Nvidia WHQL driver 285.62

Disable PCIe Gen2 in BIOS > Advanced > Graphic settings.
Have fun.

 

Just gotta say Katalin, fair play, your modded INF's are a lifesaver Jolly Good Show Old chap!

edit: just figured how to add rep so +1 for you

 

Modded drivers worked a charm...thxs. Just a quick question ..do i install with hybrid and onboard gfx on or off in bios. If off, what drivers do i install for the 9400m onboard? I have a M17x version 1 and 280 Sli discreet.

 

dude, hope you can help. your modded drivers install but when i check Sli functioning with Sli indicators(nVidia) and with a temp tool i see that sli is not working even though it is on in nVidia control panel. I have tried a clean install, installed over old version, install with hybrid on and off in bios and even used official dell 257.38 drivers. None show Sli functioning. The only way to get Sli working and to see the nvidia Sli indicator at work and to see equal temps in both Gf cards is to go back to my initial restore point with 186.64 drivers???Any ideas. I have a M17xR1 with 280M's.Am i missing something in the install process?

thanks
psychoD

 

I tried to find a 'clean' install option, but this is all I get when I launch the driver update.

 

Click ok, it will extract. You are too hasty. Just carry on and you'll get to it

 

I extract it to a folder on my desktop and it automatically goes to check system compatibilitythen gives me this error.. No matter where it extracts to it yields the same result..



I want to destroy this computer.. so much trouble with basic things like this update..

 

The last post on the first page of this thread gives you the solution you need!

 

^^
That depends on how many posts per page a user has set in his control panel.

@Roman Legion: see my second reply in this thread.

 

It is working thus far, I hope it goes all the way through.. I will keep you posted on how it goes..

How do I find the SLI and what does it do?

 

In nVIDIA control panel select SLi and PhysX from the list and choose maximum performance to enable SLi, choose whatever you want/need for PhysX.

 

I don't see anything that says SLi or PhysX..

 

Do you actually have dual 260Ms in your system? SLI is used to combine them as one card for better performance. If you only have the 9400 and one 260M then you won't have SLI.

As for PhysX - check in Control Panel, Programs and Features - the software should show up separately as "NVIDIA PhysX System Software 9....."

 

Thank you very very much...
I've been trying to update this driver on my M17X R3 since I bought it (like 5 months ago).
I did the steps and it worked.

Again... thank you!

 

lol.. I had no idea what SLi was, I have a 9400 and 260m.. Is there any way to swap out my 9400 for another 260 or something else so I can use SLi? I found the "NVIDIA PhysX System Software 9....." but what can I do with it and how do I open it?

 

Don't need to, the 9400M is integrated into the motherboard, and there are two bays available for MXM 3.0b boards. You're currently using one, so the other will be empty.

Others here will be able to tell you what to order (soz, mine came with SLI so never researched it), but likely need to order the SLI cable with the other card.

 

I hope, I would like to have dual and maybe even get new cards with a bit more power.

 

The best cards currently proven to work in an R1 are the AMD 5870's, though it requires a bit of work (i.e. GPU BIOS flashing etc...). Other than that you have the existing 280Ms or 4870s, both of which will be a noticeable upgrade to what you have, though pretty old tech now.

 

Which one is superior, the 4870 or 280m? Are they plug and play or require some additional work?

 

Those cards are plug and play as they were officially released for this model.
They are pretty much on par.

 

Which one would you suggest? I thought the idea about the AMD 5870 might be good, might need help doing it, but I am willing to give it a go. Trying to ge the most out of this laptop while I have it.. If I had the money to get a new one, I would; but sadly I am limited in the monetary department.

 

The Dell mobility 5870, flashed with the latest vBIOS from Dell are plug and play apparently.
They are also DX11 capable cards.
Continue discussion on this subject here if you wish:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/610357-m17xr1-5870-crossfire-running.html

 

OK, bear with me, as I've become quite frustrated and want to be thorough as to what is going on. I'm running on an R1 w/ SLI 280s and 9400M. I recognize that these drivers are a little out of date now, but I had more or less the same issues with 290.xx, so I thought I would try these. As I'm not playing BF3 or anything it doesn't make much difference to me right now. I'm getting a black screen on login to windows. This is what I have done so far - Using katalin's modded INFs:

Disabled Hybrid Graphics and Integrated Graphics in BIOS A07. I only want to run my SLI GTX280s, as I really never use the 9400M.

Deleted the 9400M entry from the Device manager, rebooted, etc, so windows shouldn't know about it at all. As I don't use it, I don't really want the driver installed or loading on startup.

I installed the 285.62 drivers, first just standard Clean install, had issues, so I uninstalled, did the whole Safe Mode, Driver Sweeper, ccleaner etc. "extra" Clean install, same result.

I don't think there is a problem with my install, as Install goes smoothly, asks for reboot, takes me all the way through the login screen no problems, but once I login when I hit the desktop I either get a blank black screen, or the LCD display actually turns off. Still get the high disk activity of SuperFetch loading up and when I press the power button (which I have set for a soft shutdown) it makes the normal shutdown chime, and after a few seconds shuts down. Pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL does nothing, Pressing Fn+F6 or F7 does nothing. Everything seems to be working fine, except for some display setting/driver conflict that is not letting me see Windows a few seconds past login.

It seems to me that windows is loading/trying to load some other driver when I login, but I really have no idea where to go from here. I have searched these forums and google and found a few people asking similar questions, but did not find an answer. Does anyone have any idea what the problem is or what I need to do to fix this? Would deleting the 9400M entries in the INFs matter? I would think the installer should only be detecting the 280s after the steps I have taken to disable the 9400.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I find its easier to help people with more information and wanted to clarify what steps I have taken so far trying to remedy this.

Also, if this should be posted somewhere else in the forum, I apologize.
Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Hello, Lord Grishnakh, you posted in the right section, thank you, also giving more information is always better.
As for your issue, have you disabled PCIe Gen2 in BIOS? Generally that solves the issue you are describing.

Let us know.

 

Well, that was all for nothing I guess, because I uninstalled and again tried to remove every trace of everything having to do with the drivers and did everything the same as I did before, but this time I ran the installer in safe mode and when I rebooted back into normal windows, everything was fine, just re-enabled SLI and rebooted. And yes, I did have PCIe Gen2 disabled in BIOS after reading in various places your suggestion to do so, katalin, thank you and thanks for the quick response.

However, now when I login the screen flashes several times before settling down and becoming usable amd everytime a UAC prompt (Vista) comes up, the screen flashes twice, then when I make a selection and it goes away it flashes twice again. By flash I mean like the display is actually turning on and off rapidly. Doesn't seem to be causing any serious problems but it is highly annoying. This is only with SLI enabled. I had this problem with some earlier versions of nVidia drivers, but it wasnt nearly this bad, mosly just the flashing on login and not nearly as much of it. Is anyone else experiencing this and/or how do I make it stop short of disabling SLI?

Nobody else is experiencing this? I have had this issue since a couple of driver iterations back and still have it now after a "fairly" fresh install, obviously this is some SLI/Vista issue because it doesn't happen with SLI disabled and I don't have any issue like this in games. I've searched but not found any information about this kind of thing.



Ha, now I feel kind of dumb and confused. I rebooted again (and have several times since my post, making various tweaks) and as of the last reboot its not flashing anymore. I was afraid that my SLI was no longer working or something, but it's working fine and the issue has resolved itself. I still wish I know why it was doing what it was doing and why it isn't anymore, but I wont complain.

 

Remember: Always reboot your system after driver installs, even if you don't get a prompt to do so!

 

Just installed the 285.62 driver with the modded inf, and now for some reason the GPU fans don't spin up, no matter how hot the cards get, they just seem to sit at like 10% or around idle, even as the temps go above 100*C. Is this due to the driver or is it something else/what should I try to fix it?

 

Have you uninstalled old drivers first?
Try a full power drain removing the CMOS coincell battery in the process.

I didn't had any fan related issues with these drivers.

if all else fails try the 290.53 beta ones here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/633476-new-nvidia-beta-drivers-290-53-a.html

And as always, see instructions in my posts.
To clean older drivers, see the last line in this post:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/8200078-post76.html

Happy New Year.

 

You sir are awesome. I thought my brand new laptop had a DoA video card. I used your inf's with the newest drivers and it worked perfectly. + Rep!

 

I was looking for a few answers as to why my Alienware m17x never had compatible drivers to update and seriously you find no answers at all this is the closest I've ever come and I'm still on the same problem.
I've done all these steps but no dice I still get the error for not being compatible any ideas?
Getting tired on having spend so much on a laptop with 0 customer service My current driver is still from way back in 2010

 

Hello and welcome to NBR.
From what you describe, I'm pretty sure you didn't follow all the steps.
Let's try again:
-ensure that your laptop is plugged in.
-turn it on and press F2 to access BIOS menu.
-Navigate to Advanced > Graphic Settings and set PCIe Gen2 to Disabled.
-Save, exit and boot Windows.
-Double click the downloaded driver and let it extract (C:\NVIDIA by default).
-when the files extraction is finished, the installer will continue, press CANCEL !!

-Paste the files from the archive I uploaded (by the way, don't just copy/paste the archive, extract the files) in the path I mentioned in one of the steps making sure to replace the original ones!

-run setup.exe from the International folder.

 

I was working on a Video Tutorial ot perfect but ok hope it helps you guys out

Video Tutorial:
nVIDIA 285.62 Update Tutorial - YouTube


Site Server Download Files:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/att...dia-whql-driver-285-62-nvidia_285.62_infs.zip

Out Side Server Files Download [MF]:
nVIDIA_285.62_INFs.zip

 

Nice first post on NBR, welcome!

If you agree, i will add it to the first post so folks can see it.

 

thanks man and i accept

 

OMG SERIOUSLY I LOVE YOU KATALIN !!!! ive been having the "no compatible hardware discovered" error for seriously like 2 years. everytime a new driver update came out i could never get it. i have alienware m17x r1 and GTX 260m x2 and an integrated 9800. when i first got this comp and i was using hybrid, where it uses all 3 of them, my games would crash and id get an "Nvidia display driver ***.** has stopped responding and has recovered" error and i literally could not play ANY game for longer than 1 hour. i took it to best buy 6 times and each time it took them 3-6 WEEKS to figure out the problem, and everytime they said that they fixed it and everytime it crashed again. i i said screw it and tinkered around in my bios and settings until i discovered that it would do that when hybrid graphics was enabled. so i turned it off and i wouldnt get that error for like a week then all it would take is a simple reboot and it wouldnt happen for another week. then i figured out that i got my laptop before alienware sold out to dell and dell only released driver updates for m17x r2 and up, but not mine. so for 2 years ive been hunting down something exactly like what you did and now you have fixed my computer. i thank you from the bottom of my heart, you have no idea how much you have helped me. THANK YOU AGAIN!!! its people like you that help the world more than you possibly can know! yet again I LOVE YOU!! PEACE!!

 

Great, this worked just fine...
Only problem now is installing the newest driver 295.73
Anyone got a plan? ;-)

 

I'm new here. I did try this but no success.

 

Hello, U2WAR, welcome to NBR.

What is your system model and more important what's your graphics card model?

 

Ok correction it worked. I accidentally downloaded the desktop version.

 

Well, it happens. Congratulations, enjoy

 

Hello,

Im so glad to have found this board. Im Searching for Graphics drivers for my system for 1 year now I think.

But I think I made a mistake because the provided solution doesn't work for me:

My System SPECS:

Alienware M17X
Graphics: NVDIA Geforce GTX260M / 9400M G


Here are my steps:

I downloaded:

296.10-notebook-win7-winvista-64bit-international-whql.exe from the NVDIA Homepage.
http://www.nvidia.de/object/notebook-win7-winvista-64bit-296.10-whql-driver-de.html

After that I downloaded the moded INF files from katalin.

I startet the extraction of the WHQL exe and canceled the isntallation after extraction.

After that I took the zip file and extracted it to the folder:

296.10\WinVista_Win7_64\International\Display.Driver

And replaced TWO files with this step.

After that I went to the internation folder and startet the setup.exe file.

I get following error message:

"Necessary files are missing".

Any IDEAS?
Does they new driver files not working?

Kinds Regards

#UPDATE: I tried they 285.62 and it worked fine.

EDIT: So my only question...to katalin. Can you modify the new versions files too, to get them work?

But I'm still happy with the success!!! Thank you SOOO much for your great work!

 

Hello, Darashi, welcome to NBR.

No, the files won't work from one version to another.
Here's one i just finished for your 260Ms. Follow the same steps but this time using the 296.10 MOBILE drivers for WINDOWS 7 x64 and this file:

nVIDIA 296.10 260M

 

Hello!

Thanks for your fast reply:

Would you be so kind and upload it on another mirror?
I got stuck 3 times on megashare right now.. and always have to wait 4 min again *g*

Rapidshare, uploaded.to or something like that? This would be really nice! ^^

so I guess... Am I the first one to try out this new version of the driver?

Kind Regards

EDIT: OK worked after the 4th try. I will try it out right now.

 

Sorry but that was the only one i had access to at that moment. Better than nothing i'd say, right?

 

It worked very well! Thank you so much.

Finally got the old drivers from the DELL page (2010) replaced.
So maybe you can update your first post and also provide th 296.10 version for others, after the beta testing

Good Evening!

Greetings

Dara

 

Hi there!

I have an issue I'm not seeing an answer to here.
I did everything said here, any everything is working great... other than my screen has a awful color scheme, and looks like an 8 bit nintendo.
it looks perfect in safe mode, but like junk... almost like looking at something 3D without the glasses.

anyone know how to fix this issue?
thanks!

update: the screen is green/blue. my fps sucks in diablo, but screen LOOKS fine. when i enable both 260m's i get the green screen, but perfect fps diablo.
?

 

This question arises frequently from M17 owners. For future reference, I have added this to my "Index of Useful Threads" linked in my signature.

How do I install newer NVIDIA drivers on my old M17x ("R1") with GTX 260M and 9400M?

 

Okay ! I'll try this right now and see if it fixes my issue. If it helps, my HDMI output works FINE, but laptop monitor doesn't. when i run purely off the 9400, screen looks great but graphics are crap.

nvm - got it

nope. installed the 296.10 drivers... screen still greenish...

anyone know how to fix this?

 

This is my first post on this forum, so before I ask for help let me say thank you for all the contributions that those posting here have made. This place has been a wealth of information for me.

I have the Alienware M17X R1 with the dual Nvidia Geforce GTX 260M gpu. I'm currently using WHQL driver 285.62 and had updated to that using Katalin's procedure and the modified files.

I'd like to update to the latest drivers and have been trying to use the link below, but after each download when I attempt to extract the files I receive the following message.

I've tried downloading the file 8 to 10 times now and still get the same message.

Can anybody help or have a suggestion?

 

Jackshaftoe, hello and welcome to NBR.

I just downloaded the archive from the link i posted and it extracts fine. Can you try again and let me know?