NVIDIA Geoforce GT 335M (11xR2) Causes Game Crashes

No entirely agree, it's what I do. It will never shut down cleanly when the game executable refuses to die. So attempt a graceful shut down till splash screen and then power down.

 

I hope everyone does it this way.

 

I've tried the 260.99 drivers from dell and the games still freeze unfortunately...

 

OK, got bored, so I reread the entire thread. With the exception of these two games:

The Witcher
Dragon Age

Every single game listed seems to be an online multi-player. Also found this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/494366-totally-random-lockups.html

The wireless card is mentioned by page 3. Good luck everyone!

 

I'm starting to think its the a03 bios update for the r2. this problem never occured until i updated that. i've downgraded every driver thinkable and nothing has changed. is there a way i can go back to the previous bios?

 

I was very worried until I read this thread.
With many people having this problem, I think it is unlikely a hardware problem.

My problem is with GuildWars. Exactly the same symptom.
- Randomly freeze after few hours of playing.
- Can force terminate application but Cannot terminate process.
(So, I cannot re-launch the game)
- When shutdown, it will stuck at shutting down unless manually hold power button.

I found that it also happens with other old games (like Call of Cthulhu).

My current driver is 258.96.
260.99 doesn't work well for me for some reasons.
I will try 265.90 next.

Btw, using utorrent to download while playing HoN seems to make my whole computer freeze (Worse than above issue, computer doesn't respond at all)

 

265.90 also doesn't help with the issue

I can confirm that the cause is the driver. If you try to open nVidia command center after the freeze happens, it won't open. Also cannot interact uninstall the driver after the freeze, unless you force restart first.

 

I can sometimes recover a graphics crash by entering hibernation, might be worth a try.

 

Grungola, have you had any freezes/crashes after you removed that WLAN file? I'm curious.

 

Exactly same problem with me.

I play WoW mostly, and often the game will freeze. I can move the mouse and hear sounds, but the graphics are frozen. I can alt+tab and continue to use my alienware m11x r2, but I cannot kill the wow process and am forced to do a hard restart.

This has rendered the laptop useless pretty much, and I have no idea what am I going to do with this thing since I'm past my 1 month refund policy.

They have changed my motherboard 2 times already and the problem persists, so it is not a faulty video card nor anything else (unless its the hard drive )

While playing with the integrated video card for almost a month, I have never ever had a freeze.

I have found some posts on the internet 2 months old with people having the same issues. If it is a driver issue and it has not been fixed by now, who knows if it will ever be?

I wonder if everyone who has this video card is having issues, or only us.

Tech support does not know what to tell me. I will phone them later again, telling them I still have problems after changing my motherboard and ram memory, and see what they will say this time.

We need some official info from nvidia about this

 

As far as I can see there is no post on this issue on the nvidia forum.

 

- There's a thread about this issue in the wow forums but there's no solution (and barely any posts).

 

I'm playing "Playing Death Spank: Thongs of virtue".. ive had random game crashes every now and then.. now the game doens't work.. game starts up. i get the menu screen.. when i click load saved game file it crashes there.. so i dont know if its the computer or a corrupt saved file......

im going to try uninstalling and reinstalling.. but maybe updating my video drivers might work???????

when it freezes i can stll use the mouse and alt tab out...

 

I have just tried this and after an hour or 2 it froze again. This is sadly not a fix for it.

 

To answer your question, I've not had any freezes since. I'll keep looking around. Maybe I fixed something else by accident.

I did run Windows Update manually, not the automatic one. I also use an external bluetooth card.

 

Grun, I got all the windows updates manually and also moved BCMWLCPL from system32, and WoW froze in less than 10 minutes with the message "wow has performed an action that requires windows to temporaly change the color scheme to windows 7 basic"

so if you are not having lock ups anymore, please try to remember what you did

also, what driver version are you using?

edit: also 2: what game was crashing for you before and is not now, and how much did you play it?

thanks

 

don't know if this is going to help anyone but this is the error i've been getting if i close wc3. i noticed if i alt tab a lot, the same freezing will occur as well


http://img140.imageshack.us/i/61751687.png/
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/7524/61751687.png

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

ALT+PrtScr is your friend...

 

Same issue here guys (for SC2 and WOW) - try this:

In WOW, go to options-->game preferences in the launcher. Make it NOT fullscreen.

See if it launches - it works for me that way, but the fps is horrible (everything at low and max fps is 38).

 

I have played wow for about 6-8 hours straight each day for the past 2 days and no crashes or freezes using the nodded 265.90 drivers. Maybe try running a game as administrator? It might help. Wow settings are texture high, vertical sync disabled, antitrospic filter 16x, distance view high, liquid and shadows low, everything else is on high/good. No OC on anything. Running at an average of 75fps ping 125-175 ms. TcpAckFrequency in register (irrevelant lowers ping 100-200 ms) I guess im lucky

 

grr thought the 260.99 fixed it, but no...crashing in wow, and witchers randomly....sometimes i can play for 2-3 hours, sometimes 15 min......any ideas? im using the a03 bios, could that have anything to do with it?

 

I still have serious crashing issues with Dragon Age. I have tried turning the video settings all the way down and even completely reformatting and re-installing Windows 7, but none of that has made any difference. What else can I do?

 

guys, i have problem with mass effect 2....

the first time i bought my M11x r2, the game can install and play normally. under some condition, I need to reformat my windows 7 and lost of all my data. I already downloaded all the driver from Dell site including 258.96 Nvidia driver. but the mass effect 2 can not start and tell me that "Failed at Physics systems and make sure you already Installed the newest update for PhysX system installed". same problem when I Uninstall and reinstall the game. did i forget something ? I try to install a couple of PhysX driver but it say the one I use is the latest one. so, it didn't much help....

really appreciate your help guys...

 

sigh seems like the only fix is to wait...

 

since some people are having this problem and some aren't, I don't think a wait might actually fix things.

 

unfortunately i agree..

im just stumped doesnt seem like its a driver issue as ppl here have all kinds of drivers.

it only does it on some games for me, and not for others...

i just wonder if its a BIOS issue! did ppl upgrade the bios on here? i know i did, i cant remember having probs before it...i updated cause i was having heating issues, and there were updated fan tables.

 

I have an R1 SU7300 4GB and Momentus XT500 running Windows 7; Dell stock (latest release) Graphics drivers running in discreet mode.

I get random lockups in WoW and just sitting there. Random....like it might not happen for days or it could happen 15 minutes after a reboot. I never get a Windows error or any software error. The graphics on the screen shift a bit and freeze up. Sometimes the problem will resolve and Windows will spit out something about the graphics driver restarted. Sometimes it won't even do that.

I am almost tempted to re-format and re-install Windows 7 on my Momentus XT500.

If the fresh re-install still causes lockups after a few weeks, I'm going to fall back to my stock HDD and see if it happens on that.

Since this is a random problem the community is experiencing, its going to take a long time to pinpoint what might be happening.

 

I haven't played WoW extensively yet, but it does refuse to run full screen in my external monitor (works in windowed mode though). I do have the Momentus XT too.

Installing Samsung 470 256gb SSD now, so we will see if that makes a difference with a fresh OS install.

 

anyone try the modded 266.XX drivers and see if it helpd their lock ups?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/544419-nvidia-266-44-modded-drivers-r2.html

 

I'm calling in to see if I can get a refund for my alienware m11x r2.

On top of not playing some games, currently not playing ANY game in extended mode ( I formated a lot of times frequently, and noticed that sometimes I get this issue, sometimes I dont. Sometimes reinstalling drivers a lot of times will make it work, sometimes it doesnt looks like it will), my wireless internet keeps failing, while my gateway laptop sitting close to it has no internet issues.

This was my first alienware product and I thought it would be a really good laptop.. my friend had one and it run games better than my preivous one, which had better specs.

Too bad

 

My m11x r2 only locks up in two games, wow and everquest, doesnt lock up in any of my single player games. Everquest is by far the worst once every hour requiring a hard reboot, there is no way to alt tab out or alt control delete, force end process won't work with it.

 

yeah....im stumped

 

I'm having pretty much the same problem, and what I've found out is that games that tend to freeze are the one using DX9 or some form of hybrid between DX9 or DX10. HOWEVER, if you try a DX10 game, you won't experience any freezing at all. The worst that can happen is that your GPU is throttled. You can try any DX10 game and verify this.
I think what happens is that Win7 requires some sort of DX10 components to play games, and so the hybrid between DX9 and DX10 doesn't mix too well with the OS (or Optimus drivers). To test this theory, some of us need to install either WinXP or Vista to see if the games that froze in Windows 7 still freeze there or not.

 

I'm just here to chime in on the problem.

My specs:
Alienware m11x R2
Intel Core i5
Geforce 335m

I mostly play Everquest 2 (Extended), which seemed fine at first, but then froze. I found out that the freezing is connected to certain locations. It might freeze anywhere, but special gfx effects seem to trigger it much faster.

Currently I am at a location with much water and geysers (Steamfont) and it takes only around 5-20 seconds to freeze, so good for testing.

I've tried various driver revisions, installing the Intel HD and Nvidia driver in the 'correct order', deactivating antivirus etc etc, but nothing seems to change anything.

I've also searched up and down the internet, finding lots of related posts but no solutions. It's mind-boggling how such a big issue seems to be ignored by e.g. Dell and Nvidia.

Next I'll be testing what zephir said, if EQ2 has appropriate possibilites in the options.

 

Okay, I've got something here. It seems to be nothing less than the solution for Everquest 2 players.
Edit: Sadly it's not, which I found out much later . It does help, though.

I've mentioned being close to water and other effects made freezes quite frequent, hence I had shader issues in mind. The solution for EQ2 is simple - turn on shader 3.0 in the options. I still have to tone down other options to make up for the speed loss, but so far - no freezes anymore. Yay!

This is not a substitute for a driver fix which clearly needs to be done regarding the shaders and hybrid gpu's. At least, though, we now have something tangible we can hunt after in game's settings until that happens.

Maybe we should start a stickied fixes thread which settings are required against the freezes on a per-game basis.

I hope this helps you with your game of choice.

 

hmmm...im not a huge comp person, but what would the equivalent to shaders be in WOW or witcher, do u know??


i hope this leads to something...in any case congrats on the fix? =)

 

Well... shaders are shaders. Maybe there is anything referencing to them in the game settings, maybe not :/.

Sadly I've stopped playing WoW a while ago and can't help there, neither with witcher. I just know that shader model 3 was implemented at some time in WoW but how much you can influence or force it's usage is unknown to me, sorry.

 

Sorry, I was enjoying the holidays!

I played FFXI religiously (directx 8?), the freezes matched the description in the first couple pages. I use the temp 265.9 driver, OC the CPU to 166 and don't OC the GPU. Lockups are completely gone.

Only thing I do differently is I use a Rocketfish USB bluetooth adapter for my cell phone while at work. I also use the WLAN at my house.

I interpretted the freezes as a conflict in non-essential hardware. When the soundcard or graphic cards freeze, typically the computer becomes non-responsive or you get the BSOD. That's why I started looking under device manager and found the faulty control panel file.

 

Hey guys, another Alienware M11x R2 owner here. Got mine over the holidays, and just like a lot of you here, I seem to have run into this "freezing problem"

thankfully it seems to affect only a couple of games I play... Guild Wars and Kane & Lynch 2: Dead Men.

The rest of my games seem to work perfectly. Unfortunately though, Guild Wars is the game I play the most. For the last 2 days I've tested just about every combination of settings, and I've come to the conclusion that this most certainly is a driver issue... specifically, an nvidia driver issue.

Upgrading to the 260.99 drivers from Nvidia.com results in better performance for me, but doesn't stop the freezing in Guild Wars apparently. It also has a glitch that seems to make antialiasing in fullscreen impossible. I actually reverted back to the stock Dell drivers while nVidia sorts this out. (and I hope to god that they are aware of these issues)

Like I said... this issue isn't really enough for me to want to return my M11x, since I've grown rather fond of it, but it's very disappointing when you shell out 1200 dollars on a laptop and you run into all these issues. I'm currently testing all of my games to see which ones are freezing. So far games like Left 4 Dead 1 & 2 run fine with no issues. Oblivion ran perfectly, and Starcraft 2 ran for HOURS while I played over Battle.net with my brother.

Guild Wars & Kane & Lynch 2 seem to be the only culprits. Updating to the 260.99 drivers seems to make Kane & Lynch 2 run a little better, (No flickering or graphical artifacts) but I'm not sure if it takes care of the freezing. I've mainly focused on Guild Wars.

Like someone else said... I know it's an nVidia issue because if you run Guild Wars with the intel graphics accelerator then it runs fine with no freezes. I suspect that it has something to do with this newfangled Optimus technology, but don't quote me on that.

Does anyone know if nVidia has released any statement as to when some new drivers are gonna come out to fix this? I'm disappointed that my high-end gaming laptop can't play a game that came out in 2005

 

Folks it seems I've found a little solution to the problem (sort of).

I called AW and had them replace my motherboard. Wow no longer freezes (like it used to). No more freezing and having to do a hard reboot. No more going into the task manager and seeing that wow.exe process that won't die.

The game, however, now suffers from minor freezes. Over the span of 13 hours of game play the game froze about 7 times. BUT I can just close the game window and restart the launcher. The game process actually terminates and restarts properly. NO MORE SYSTEM REBOOTS.

I have an m11x R2 w/ i7, 4GB RAM and 500GB HDD. Nothing is OC'ed. I tried both the latest nVidia driver (260.99) and dell driver (257.30) and I experience these (minor) freezes on both versions.

I know this didn't fully get rid of the problem but the problem is not as severe.
It took me two weeks and 4 different phone calls to convince AW to replace my motherboard.

 

Birdie13 the game is crashing due to memory, processor malfunction, apphangups. You might need to find settings that your processor finds. Its not the graphics card anymore, oh and btw there is a way to actually kill the process (instead of rebooting) requires you to force off the nvidia display drivers then close wow.exe. You say nothing is oc'ed have you tried to overclock the to 166 and use throttle stop? And can you type in reliability in the search box. Find why WoW actually crashed when you right click on it and click view technical details. I would be darn if it says nvd...

 

"this issue isn't really enough for me to want to return my M11x"

Darkdomino, I have my m11x for 2 months now and I still can't play wow. My advice would be to return the product while you can.

What if they still don't have this fixed 2 months from today?


And birdie, they change my motherboard twice. The first time they did, the freezing stopped completely for like, 3 days. Then it started again, and it became more and more frequent.
The second time they changed my motherboard, it didn't help at all.

It is not a hardware issue, and you will most likely have freezes again soon

 

This is going to sound crazy, but my freezing issue with both Guild Wars and Kane & Lynch 2 has seemingly vanished. Basically I downloaded the Dell nvidia drivers from several months ago, then REINSTALLED the 260.99 drivers from nVidia... making sure to tick "clean install" during the installation.

After that, all my games seem to have started working with no freezing. I still can't use AA in any of my games, but all my games seem to run. I'm not sure what happened to fix this, but I'm guessing it had to do with a conflict between the Dell & 260.99 nVidia drivers.

either way, I'm pleased.

 

Wow glad i found this thread. My m11x r2 usually runs games just fine. but i couldn't figure out why playing Medieval 2: total war would freeze after a few hours of playing. The 335m is running and it plays beautifully. but then it'll freeze and then i cant close the process and ultimately need to shut down, but then it just stalls in the shut down screen until i hard reset it.

Thats the only game i have a problem with so far. But honestly. it seems like the games are different for everyone. and its very few and far between that they wont work. (like wow, most people on the r2 can def run wow, but a few seem to have problems).

Hopefully someone can figure out what is exactly going on.

 

I wish that I had an answer for you, because I spent a good week tinkering with settings and drivers trying to figure out why 2 of my games were freezing randomly.

I really think it's the drivers. The dell nvidia drivers that they ship with the laptop are utter and complete garbage! I know it's not an overclocking issue because I got the freezes whether I was overclocked or not.

If you're getting freezes still and want something to try... reinstall the stock Dell drivers from Dell.com and then upgrade to the 260.99 drivers by nvidia, making sure to tick "Clean install" ... it worked for me... maybe it'll work for you?

 

on the wow Front, i found this article..

M11x Freezing Issue in World of Warcraft

someone the comments said 'blizzard knows its an issue and is working on it'

no fix, but its def happening to many many users

 

Does anyone who actually had the problem and fixed it know how they did so without speculation?

 

The only thing consistent with every successful fix as far as I can tell has been "cleaning up Dell's mess." It doesn't look like Dell updates drivers all that often, so the less you have running that was installed by them, the better.

I stopped by to say that a lot of my internet hesitations were remedied when I cleaned up my active services. There's a great link in that thread (no credit to me). I'm suffering no side effects from my purge.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/546897-disabling-services.html

Someone should compile all the tweaks and send them to Alienware so that they know how to ship a computer lol.

 

I tried this, and I had no less than 3 freezes in under 10 mins. I reverted to Dell drivers and it seemed to work better. But that could also have been due to an energy setting I changed in the nVidia panel: from some sort of energy saving function to optimal quality.

 

bump. anyone have a solution? so many m11x owners have this problem with several threads going on about the same thing. this is not just coincidence