Nvidia Driver 257.15 / 257.21 on AW... Discuss Here

Hey, thanks for answering and trying to help. I gave it a try and went to the bios. Btw, its the A06 version for M15X. Anyway, when I got to the power supply tab, it was delivering 150V with the AC adapter obviously plugged in. I took a look at the power brick and it was the correct value. I believe your notebook needs more power to work since its the M17X, right?

Then I searched for the place where I could manually turn on the 260M but didn't find it. So I just plugged the AC adapter off, the voltage went to none, and then back in which made it show 150V again.

After that I just restarted my notebook and, to my surprise, the games were running flawlessly under 257.21 drivers, which never happened before. I just couldn't understand how I did it. I'll try to restart it again right now and do nothing else to see if things will be ok. If not, I'll try to turn it off, unplug the AC adapter, start it and then plug it in to see what happens.

Any other suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

 

It sounds like it's related to your clocks. On battery mode and balanced mode the GPU clocks down. Make sure stealth mode is off, make sure you are running on High performance mode and check your clocks using GPUz.

Just to repeat, your GPU is discrete and there is no integrated GPU on your computer. It was just running in throttled mode.

 

I like these drivers but they sucks! 257.21 is so unstable, i got several black screens (the display driver stopped working then it back) , then i got a green screen while using IE8, then i got a BSOD using mozilla.... so i am with 197.31 right now, they are not so good in perfrmance but they fix the latency problem plus they are stable....

I think the problem is M17x or GTX 280M, because none M15x has these kind of issues..

 

im still using 197.31 as the 257 drivers both beta and official are not really great as im able to see fps drops still but not as dramatic(before on .15 went from 60 to 5 fps when large amount of 3d texture was in use, this is not a problem with 197.31 drivers M17X beta drivers )

 

Aha, so I'm not the only one (but you have better fans than I have (were already replaced after day 1 but not top quality, I assume). Seems to me this is kinda strange behaviour. I don't see why the fans should start/stop if the cards aren't used (or maybe the heat produced by other parts just let's them kick to keep the cards cool). Anyway, don't like it, don't think this is good for the fans 'lifetime'.

 

Most probably an unseen bug that Dell has never seen, Thats why I am asking if others have this behavior.
It happens with every driver BTW not just 257's,
If you start up laptop on battery it doesn't happen and the fans remain still.

 

Fyi, just experienced the first system freeze with the 257.21 (same thing as with the .15 driver). Browsing a website, the mouse pointer suddenly slows down and after a few seconds the display is gone/flickering grey. Time to press and hold the alien head again.

As for the fans, you are right, the behavior isn't there when you start in BIOS with integrated only. I never noticed this behavior with the 19x series, but then again, the Fn-F7 didn't work either

Hope someone from Dell reads along, as there's a chance that it's the combination of Alienware + Nvidia.

I must say from a customer's point of view, it takes quite (too) long to find a winning combination here. Let's hope for an 'Alienware' tweaked display driver as they seem to have the capability to get things right.

 

I think you will be lucky to see anything from DELL for the R1 now.

Their priority is now the R2 so I doubt they will even care anymore.

 

Battery or AC or both?

 

Yeah me too so that I disabled 9400m

 

AC power. Luckily it occured only once now, with 257.15 the frequency seemed to be more often.

 

Haven't tried the new ones , but I can confirm that .15 froze my computer at least once per day

 

Still not a single problem with this driver.
Ive been running on Integrated for most of the time that its been installed so it might be a dedicated GPU issue for you guys?

 

Any one have any ideas as to why these drivers are giving me a blue screen on my m15x R1?
The only drivers I've been able to get working on win7 are 186.03.

 

Have you got the BSOD error codes or description?

 

yes , it only happened while using dedicated , otherwise it was stable

 

It happens after I install the driver and reboot. It goes from the windows loading screen to a blue screen with a system_service _exception and reboots. I then get the choice to start windows normally, the same thing happens again; or I can check for errors, which does a system restore.

 

I use high performance all the time, so this is certainly not the problem. How do I make sure my stealth mode is off?

Thanks!

 

If your in stealth mode you'll see in the fusion section of CC a speedometer over the image of the laptop at the left side

 

I didn't have CC installed. I'll install it now and test stealth mode to see if it had anything to do with my problem.

Thanks!

 

So, it was not stealth mode after all. I believe greatday2882 was right. Its something to do with energy management on the startup and it seems to be bios related. I still haven't reached a solid solution but I'm still trying.

 

I upgraded from 197.31 to 257.21. The first time I installed the 257.21, I had a ton of random lockups so I reverted back to the 197.31 drivers. I read somewhere that after extracting the 257.21 downloaded file and running just the setup from the display sub folder, users have not experienced any troubles. After doing that, I have yet to receive any problems at all. Also it seems fps has increased. So far the driver is great for me.

 

may i ask what system are you running?

 

M17x R1/ 280m SLi / QX9300 / 8 GB RAM / 512 GB SSD / Windows 7 64 bit

 

I will try that later, perhaps the freezes are related to the new hd audio driver that it includes

 

I followed your advice and found out that if I fire up my notebook with the ac adapter turned off, until it bypasses the bios, then turn it on afterwards, the games will run flawlessly. If the ac adapter is turned on from the beginning the games will not run properly and the fps will be really low.

It must be something with the power supply as you said, but its kind of different from your issue. I still haven't fully understood the matter and I'm currently looking for a better solution.

 

257.21 I had some problems, one only playing wow, caught, open again and no problems. The only problem I have been followed, it starts when I turn in stealth mode on the ac adapter, my I / D GFX does not work


**more problems, let my alienware on for 1 hour I came back and the fans of the GTX 280 were strong with an air very hot, do not run any games or anything just downloading a file and open msn. I'm going back to the old drivers.
* At least one driver that works correctly that up A04 BIOS bug.

 

Running 257.21 on M15x gtx 260m : everything is running fine !

 

/edit added more details

I went from 195.81 to the latest 257.21. This is a very short version of my notes.

All these games were tested at 1920x1200, no AA, with medium to high misc effect/texture settings.

Team fortress 2: (stood in a corner of 2fort, looking across the map) originally 113-117fps, went up about 3-5 fps

CoD MW2: (chapter 1 mission 2, looking across the river, right at mission start ) same, about 34-37fps

Crysis Warhead 64bit: (they call me ishmael, overlooking the bay as the large ship sinks)same, about 38-39

Mass Effect 2: (final mission, collector base, looking down the first hallway after just getting off the Normandy) a few frames down from 50 to 47

FEAR2: (in the hospital affter the leaping mutant-thing is eating everyone, looking down into a large room) down about from 51 to 45

And my "W" key has become a little unresponsive ingame after the update. Unbelivable. I think Im reverting back to 195.81 to check if it is my keyboard or the driver that is messing up.

 

I've just installed 257.21 and I noticed the same behavior while running integrated with hybrid enabled ( looking directly at the fans ) no weird noises though , probably a bug that hasn't been noticed because it's totally unnoticeable unless you watch them or hear them like in belien's case

 

Anyone confirms that this works?

 

I used that method this evening and so far it's working fine without freezing (267.15 used to freeze my laptop a lot )but it's still to soon to confirm it works 100 %

 

Im still waiting for mine to lock-up or the other problems you guys are having, I installed it the normal way too.
No success so far and i've been running on dedicated for 2 days - rock solid stable for me

 

first day with 257.21 installed with the method stated by CCaldwell2 and so far I haven't got any system freeze or weird flashing colors , fps are better for me sometimes in mass effect 2 it would fall from 60 to 45/50 in some areas now it's 60 all the time (apparently it's limited to a maximum of 60)

 

Awesome, after raid tonight, i will try CCaldwell2's method for installing 257.21. The FPS in WoW was phenomenal with 257.21 in comparison to the 197.31, P05 from Dell, but i was getting the white flickering screen, then blackout and hard resets all through raid last night. I'll deal with the lower FPS tonight in exchange for the added stability lol.

 

Guys, can one of you recap this integrated fan issue? I just installed .21 again and am taking a look. This 'pulsing' from the fans is happening only under integrated?

Thanks.

 

it happens when you switch from dedicated to integrated with hybrid enabled (integrated with hybrid disabled doesn't show this behavior) the dedicated gpu fans spin and stop all time , you'll need to look directly at them to notice it because it doesn't make any sound at all

 

Thanks X - I'll take a look. Did anyone notice this under .15?

 

It happens with all drivers that I have installed.

Dell A02 and BETAs P04 and P05 -

Nvidia 197.16, - 257.21

One thing to note - It does not happen when the computer first boots into windows. It seems to start right when the CPU fan revs up to tier 2 after about 5 minutes (for me at least)

 

I installed from sub folder (display driver setup only) and got 3 lockups of which 1 'recovered' in OS. Here's the log: the nv... is nvidia (their forums are off line, will post there too when back on line)

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 2067

Extra information about the problem
BCCode: 116
BCP1: FFFFFA80096724E0
BCP2: FFFFF8800FFEDF9C
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: 0000000000000002
OS Version: 6_1_7600
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1
Bucket ID: X64_0x116_TdrBCR:2_Tdr:2_IMAGE_nvlddmkm.sys

 

Ive seen the Bsod 116 error with a past driver.

Turned out my SLI was disabled and running on one 280m card whilst also trying to use hybrid, This caused random bsod 116's until I figured out what was wrong. Then when I enabled SLI all was fine.

I would check to see if your running on both 260m's first, then try disabling hybrid and turning off integrated and see where that goes

 

Are there any chance the freeze issue caused by Physx? since the 197 driver provided by DELL a while ago doesn't include Physx and this time with 257 driver we all install display driver only?

 

the verde drivers include the current ver of PhysX if I'm not mistaken. Check your C:\NVIDIA directory - you should see the PhysX installer.

You can also verify via the NV CP - click on the link - system information.

 

Sometimes I have issues regarding physx or opencl not being enabled or acting funny. My solution is always to totally remove the drivers and reinstall them, which clears the settings. In my case, if those issues are present it's usually old driver settings.

 

yea my opencl hasn't been working and i totally removed the drivers each time but for some reason it still doesn't show up on gpu-z. any help Mr. Pras is appreciated.

 

Is anyone having issues with Just Cause 2, specifically horrible FPS/stuttering issues?

 

meee horrible fps 20-30 at max :'(

 

yep - if even that. Seems like with the .15 and now the .21 driver, JC2 is hosed. On occasion, I can't even start the game or the benchmark. Seeing like sub 15 FPS and then lockup.

 

I have no problems with Just Cause 2, have been playing the game up to 56%. I got 40fps overall in Dark Tower benchmark and 58fps overall in the second bench, with everything in Very High, shadow Low, no anti-alias. Btw, this is with new 257.21 driver.
However, this morning I encounter two flickering/lock-ups while browsing with Firefox back to 197 driver then

 

Very interesting Arsenal... I cannot even run JC2 with the .15 or .21 driver. hmmmm... I uninstalled it and reinstalled it with no luck. I'll have to look at this again - maybe a good wipe of the Steam Directory will resolve it. Thanks for posting your feedback on JC2.