306.23 whql

Enjoy guys:

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You're on the ball again, as usual! - thanks for the link. :thumbsup:

 

That's strange: in the products support page 680m is not listed, however in release notes (v306.23) it's there... Maybe just an error. Downloading now and checking if 680m is listed in the driver list...

 

Installs fine on the 680M

 

The folks who have upgraded the M18x R1 to 680M are most likely going to have to mod the INF until NVIDIA adds the new Device ID numbers into the INF the same as 7970M upgraders had to do until AMD updated their INF. Have any of you in that situation reached out to NVIDIA on this? Have they already done it? NVIDIA and AMD only add the Device ID strings that are reported to them by the OEM, so unless Alienware has provided M18x R1 with 680M Device ID numbers to NVIDIA it probably has not been done yet.

The mod is very easy for AMD or NVIDIA drivers. If anyone needs any help with that, let me know and I can walk you through it. Katalin_2003 is a pro at this, too... actually, more experienced at it than I am. Once you know what to do, it's a piece of cake.

Basically, you need to change the last 8 characters in the lines that correspond to the 680M GPU in the nvdm.inf file to match the device ID of the M18x R1 (which will be different than the R2). Once a modded INF is ready to go, please post it here in this thread for other M18x R1 upgraders.

 

These will install on the R2 wthout needing to mod the inf?

 

this one shaved abour 30 fps from bf3 for some reason. i reroll to the beta driver it is a good one so far.

 

Did you double-check to be sure SLI was re-enabled after installing the new driver and reboot?

 

my bad i might forgot to turn on sli as the installation prolly turns it off after its complited.

 

ok fox u are right sli was disabled. now its more like 100+ fps so im all good.

 

Ok. So I installed this driver and so far no issues with it. There is no need to do any mod to make this work in the R2 with 680m (single or SLi).

Does anyone know why do you need to restart the system (the driver asks you) everytime you enable / disable the SLi, even if no programs run in the background?

With the Dell driver this was not an issue. Is there a work around this? Thank you

 

For the M18x-R1 and 580M SLI, they always ask me to restart after enabling/disabling SLI.

The driver is working fine for me, will update if something goes wrong.

 

I'll have to try these out, thanks for the info!

Does anyone have any experience as to how these drivers are performing with the Dell 680M SLI in Battlefield 3 multiplayer? The 306.02 BETA drivers were unplayable, for me. I was stutter/lagging all over the place.

 

I hope these work better than other drivers. I sent in about 10 trouble tickets to NVIDIA for you guys regarding the BSOD's with 680Ms.

 

Good... glad it was so simple. Driver updates often turn off SLI and CrossFire because those features are controlled by drivers.

 

How is this driver working for other 680M users?

 

For anyone wondering what kind of performance increases this gives.



If you want to know how I worked out the Blended Average Performance Increase, I used this formulae:
{[(% of Average FPS Increase * 3) + (% of Score Increase * 2) + (% of Min FPS Increase * 2) + (% of Max FPS Increase * 1)] / 2} / 4 = 6.435%. The reason I did it like this is because in my eyes, I care more about the average FPS, and the score is their own calculation of performance and that's important, as well as the Min FPS. so the *3, *2, *1 are a way of showing how important those scores are. Max FPS for me isn't important if it's over VSYNC anyway.

 

Annie if you try to put computer to sleep then wake it up - any BSOD? Also those having BSOD with external display any issues with this one?

 

Nope, I ran a few tests because I think I pinpointed my sometimes grey-screen on wakeup with the 306.02 driver to be if I plug in a USB stick sleep and then take it out then wake it up.
I do not have an external display handy to test with so I'll have to skip that.

All tests are sleeping for 30-60 seconds
Sleep -> Unsleep = PASS
USB Stick -> Sleep -> Unsleep = PASS
USB Stick -> Sleep -> Unplug USB Stick -> Unsleep = PASS
Sleep -> USB Stick while Asleep -> Unsleep = PASS

4 / 4 tests passed (100.00%)

 

Thanks for the testing Annie - I also had those issues time to time with other beta drivers. Anyone else please post issues if you have any with these drivers.

 

littleone... try using the following settings in your power profile and see if it helps.

 

Not a problem, happy to help. One of my friends quoted that perhaps it was something to do with the driver (306.02) talking to the Intel Rapid Storage Technology in the 3.0 ports, because if I plugged a USB stick into the eSATA + 2.0 combo port, I never ever got a BSOD. My USB 3.0 ports seem to be more stable (WD hard drive -- sometimes got lost connection and reconnection)

 

Annie did you have any issues with the beta 306.02? Fox I will change those as you prescribe.

 

Will this also solve the sometimes weird USB 3.0 problems I get when copying files to WD drives, sometimes mid copy the hard-drive disconnects and reconnects instantly. After reinstalling the USB 3.0 Controller driver from dell site, it seems to be MUCH more stable.

Also: Is getting drivers from Driver Genius Professional 11 a good way to get the latest up-2-date drivers or should I use the AlienAutopsy program (I don't like it very much because when I click "Drivers" it shows me ALL drivers rather than just ones that need updates, makes me feel I need to keep a diary saying when I update drivers )

 

Yes, I got the grey-screen of death (laggy login screen, after logging in, you get a grey screen and thats the end of that --> Rebooting would then lead to stopcode 116 until I reboot into safemode and do disk cleanup and sfc /scannow) when waking from a sleep mode sometimes, as I said it seems to have been pinpointed with me plugging USB stuff into the 3.0 ports (the eSATA 2.0 gave me no issues ever).

Haven't had any yet in my testing with the 306.23 WHQL, but if I do get one in my regular usage patterns I'll be sure to post here.

 

New Vantage best by about 500 points! This run was conducted on a decidedly warm system, at room temperature, no cooling, so definitely not a fluke:

GPU 38,179

Score on older driver in sig, will wait a bit to update for comparison.

Factory clocks (GPU's).

 

Maybe so. Try it and see. Those are the settings I have been using for several years and I never have those issues. I hope it helps. If not, you can always put them back to your preference.

Worse can scenario, set the power profile to "do nothing" when you close the lid, go to sleep "never" and shut down properly instead of using S3.

I go get my own drivers whenever I decide a better one would offer a benefit of some kind. I don't use things like Driver Genius or Alien Autopsy for driver assistance, so I cannot tell you if they are a good way or not. AMD Catalyst Control Center and NVIDIA Control Panel also let users know when a newer (official) driver is available if they have that setting turned on. About 9 out of 10 tweaked third-party drivers cause issues of some kind for me, so I normally do not bother with them unless I have a specific problem I am trying to fix that official reference drivers do not correct.

 

Nice one! I am downloading Vantage now because I only have 3DMark11 and Heaven

 

No sleep/resume probs here running external with these on my 580m's.

 

Nice to see a thread going smooth and without any complains, bsod etc. so far... Maybe this will get the attention of Dell / Alienware to work on a new tweaked driver (knowing that Nvidia has released something new which gives more juice to this beasts) and update, instead of using the same old 302.72...

 

New Vantage High Score with this driver.

I've broken the 40,000 barrier, by 0.01% ( GPU Score: 40,004)

 

^^^ I think you are in the wrong thread with this benchmark work you are doing (though is nice to notice a stable driver). Please have a look here http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...alienware-m18x-benchmark-thread-part-2-a.html

 

40k is really good, but I think you should be hitting 44 to 45k with your 680M SLI and 3920XM proc. 40k is in the average range for your configuration, so it is functioning very properly.

Looking at your CPU score, you need to bust some moves with that wicked XM CPU, girl. Raising your CPU score to 29-30k is going to boost your GPU score by quite a bit. I'm cranking out a consistent 29k-30k on my Vantage CPU score with my first-generation Sandy Bridge XM proc, so I think yours should do at least that much.

 

so far i haven't noticed any instability, restart after restart seems fine, by biggest problem was driver crashing upon startup and the computer needed to restart to get the driver back up and running, no BSOD's for me, but some freezes, however now with these new drivers everything seems solid, no problems yet will report back if i get anything.

 

Thanks for the link! Got it running with my 680m in my R1 Thanks to Mr. Fox walking me through modding the .inf. Works like a charm!

 

few more hours of testing, no problems yet, seems all is well. squeezed alittle more out of 3dmark11 but nothing to talk about, games run about the same, just more stable.

 

That was with the OC disabled. I got to 42k with 41/41/41/41 VID: 0 (No idea what all the other settings do) but the MAX temp on that benchmark was 94 degrees on 2 of the 4 cores, so either am I doing something wrong but I am more of a gamer rather than an OCer. I'd rather keep my system cool and stable but get lower scores than others.

 

For an intense CPU benchmark like Vantage tests 3 and 4, 94°C is not unheard of. That should be ok if you don't consistently reach that kind of temperature during normal use and gaming.

 

No, no I dont get anything like that on gaming. Highest ive seen on gaming is 82 and that was on one core for like 2 seconds. Averages are 69-77

 

Excellent, can't wait to give these a whirl.

 

As I am coming from ATI/AMD side, do I need to flash the VBios of the Nvidia cards, to use regular Nvidia drivers instead of Dell drivers?

 

No, I have been through quite a few vBIOS but this is the way it was:

Stock Driver + Stock vBIOS -> 306.02 Beta + Stock vBIOS -> Stock Driver + Stock vBIOS -> 306.23 Driver (NVIDIA) + Stock vBIOS -> 306.23 Driver (NVIDIA) + Overclock vBIOS (+20% Performance) -> 306.23 Driver (NVIDIA) + T|I 850-889 OC-OV vBIOS (Rubbish) -> 306.23 Driver (NVIDIA) + Overclock vBIOS (+20% Performance)

In bold you can see that the upgrading from Stock Driver to NVIDIA's 306.23 doesn't need any special vBIOS, you can use the Dell Stock vBIOS

 

Hey everyone, here is the modified .inf for those of you whose device id is PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_11A0&SUBSYS_048F1028. Very useful if you have an m18x R1 and upgraded to a 680m.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bwdqi25LDwZyMnZlbUdCQzRzamc/edit

All courtesy of Mr. Fox who assisted me with this last night! :thumbsup:

 

Yeah, same here. 306.23 work fine for me.

I am glad 680m slowly start work the way it is supposed to. Now, Dell, where is this bios to introduce boost?

 

Been gaming a lot since the update, solid drivers so far, no issues to report on my end.

 

I haven't had any luck with this driver on any of my settings I used on the beta driver for benching. Haven't had time to test stability. I guess if stability is there that would be better than being able to bench.

 

My thoughts so far:

Pros:

- I've got this driver since it has been released;

- All the games I have run so far are very smooth and the performance has increased overall;

- All the applications are running smooth.

Cons:

- The driver crashes several times during screen off or sometimes during standby (maybe there is something wrong with my system or I just have to do a clean install);

- The first GPU (GPU0) it stays at a higher temperature than the second GPU (GPU1); I am talking about 10 degrees celsius difference.

- I reverted back to 302.77 driver and the above problems are not there.

If there is something anyone can contribute / help / explain, I will highly appreciate.

Thank you.

 

Responses in red above.

 

I am not talking about loading time. The cards while are at idle, one stays at about 54 degrees (GPU0) and the second at 46 (GPU1). And it’s about that much difference in between the 2 cards. Before the temperature was very similar. Other thing is that sometimes the system will freeze for few seconds and then the driver will crash and restart. I wonder if this is normal (But I do not see anybody having this issue)... I just hope I do not have a fault card (I install the driver on a clean installation and the behavior is still the same; I have to see if I revert to 302.77 driver I will face the same issues or not).

 

Do you have Alien Respawn? If so, did you already disable SoftThings Agent (Toaster.exe) in services.msc? If not, do that and see if it helps. That keeps your GPUs from downclocking because Toaster.exe is mistaken by the driver as a 3D application, LOL. Catalyst does the same with AMD cards. It did it with my 580M SLI also.

Alien Respawn, (like most programs that have a resource-hogging autorun crap-app,) does not need to load with Windows and stay running in the background to work properly.