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    Video Driver Question

    Discussion in 'Alienware M15x' started by Penny0423, Jul 19, 2011.

  1. Penny0423

    Penny0423 Newbie

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    I was wondering what is the appropriate driver to use with my 15x. It's a 260m. I recently upgraded from the driver on Dell's site (257.38, A01) to 275.33 from the NVIDIA site.

    After the update, my games seemed to work much smoother, notably Civ 5. However, I have started to recieve bluescreens and error messages stating that my graphics card has recovered from a crash. These errors seem to happen with only some games, notably Dungeons of Dredmor.

    Is this an error resulting from the games, an improperly intsalled driver, an incorrect driver in general or something else?

    Sorry if something like this has been resolved before, looking around I couldn't find anything displaying these particular problems.

    Thanks in advance for any help you guys can give.
     
    Penny0423, Jul 19, 2011
    #1
  2. inap

    inap .........................

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    it could be anything, try installing the driver again or use a slightly older driver to see if it helps.
     
    inap, Jul 19, 2011
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  3. Penny0423

    Penny0423 Newbie

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    Hmmmm.... Allright, will do. Anything I could try and do to narrow down the field?
     
    Penny0423, Jul 19, 2011
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  4. Chinopr

    Chinopr Notebook Consultant

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    Did you perform a clean install when updating the video driver?
     
    Chinopr, Jul 19, 2011
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  5. dhruv300

    dhruv300 Notebook Consultant

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    Had the same problem with you. I updated to the latest 260m driver, got BSODs. Performed a clean install and went back to the old, Dell-default driver. Problem disappeared. Re-upgraded to the latest, still no BSODs. Not sure how that solved the problem though lol.
     
    dhruv300, Jul 20, 2011
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  6. Penny0423

    Penny0423 Newbie

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    I did do a clean install on my last update. I've reinstalled everything again and so far no problems, but I haven't had much time to mess around and try and find errors.

    Thanks for your help guys! The thing I was most worried about was that I had installed incompatible drivers, but it looks like that's not the case.

    If I encounter problems again, I'll let you guys know. Again, thanks.
     
    Penny0423, Jul 20, 2011
    #6
  7. FallenDawn

    FallenDawn Notebook Enthusiast

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    Maybe official driver does not support Alienware GPUs
    But I always install the official driver without any problems
    using 275.50 beta now
     
    FallenDawn, Jul 20, 2011
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  8. dhruv300

    dhruv300 Notebook Consultant

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    If you're still experiencing problems with the driver I would go back to the driver listed on support.dell.com.
     
    dhruv300, Jul 21, 2011
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  9. Jdpurvis

    Jdpurvis Notebook Evangelist

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    The 260m in the M15x is a real Nvidia processor, and so the drivers should support it. However, it is not rare for there to be issues with new drivers from time to time - especially since the drivers support multiple GPU's. Clean reinstall is often helpful, or reverting to an earlier driver. It is sometimes worth checking the Nvidia forum to see what other Nvidia users are experiencing. I had a wicked stuttering problem for a while that turned out to be a driver problem. Took me a while to figure it out - until I found that others had experienced the problem with a particular driver.

    FWIW, my experience has been that the Dell drivers are usually ok - but also usually several generations behind.

    Joe
     
    Jdpurvis, Jul 22, 2011
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