What is the average most stable driver for gtx260m?

Currently i had mine installed version 280.26 but it is a VERY TERRIBLE driver. Ever since i installed it, my m15x would either goes blank screen or BSOD. I google about this issue and turn out that everyone that installed this version of nVidia driver would end up having the same issue as mine.

I have decided to remove this driver, but at the same time i do not want this issue any longer. So all the m15x users with gtx260m, please do tell me which version of driver is the most stable.

 

Drivers - GeForce Try downloading their Auto-Detect program, and that should be able to automatically find the latest and best driver. I was using the 260m until recently where I upgraded to 6970m.

The latest patch is also 285.64, if I'm not mistaken. Graphics Driver - Verde 285.62 Driver - GeForce

 

I had the 280.26 drivers before upgrading my gtx 260m to the amd 5850m. The driver was perfectly stable, no crashes or bsods. Did you remove the old driver and all the nvidia files using ccleaner or driver sweeper prior to installing the 280.26?

Also, when is it that you get the bsods, crashes, and black screens (gaming, net surfing, or just idle, etc)?

Edit: prior to the 280.26 I was running the dell drivers from their site.

 

No i had never use any of those, somehow under nVidia web forum,i read that they mention the drivers are able to overinstall the old ones. http://www.nvidia.com/object/drivers_faq.html


The BSOD or crashes happens whenever i am browsing,either with firefox or chrome, both could cause it. I have tried gaming without TOTALLY running any browser at the background and it was damn fine. However, once i start browsing while gaming (unavoidable) ,it will took few hours before it actually crashed. At times , it would just hang and auto restart on its own or hang plus BSOD afterwards and restart.

I checked upon event viewer and it shows Event ID 41 Task Category 63. Google the issue to get solution and it all narrows down to the driver that i am using right now. I do realise that beginning of driver 270.xx version , my crashes period started.

Edit: if i start browsing first and then gaming, it will crash too.

 

Sometimes installing drivers on top of older ones can cause issues, it happened with me. I know with newer drivers it doesn't really happen all that often, but I guess why risk it. Have you tried removing mozilla and chrome from your system, and seeing if you still BSOD? Do the BSODs occur with the IE browser as well or only mozilla and chrome? Try reinstalling them.

 

Running 280.26 as well with my M15x and everything is fine

 

Yes i uninstalled Firefox and installed chrome instead, and problem still occuring. Never try with IE though =p

By the way i just uninstalled that 280.26, and you know what, after i restart, windows is trying to install driver automatically (no way to cancel or stop it) and i am shock to see that it is the previous driver that i have installed which is 270.xx. So i guess it does have conflict at times even though nvidia may say otherwise.

So currently i am using the driver 186.47 which was the one preinstalled when i first time received this hell of a beast. I will monitor it these few days and update on this post again.
In any case for the future that i want to update the graphic driver, shall i uninstall the 186.47 first then install the new driver? or shall i overinstall?

@HiHu what graphic card are u using?

Edit: Oops i just saw ur specs in ur signature.

 

280.26 by itself should not be the problem. Actually it proved to be very stable and produced some of my bestscores in benchmarking.

Nr 1 you need a stable OS as a base.
Nr 2 you need to have the driver loaded the right way.

What I mean with 2, in my case and as just 1 example of what can be not normal, my card is OEM - and standard not included in any driver out there including the WHQL ones -
So I do need to load the correct .inf sections from the drivers .inf file and test how that works best. If I dont do the right way I end up having similar troubles as you described worst case.. So try a clean install, by booting in safe mode, remove all driver instances manually, run cc cleaner, clean register and re-install the driver.

There are lots of websites to help you, just google them, or for example here :
What is a modded INF? What is the Performance and Quality INF? - LaptopVideo2Go Forums

 

Thank you so much for the explanation. Just one more thing, when u said reinstall, do u mean in safe mode or normal windows? And is it okay to uninstall the graphic driver that came preinstall when i received it?(cos i feel thats the most stable one)

 

After you cleaned out ur OS (I use cc cleaner cause its good and free) book back in normal(without F8) and re install from that point on Yes.

I always keep a whole bunch of drivers unzipped ready - stored in some folder on hard disk - so I can re-install them later again if needed. Try remember the c:\nividia\drivers\... location is just for unpacking driver after you downloaded, its not actually where the driver will install itself.

If you like to play with the .inf files (like me) make sure you replace the old.inf with the new.inf BEFORE you run setup.exe again.
But in normal situation you dont have too play with the .inf at all its just for those extreme people with m15x he he

 

However, the driver that came preinstalled in this m15x were no where to be found. I'm afraid that if i were to upgrade to a later version, it actually caused an issue eg:crash,bsod,freeze. Even if i am to do a system restore, the file would be deleted after certain period of time or certain number of files kept. At least i want a backup of a good driver [old apparently =( ]

 

Nvidia keeps an archive of 6-8 previous driver versions here: Beta and Legacy Drivers - GeForce And they have a number of forums here: NVIDIA Forums where you can discuss driver versions and find out which ones have issues.

I hope this is helpful

Joe

 

A good read also here :

Ultimate Nvidia Driver Guide for Uninstalling and Installing driversets