've had is occasional slow downs when I die. Something about the way the graphics get dark when you die seems to cause an issue with alternate frame rendering I'd suspect.

If I don't use SLI at all I have NO problems, but the one chip gets kind of hot which stinks.

 

I've just put on the 186.82 drivers to see if they cure the BSOD issue from sleep/hibernate - I read that this problem or similar is fixed by these slightly later versions. Won't be able to test them with Aion until later today.

I'm curious to know how you're checking if SLI is working for a game, especially Aion - maybe I'm being a bit of a noob and not understanding the situation properly

 

Source: NVIDIA Control Panel Help Section

To verify that NVIDIA SLI technology is enabled and working

From the NVIDIA Control Panel navigation tree pane, under 3D Settings, select Set SLI configuration.

From the menu bar, click 3D Settings, then click the drop-down menu item Show SLI Visual Indicators.

 

Aion works like a dream for me - in fact I hadn't considered if SLI was enabled or not (usually a hand behind the rear grilles is enough to tell me if the card is active or not. I think it's one of the few games where the sound (music) is as amazing as the graphics!

Quick check - are folks also using the nVidia SLI profiles too? These basically recognise when certain games are running and configure for SLI accordingly (not sure if Aion is in there yet though):

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_multigpu_SLI_profile_update_v3.html

Taomyn - in the nVidia Control Panel, there is a drop-down option for SLI indicators that show two green vertical bars that indicate if SLI is working or not.

Cheers

Trelawney

 

SLI doesn't work in Aion because the nVidia control panel profile for Aion has "Aion.exe" as the executable. This may be correct in the Chinese version, but the North American version uses "Aion.bin". Unfortunately, there's no way to add a ".bin" file to nVidia control panel. (It won't work... even if you manually edit the file. It will simply ignore the change.)

Nowever, you can download a program called nHancer. Using this program, you can edit the Aion profile, and add the "aion.bin" file as a listed executable (just keep the Aion.exe in there too... just in case). After that, SLI works just fine.

 

Interesting - I just extracted the files from the latest nVidia SLI update and the lines for Aion are:

<application label="aion.exe"><application label="aion.bin.exe"><application label="aion.exe"><application label="aion.bin.exe">Will compare to the EU version I have tonight, but maybe if I update this before then running the update, it might add the correct values without the need of any extra programs.</application></application></application></application></application>

 

Cool, let us know. I'd be very curious to see if the new update enables SLI in Aion without nHancer.

 

I applied the latest SLI update and my list of programs in the nVidia control panel doubled - however I'm not convinced of the accuracy as it's listing Microsoft Office applications which I do not have installed when the tick box is set to show only installed programs found. The EU version is also AION.BIN so maybe the nVidia stuff only looks for the process excluding the extension.

However, I also enabled the indicators and ran Aion - as it was loading the tray icon popped up a bubble saying SLI was enabled. When the program then went fully full screen I saw a marked improvement in the graphics, seemed more polished and also the SLI inidicator. I get the vertical bar as seen here labelled AFR.

Hope this helps.

Oh, there was also a new Aion update so this adds a new variable to the issue.

 

official Dell released driver:

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870 A01 8.635 WHQL driver for Vista & Win7 64b

Release Date: 10/23/2009
Version: 8.635-090804a-087472C-Dell, A01
Download Type: Driver
File Format: Hard Drive
File Size: 103 MB

Vista 64/Win 7:
ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/video/R237788.exe

 

Batboy, I know you're using ATI now but are the 186.82 drivers still best for Nvidia?

 

ATI? Negative sir. I'm sticking with my NVIDIA's (never really liked ATI, but thats just my opinion) As for driver, I am still on 186.82. I haven't had time nor the urge to mess with any others posted over @ LV2Go. 186.82 is working fine for me and I'll wait until another official Windows Update driver is posted or Dell posts one. The last few Windows Update drivers have surprised me with their performance/stability.

 

Ah cool BatBoy. I'm just checking because I had to format my M17x today, my avast! antivirus software expired and all of a sudden my computer wouldn't even work in safe mode without locking up. At first I thought it was my HD, then avast!, then my video drivers, but formatting was the smart thing to do seeing as now I don't even have 1sec lockups in Windows that I was experiencing before.

Still need to get Windows 7 on here, sigh, so another format is in store. I should've signed up for the upgrade as soon as possible and I'd have it :[ I'll grab LV2Go's 186.82 drivers.

 

Hey every i was wondering if any body else had has had this problem with the 186.12 beta driver.


I got about a 10 FPS increase in Far cry 2 Bench mark after installing the 186.12 beta driver from dell, also a huge improvement in crysis and crysis warhead. After about a week when i started up my computer the screen was black it wouldn't let me start up on my 280s but it would let me start up on the 9400. I tried disabling the 9400 but still a black screen appeared so i uninstalled the driver and reinstalled the driver shipped with the system everything worked the performance was stable so i tried the beta driver again and it after a week it gave me the black screen again so im currently running the old driver on my system.

 

I suggest updating your display driver to the 186.82 or the 186.91 driver from LV2Go.

NOTE: It is not necessary to download LV2Go's modded INF file.

Once you download the driver, you will need to run the executable to extract it. Once the driver is extracted, look inside the directory for the 'Additional INFs' .zip archive. Extract this directory and then copy/paste the 'nv_whql.inf' into the top level of the 186.82 or 186.91 directory.

Once this is done, run the setup.exe app to install. This is required for the driver to recognize the hardware in the M17x.

The default INF (nvfu.inf) does not support the M17x GPUs and can be removed from the driver directory.

You can also try other drivers, however from my testing these are the more stable choices. Up to you of course.

This should eliminate the black screen issue as well as any other issues you are seeing (9400, etc.).

 

what do you mean with black screen? did you try pes 2010 with the sli update 3 (it gives sli support for pes2010). sometimes i get black screen and fps drops after a goal (not during replay).

 

bat boy.

the drivers you have up above. what is the performance difference between them?

why not using 184.24???
just wondering.

 

Sorry but I had to jump in. Do you guys play PES2010? Let's play sometime. Btw did you solve the vysnc issue? Mine is greyed out because of that 59Hz issue

 

With the 186.24 driver I modded I was still seeing occasional blank/black screens when waking from Standby/Sleep. For me, this is a deal breaker as I place the laptop to sleep frequently during the day.

As to the performance difference, I can only comment on what I saw while gaming (Only tested with TF2 and L4D). With 186.91 I had a slight drop in FPS in-game vs. the 186.82 driver.

------------------------------

He was talking about a black screen at startup... this is similar to the waking from sleep black/blank screen. Why I suggested it. Not sure about a black screen in-game. You may want to try an alternate SLI Performance Mode in the 3DSettings profile for that game. Don't know if it will help, but its 1 possible setting to try.

 

Tried the 186.91 to upgrade 186.82 as a test - they BSOD's during install so removed all drivers and tried again. Got the black screen issue at the login screen so after removing them again in safe-mode I'm back to 186.82 and no issues.

 

it would be good if i could play online.. i returned to vista for the time being so 60hz now.

 

Does anyone know if the Command centre update listed on page 1 is good for W7?

 

Nvm, installed and its good. Also if anyone has issues with Command Centre eating up CPU after an installation of W7 I would recommend installing the Command centre via the link on the first page of this thread. It solved my CPU problem! Thanks Moo!

 

New Nvidia drivers from Dell directly, 186.64, still behind, but they are trying lol

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&fileid=341036

 

And I will add, that unlike 186.81 from Nvidia, the 186.64 drivers installed happily in Windows 7 64-bit

 

Still on Vista here... 186.64 - no issues and all is smooth.

 

Interesting Dell showing 186.64 for Win7 64-bit but 186.40 for Vista 64-bit.

Wonder why the difference, and why seemingly so far behind nVidia WHQL drivers. You'd think Dell would have a team working on these (particularly for their premium product) to be no more than a few days or a week at most behind the latest from nVidia, - so hard to know if there's a reason for this, or just lack of resource to keep up to date and validate...

Cheers

Trelawney

 

i'm using the same driver right now. First time after I install. My system locked up, then it was perfectly fine after that.

I did my crysis run on it.

 

updated my post batboy, Windows 7 64-bit

 

Anyone notices the GPUs are running hotter than before with the new drivers?
Also one of the GPUs are always hotter than the other in games?

I never had that with the 180.82 drivers.

 

I too am seeing this.

 

is the game you run supported with sli from the drivers version?

 

Probably not.
I'm currently playing
resident evil 5, borderland, street fighter 4, warcraft 3.