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    Installing new graphics drivers on my m15x gives me blue screen of death

    Discussion in 'Alienware' started by nogills, Mar 28, 2010.

  1. nogills

    nogills Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hey guys, I have the 8800M GTX (laptop card) in my m15x (the first m15x, not the new version) and last night I downloaded the newest driver from Nvidia (195.62). I uninstalled the driver I had first, restarted, installed the new one, restarted, and then it wanted me to restart one more time, but when it restarted, right before it got to my user login screen, a blue screen of death came up, it restarted, and did it again. It wouldn't let me get on the computer, so next time when I restarted I chose to restart in repair mode, and did a system restore, and it was fine again, except that it had my old (original) driver installed again. I tried installing it again, same thing happened, then I tried installing a different driver (the one released before the 195.62...i think it was the 195.55) and the same thing happened AGAIN. Does anyone know why this happened? Or a better driver I could download? I currently have 186.81, and it works great on all my games except Bad Company 2 keeps stuttering and being very choppy so I want to try a new drivers. Any ideas? And also.. what driver are you guys using for your m15x?

    Windows 7 32-bit
    8800M GTX
    4G RAM (3 usable cuz of 32-bit)
    Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 @ 2.8gHz
     
  2. Konig

    Konig Notebook Evangelist

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  3. nogills

    nogills Notebook Enthusiast

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    did you get it from laptopvideo2go?
     
  4. Konig

    Konig Notebook Evangelist

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    Yup. Good for gaming, but my GPU idles around 60. Sending it back to the Depot in a couple of weeks.
     
  5. cha

    cha Notebook Deity

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    The best driver for the 8800m gtx in the m15x for me is 186.82.

    Retains the performance of 186.81, with proper downclocking on idle
     
  6. nogills

    nogills Notebook Enthusiast

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    Do you think its better than the 186.91?
     
  7. cha

    cha Notebook Deity

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    I haven't tried 186.91, as I have been quite satisfied with the temps and performance of 186.82.

    Do avoid the 190 series of drivers though, as they don't support binary gfx.
     
  8. nogills

    nogills Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yeah I just installed the 186.91 driver and it installed perfectly fine, so yeah I guess it was just the 190 series that was screwing the installation and giving me the BSOD. I appreciate the help guys.
     
  9. nogills

    nogills Notebook Enthusiast

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    Wowww... my GPU used to idle around 70-75C and I thought that was normal.. this new driver its idling around 50. Jeez.
     
  10. martini5470

    martini5470 Notebook Guru

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    did you download it from laptopvideo2go?
     
  11. nogills

    nogills Notebook Enthusiast

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    yea I did.
     
  12. martini5470

    martini5470 Notebook Guru

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    I upgraded to 186.91 from 186.82 and original alienware drivers. I've noticed the idle temps being lower as you've noted. However in my case all games crash and I keep getting:
    [​IMG]

    It happens on every game I run. Same thing happens with every other driver, just less frequently.

    My setup:
    Alienware Area 51 m15x
    x9000
    9800gt
    4gb ram
    Vista 32