M17x-R1 - Graphics driver installation problems with nVidia 285.63 and above, always screws up everything

Ever since Battlefield 3 came out, I've been having a lot of trouble updating my Nvidia GTX-260m to anything past 280.26. I've tried three different operating systems (Win 7 Ultimate, Win 8 DP, Win 8 CP), tons of different driver numbers, clean installs, fresh OS installs, and tons of modded INFs, to no luck. I can't get any drivers working at all.

What basically happens each time I try to install any driver is I get a message telling me my hardware is incompatible. Fair enough, I go and nab some modded INFs and reattempt the install. It usually goes through just fine. Problems only start to occur after I restart my computer.

Upon starting up, I find that my max resolution is 1280 x 1024, and that any OS animations (like the spinning loading cursor and window open/close/max/min transitions) are running really choppily. I get error messages every time I try to open the Nvidia control panel, and in the Driver Manager, it either lists my GPUs as unidentified, or only shows my GTX 260m. And this problem persists even after uninstalling the new drivers and trying to reinstall older ones. It can't recognize that I have the 260m / 9400M setup, and it continues to have all the same problems as when I tried to install the newer drivers.

The only thing that restores my video drivers to working functionality is a system restore.

I've been sitting on a copy of NFS: The Run for literally months now and I can't play the damn game because it won't start up without 285.62 or later. Can anyone help me with this? I'm at my wit's end.

 

its a typo in the hardware ids. watch this vid:

[Solved] Install NVIDIA 295.73 drivers on an Alienware M17x Laptop - YouTube

 

Just attempted this. It passed the device check just like with modded INFs. However, about 2 minutes into the installation of the graphics driver, it failed with the following message:

NVIDIA Installer failed

NVIDIA Update 1.7.11: Not Installed
PhysX System Software 9.12.0209: Not Installed
Graphics Driver 295.73: Failed
NVision Driver 295.73: Not Installed

I attempted both an upgrade install and a clean install. Both gave me the same result.

As stated in the OP, modded INFs don't do anything for me. The install continues to fail whether I use them or not. That being said, the method you linked didn't completely cripple my system like the modded INFs from laptopvideo2go did, so I suppose that's a start.

 

I tried the modded infs with my gtx 260s sli without any issues. Maybe I got lucky!

 

Lucky. I can't get mine to work for the life of me. Nothing goes through.

 

Okay.. Well i'm not sure if you tried this before , but go ahead and do the following

1. Remove all the Nvidia drivers you find in Control Panel / Add or Remove Programs (Try not to remove the chipset driver if it pops up around there)

2. Download CCleaner and DriverSwepper

3. Run a cleanup and a registry cleanup in CCleaner and in Driversweeper , try and clean any remains of the nvidia video drivers. Make sure not to remove your chipset driver. If you do, you can get it from Dell website.

4. Get Driver version 296.10 the modded INFs i've attached. Extract the driver and in C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\296.10\WinVista_Win7_64\International\Display.Driver replace nvwi.inf and nvdm.inf with the ones i've attached.

5. Install the driver and restart

6. (Optional but Recommended) Before boot , enter the BIOS and disable PCIE GEN 2 in Graphics. That will help with most issues on M17x R1 with new drivers, as Dell locked PCIE at 8x and the drivers will try to force the cards to run at 16x , causing major issues. This will cost only ~2% performace but will greatly increase system stability.

I've been running into the same problems with the failed installation , but these INFs helped , you just need to find the right ones for your device. Also make sure to have PCIE GEN 2 disabled in the BIOS , that will help greatly.

 

Hadn't thought of using CCleaner before. Gonna give this a shot right meow. Thanks a lot for the tip!

I should have mentioned that I didn't even have the chipset installed. Whenever I install it, it completely disables my internet connection.

So when you mentioned that I shouldn't uninstall it, I guess that implied to me that it needs to be there. So I installed it, and as expected, it killed my internet connection. I figured I'd get to that later, so I just left it as is.

Anyways, I attempted to uninstall all of the NVIDIA stuff from the control panel, and for some stupid reason whenever I selected the driver and clicked uninstall, nothing would pop up. I ended up uninstalling it from device manager instead; oddly enough, when I did that, it didn't disappear from the control panel, and it still wouldn't let me uninstall it. So I just left it there, ran ccleaner and driversweeper, restarted, disabled the Gen 2 thing in bios, got your driver and infs, tried the installation again. It passed the system check, i did an advanced clean install, and 5% in it stopped abruptly and told me everything failed to install.

Now I'm stuck with an internetless computer with no graphics drivers, and attempting to reinstall 257 from Dell doesn't work, either giving me a no supported devices error or it installs and screws up everything even worse, failing to detect my hybrid graphics, only showing the 260m in Device Manager and making my computer run really freaking slow at 1280x1024. Oh yeah, and I can't uninstall the chipset from device manager either, whenever I try it doesn't go away, so I'm stuck with no internet too.

I am going to murder this computer very soon.

 

When you install the Chipset drivers, DON'T install the Ethernet driver, let Windows install a generic one.
If you installed it already, choose uninstall nVidia drivers in Control Panel and select ONLY Ethernet driver.

 

Does the ethernet driver interfere with the graphics driver installation or something?

Update: I just reformatted my computer and gave it a clean install of Windows 7. The first thing I did was download the Nvidia drivers and modded INFs. I attempted the installation, it passed the check, then as usual, it failed at 5%. On a clean install with no other video drivers.

>_<

(Random aside: Internet Explorer 9 is surprisingly nice...)

 

Try installing everything from the Nvidia installer, except the PhysX software. The install always fail on my laptop if I try to install display drivers and PhysX with the installer I have to install PhysX separately.

 

This didn't work for me, unfortunately. My install still fails out midway. =/

 

Ishani's and Alek123's advice ar correct. But you say you have the 260M. Both the video and the attachment nvdm.inf in the post from Alek123 have the correct subsys id's for the 280M.

The device ID for the 260M is 0618 (I checked the attachment in Alek's post and the subsys isn't 'patched' for the 260M.
For your convenience, I added the nvdm.inf file in attachment which I used for the 296.10 drivers which installed with success. The only thing I don't understand is that you mention that installation passes the compatibility check whereas the 260M lines in nvdm.inf aren't there. I would have suspected an incompatibility message at installation of the drivers just like the one when you're trying to install them straight from the download. In my case, no need whatsoever to patch any other inf file for this 296.10 version.

When installing, make sure when you install you're on adapter power with both hybrid and integrated graphics enabled in bios.

Also, I assume you're on Win7 64 bit and installing 296.10.

Hope this helps...

NOTE: the inf file in attachment only contains the IDs for the 260M and the 9400 and NOT for the 280M

 

Wow. Seems like your modded INF did the trick! The install went right through without any problems, and now I'm on 296.10.

Thanks a lot for the help! If you don't mind, do you think you could do a quick rundown of the process for modding the INF for future driver releases so I can do it on my own? Or do you think I'll be able to just take the INF you gave me and use it for every future release?

 

No luck on 300 drivers.

 

@ DivideByIchi - glad to hear it worked! Don't use the INF for future versions. I did already a few versions myself by hand and it looks like nvidia is changing installation sections from version to version.

@spradhan01 - I used the same process on the 300 drivers and they installed OK but SLI doesn't work. It might work alright when you have a single discrete card. I decided to wait for the next version and see whether the issue persists or whether it's a little 'bug' in the beta version . Anyway, as mentioned before, don't use an INF file from a previous version.

As for the process, the link to the video that Ishani posted is good, except that you need to look for the device ids of the 260M (and the 9400 too, which isn't mentioned in the video, I think).


1. In Device Manager, lookup the IDs for your cards (and write them down for the next time ). You will see for:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_ 0618&SUBSYS_02A11028&REV_A2

and for NVIDIA GeForce 9400
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0862&SUBSYS_02A11028&REV_B1

The 4 digits after DEV_ determine the card type.

2. Open nvdm.inf and search for the device ID of the card (e.g. 0618). You will find a line that looks like this:

%NVIDIA_DEV. 0618.02A2.1028% = Section013, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_02A21028

Notice that the subsys is different than the one in our systems. Now, replace the SUBSYS in the nvdm file (02A21028) by the subsys from device manager (02A21028) (here only the 4th digit is different) (Don't paste the &REV_B1 part from device manager). After your changes, the line should look like this

%NVIDIA_DEV.0618.02A2.1028% = Section013, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0618&SUBSYS_ 02A11028

3. Now look for the next occurrence in the file (there are 2 separate lists where device ID 0618 is mentioned) and repeat step 2.

4. Now repeat steps 2 and for the device ID of the 9400 (0862)

5 Save the file and install.

This is no guarantee for future versions, but at least it worked for all 2xx versions.

AS for the 300 versions, I don't understand the magic of the other inf file (nvwi.inf), but I already noticed that in 2xx the device IDs were mentioned and in the 300 they aren't there. Unfortunately, I don't know which installation sectons from the inf would be required to get it work properly. Maybe somebody else can help us out here?

 

Hi, have you tried modding the infs with the 301.42 drivers? If you have, did they work?

 

See this post.

Enjoy!

 

Hi, i am new to these forums but i have a question involving the 301.42 drivers. I followed katalin's post and changed the infs and successfully installed the new drivers on my m17x r1 but now my laptop display is stuck on my gt 9400m and i cant seem to figure out how to enable sli or any of my other two 280ms for the matter. I have clicked the enable sli box and restarted but nothing changed. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Hello, bck56, welcome to NBR.
In order to use to use your 280Ms, make sure your laptop is plugged in, turn it on and access BIOS menu by repeatedly pressing the F2 at boot.

Once there go to Advanced > Graphic Settings and disable Hybrid SLI and Integrated Graphics. Save and exit, now your laptop should run on the 280Ms.

 

thank you for the quick reply that fixed it up perfectly! now back to diablo 3

 

After recent windows update on my m17x r1 i was getting random bsod due to old 9400 driver on dell website. Thanks to all that help on this thread i edited installer file for 301.42-notebook-win7-winvista-64bit-international-whql This Is It if helps https://www.dropbox.com/s/jehn0c1apsl5dry/nvdm.inf

 

Thanks everyon! I just joined today and your advice was great. I just updated my 280m's without an issue! Has anyone had any luck playing Rage? I am still pretty buggy with the new drivers.

 

Hello, johnniebod, welcome to NBR.

Glad it worked for you.
Have you enabled SLi after you installed the drivers?
Also, I've made an INF to support the 2xx series for a newer version, 296.10 I believe. Just do a search

 

Thanks! Yes I'm using 296.10, I've tried sli and no sli but not much difference. Much better playability than stock dell drivers though. In game benchmark at 17-18.

 

Katalin, in an earlier post you said that both Hybrid and Integrated graphics should be disabled in the BIOS. When I do this I just get a black screen with intermittent flashes of the desktop.

I always follow your excellent guides for the graphics installs but can't get this part right. I have to leave Hybrid enabled for the system to work.

Should I disable both of these before running a complete re-install of the drivers?

 

Yes, disable them after uninstalling/cleaning the old driver (before installing the new version).

 

Hey Brad,

Since Nvidia stopped hybrid support the drivers haven't really worked for hybrid anyway. For people using sli it was never really useful to begin with. I'm not sure why you would be getting the black screen but The driver wipe/clean install sounds like the right place to start. I do occasionally use the integrated graphics (if I need more than 45 minutes on the battery) but it is easy eough to turn on in the bios whenn you start up.