Dell nVidia Notebook Driver (NV) 257.38 - M15x/M17xR1... Discuss Here

EDIT by BB (adding re-release info) -

Driver has been re-released.

M15x 260M owners:
Drivers and Downloads

M15x 240M owners:
Drivers and Downloads

M17x owners:
Drivers and Downloads

Fixes and Enhancements:
1. Includes all fixes from all Beta builds released
2. Driver updates
3. Control panel updates
4. Supports new game titles
5. Improves low performance on reported game titles - (Crysis, Left 4 Dead 2, Resident Evil 5, and Just Cause 2)

Additional Info:
Includes PhysX package v9.10.0224

 

Thanks for the heads-up Kracs... I just noticed it. Time to update and check it out! Perhaps this will resolve some of the freezes other 17xR1 folks have experienced with the NV Verde driver (258).

Very promising that they mention the Power Management Mode bug is going to be resolved with the next release. This has been such a long standing issue with the NV drivers for mobile SLI. I remember this bug first surfaced back in the 195 series. WOW. Nice to see a fix is coming for this. About time NV.

 

Just an update - so far no issues with this beta driver. Thermals are on par with the NV Verde driver.

 

I notice this driver doesn't include PhysX?

 

just download PhysX from NV. No biggie

NVIDIA DRIVERS 9.10.0224

you shouldn't have to reinstall PhysX anyway unless you uninstall PhysX.

 

I uninstalled everything to make sure it's clean

 

that works as well always better to be safe, guess I'm just getting lazy these days and PhysX is fairly safe to leave as is.

+1

 

I did a full Bios, SSD firmware, and graphics update this week.
SSD this last weekend (no noticable improvment for me on my PB22-J53)and Bios and Graphices driver last night.

I must say I think this is a better driver. Oblivion even seems to be better. I now had the option to select native 1920x1080 and no frame drops. Can't say weather it is the bios and driver combo but it is good.
fallout looks great as well. m ore game test to follow.

 

I installed these drivers last night, over the old P06 drivers, no cleanup, no nothing. It did take longer than usual, or at least that's wht I think and I only crashed once since then. After the install I did a reboot even though it did not ask for one and when I logged in Lineage2 it froze completly. Did a hardreboot and everything was fine since then.

I'm hoping they are as good as the old P06 drivers couse I love the new physx menu.

 

I encounter a hard freeze this morning just browing the web with firefox with no flash involved (must cold reset the whole machine). Look like all verde drivers are disaster, no matter they are DELL or NVidia's

 

I agree here too.. plus how many actually play Physx games. Here's a list:

PhysX Games List

 

I have had a couple of system freezes yesterday using 257.38 AW/NV Beta:
- One in game playing Aion and another just at Desktop level whilst using Ventrilo

Definitely fewer lockups than those caused by 258.96 nVidia WHQL where crashes had became common (I was starting to think this was a h/w fault before I read similar feedback on the forums - mixed with relief!).

I had done a complete rollback uninstall/clean/re-install, and per the notes, powermizer was set to default Adaptive to avoid the Max Performance 2nd SLI card issue.

Lockups take the form of either screen freezing, or going blank and freezing. Very occasionally the system does recover with a display error message but always to freeze permanently shortly after recovering.

Often as a prelude to the crashes I get sound issues e.g. Ventrilo not responding or sounds looping, so wonder if this is just a symptom or possible cause. Have checked i'm using all latest drivers but curious if there may be an issue with either motherboard or sound drivers which create a conflict.

I also have a theory that the issue can be induced more frequently if you alt-tab out of a full screen game in SLI and back in again - but just a theory. Lockups can vary from just booting into Win7, to after 5 hours of solid SLI gaming...

Cheers

>>---> Trelawney

 

Update :

Following 3-4 random crashes but increasing in frequency as I was gaming, I reverted to non SLI + PhysX - and not a single crash since (after 6 hours gaming - Aion).

Interestingly the FPS is pretty much identical to when it was running SLI, and a lot less judder (imo).

If anyone else experiences these freezes, feel free to try non SLI - compare fps and stability - appreciate any feedback/experiences.

Cheers

>>---> Trelawney

(M17x R1 2x280 8Gb Ram etc)

 

well I installed this drivers and everything was going ok until I played some starcraft apparently after some time playing with out issues my card would downclock during the game leaving me with 4 fps xDDDD at first I thought it was maybe a random issue but it happened more times , it worked just fine with previous beta

 

Will freeze every 20 minutes back to 197.84

 

The latest 258.96 drivers from Nvidia are rock solid on my machine.

 

I have been waiting for dell to give us drivers suited to there system since i got my M15x been using these beta drivers since they where released with no issues.. they seem better than the lastest drivers from nvidia as well 258.96.

However i have not upgraded the bios to A07 the A05 bios has better cooling controls.

 

I have random freezes with this beta, just like any other 2xx.xx driver series, reverted back to P06.

 

Me too , I've been having issues with all 2xx.xx drivers Ithought it would be different with dell's beta but it seems to be the same just without physx, it makes you wonder if they test the software and hardware that they release (bad drivers , buggy bios updates , laptops with dpc issues or flickering)

 

figured i would drop my info in here, so far i have had 2 hard crashes since installing (screen would go to 1-2 colors, and flicker), but i have also had 4-5 (all just before and during typing this) video card driver resets. i have not done the updated physx and i only have the single 260m card (M17x). most likely going to drop back to a previous driver myself. not tried any of the nvidia direct drivers, only been using the dell ones due to the latency issue.

 

+1

Same thing here.

 

I also have been having trouble with this new beta driver causing random freezes, just reverted back to the driver I had installed previous (I forget which version) and all appears to be well again.

 

my system freeze either.. while playing pes2010, so i decided to roll back to previous dell beta 197.84..

 

This driver is AWEFUL.
I get random lockups (black screen for 5+min) followed by either a "driver recovery" message (if I am lucky) or a reboot with "driver causing problems" message upon getting back into windows.

I have also woken up to my system being restored 5x due to "driver problems".

Since uninstalling the P07 drivers and going back to P06 I have not had an issue.

D.

 

I had the same problems with these drivers so I went back to P06, so maybe it's worth to change the thread title for "Do not install 257.38 drivers"

 

I'm still using the drivers but in non SLI mode they seem ok. I played Starcraft II for 14 hours (yeah I know) at the weekend ... and ironically only when I exited and surfed using IE for 10 mins did it finally lock up .... >8o/

Really seems to be no specific pattern that can induce lockups though - really seems ad hoc..

Cheers

>>---> Trelawney

 

none nvidia 2xx drivers worked for me yet... it sucks

 

Neither for me , not even dell's version of 2xx , let's hope that they discover what's the problem so that they can release a stable version of 2xx for our laptops

 

Drivers work great if I have SLI turned off. However if I have SLI turned on I either end up with hard locks or the drivers crashing and recovering multiple times until it hard locks. I have the same problems with Nvidia's newest drivers as well in SLI.

 

Just installed this driver for few days, found that if my AW works in the hybrid mode the memory frequency will keep in 666.6 instead of 1333... and some times the drive will stop working and recovery automatically during the game...

 

Definitely major issues with this one - Have only played Dirt 2 with it installed and got regular freezes, BSOD etc - all requiring reboot.

 

since ive installed the drive i am getting black areas in sides of the screen during game play. what could this be? areas dissapear in some screen size but not all. this never used to happen.

 

I think it is becoming clear that this driver is rubbish for a lot of users. Does Dell actualy test drivers before releasing them?

 

probably they just did the changes that they usually do to the drivers without testing them now something really off topic , I woke up this morning and when I turned on the laptop y noticed a small insect in my screen I tried to clean it but it's inside the e2e cover I wonder how the hell did it get inside

 

Probably some kind of the newest Trojan

 

aweful drivers ...
installed them one week ago, getting freezes,bsod, whichever the game is, cannot change from integrated graphics to discrete ones... ( 9400 m to sli 280m)
and it's actually the same issue now, after reinstalling the old one that worked before, still freezes and bsod, only the A02 drivers ( with latency issues) enables the switch between graphic cards ...

 

Bah, stupid Dell has made this driver WHQL, pathetic.

 

lol everybody is having trouble with this drivers I seriously don't get why they made it whql I mean I can understand that maybe nvidia's website drivers can have troubles with our laptops sometimes but that dell releases a m17x specific driver that can't actually work is something that I can't understand

 

News!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Yep - I already updated post 1 (sorry Kracs for hacking up your post)

 

Just installed the new driver.

Seems to be running well and stable.
Everything seems to be working fine. Ran FIFA10 and 3d mark 06. All running well.
I'm running on battery mode now just for some testing and it seems to be fine as well.
Cheers.

 

Can you check placing into sleep mode by shutting the lid and hibernation as well (if you have your system configured for hibernation)?

When resuming from sleep mode, I am hitting a blank screen.

 

Yeh sure things. Will try it now.

Okay, Sleep mode is working fine it seems. I am able to close the lid go into sleep mode; reopen and come out of sleep and resume as usual.
Tested sleep when running on the 9400m and when on the GTX 260SLi's. Both work fine with sleep mode.

Now for the Hibernation test.
Okay, just tested hibernation and it too works fine. Tested it a few times going in and out with both 9400m and GTX 260's Cheers.

Sorry to hear you hit a blank screen BATBOY. Wonder whats going on there......

 

Might need to do another driver install. I have both Hybrid Graphics and Integrated Graphics enabled in the BIOS.

Thanks for checking.

 

No worries.

Yeps I have hybrid graphics and Integrated graphics both enabled in the BIOS as well. Cheers.

 

Had any issues viewing accelerated Flash movies?

 

Watching online streaming using flash through the web browser.
Was just watching the UCL draw and Liverpool game. Flash seems to be working fine.

 

Scared to install. Dont want the dreaded nvlddmkm error over and over.

 

I just installed it, after 30 min of playing game my screen got white and flickered. I had to hard reboot.......sigh...

Reverting to old dell drivers...

 

Just to be sure,

I used driver sweeper before installing. Is it ok to check all the 3 checkboxes ? or should I just check display and physX.

What is the best procedure for installing nvidia drivers?