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

    Discussion in 'Alienware' started by stevenxowens792, May 24, 2010.

  1. arsenal243

    arsenal243 Notebook Geek

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    I still can't understand why you don't have freezes issue with .15 .21 (apart from JC2 problem). Although mine run JC2 flawlessly, it freezes randomly when using FireFox :(
    Are you still using Vista?
     
  2. Mickbt26

    Mickbt26 Notebook Evangelist

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    No freeze issues for me either with 257.21 and win 7, Does yours freeze on integrated GPU or is it just when running on dedicated GPU?

    I did have lots of freezes and black screens with 257.15 though!
     
  3. _XIII_

    _XIII_ Notebook Consultant

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    me too , I had a lot with .15 but haven't got any with .21 the only thing that I did different during the installation was removing physix too and running both driver sweeper and cc cleaner (usually I only run driver sweeper)
     
  4. Mickbt26

    Mickbt26 Notebook Evangelist

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    hmmmmm. I never removed Physx or ran cc cleaner before install, just ran driver sweeper.
     
  5. arsenal243

    arsenal243 Notebook Geek

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    I'm thinking it has something to do with Physx too, since the old 197 DPC fix driver doesn't include Physx.

    Did you actually install 257.21, then manually remove Physx after installation?
     
  6. _XIII_

    _XIII_ Notebook Consultant

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    I manually removed physx before installing .21 then I used driver sweeper in safe mode to clean traces of both physx and the previous driver and finally I ran ccleaner just in case
     
  7. thomaskc.dk

    thomaskc.dk Notebook Deity

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    I have had 3 random freezes on my new m11x R2 in just a few days.

    I did a fresh win7 install and have tried both dells nvidia drivers and the new 257.21 both did it, but never while gaming. I haven't had time to do that much stuff really, but the 3 times was all during close to idle windows stuff.. screen just freezes and locks up, have to hard reboot it to get anywhere.

    PhysX? chipset driver?
     
  8. CoderJ

    CoderJ Notebook Consultant

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    Okay, tried to install 257.21 by extracting the drivers and installing only the Display setup... worked great at first, then freezes at random every 5 to 20 minutes.

    Uninstall was a nightmare as well. Uninstalled using the provided uninstall, then ran Driver Sweeper. Restart later, I have 3 VGA adapters that won't take the nVidia setup. Ended up having to boot into safe mode and forcing the Dell P03 on them.

    May try again tmrw without PhysX, but I'm about done with fooling around with 257.21.... eaten about 2 whole days of my time now.
     
  9. thomaskc.dk

    thomaskc.dk Notebook Deity

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    I had one freeze with the stock drivers though.. But I can't remember if it was after or before I tried the 257.21 for the first time.. hence PhysX and all could have been left overs.. bah guess ill try to do a clean up of all nvidia and intel chipset and then reinstall them from the CD
     
  10. menengroth

    menengroth Notebook Consultant

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    Tried the .21, got the lockups & bluescreens just like .15, back on good old 196.86 now.
     
  11. thomaskc.dk

    thomaskc.dk Notebook Deity

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    @menengroth

    So does it stop? And did you do anything about physX in all that?
     
  12. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    The 197 Dell driver did not include PhysX as it was simply not bundled with the installer. If you look at the release notes you will see this is mentioned. The release notes state PhysX had to be installed after downloading the installer from NV - nothing more - no 'issues' with PhysX, it just wasn't included. ;)
     
  13. arsenal243

    arsenal243 Notebook Geek

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    Yes, I do know that 197 doesn't include Physx, while 257 does. That's why 197 ran flawlessly [at least on my machine] while 257 keeps freezing my machine so often
     
  14. thomaskc.dk

    thomaskc.dk Notebook Deity

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  15. Terminal42

    Terminal42 Notebook Evangelist

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    So which should I download? Im tired of super long threads and having every driver released give everyone bugs and glitches. R1. GTx 280M sli
     
  16. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    FWIW Arsenal... I did not remove PhysX and so far no issues with the driver. Not sure how PhysX could be glitching your system - weird to say the least.
     
  17. _XIII_

    _XIII_ Notebook Consultant

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    I just got the first lockup with .21 after using them for a week and it was while I was watching a youtube video , now that I remember most of my system freezes with .15 where watching youtube videos (or awaking the system from sleep ,I don't use sleep anymore because it always locked up),so maybe it could be related with flash player
     
  18. arsenal243

    arsenal243 Notebook Geek

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    As you mentioned, I just remember 'all of my freezes/lockups' happened while browsing with firefox, never happened in-game.
     
  19. KracsNZ

    KracsNZ Notebook Evangelist

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    I to have lockups with flash 10.1 and the 257.21 drivers. No lockups in game, just with flash. Seems completely random to: can watch an entire flash video, close the site, reopen same video and crash... very odd, and very infrequent, doesn't seem to be any commonalities with the crashes that I can pinpoint.
     
  20. myx

    myx Notebook Deity

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    Sad day for me, I decided to go back 192.86 dell beta drivers as 257.21 were giving me horrible lockups. I believe it has something to do with Age of Conan the game, but it has happened to freeze and bsod in random other situations.
     
  21. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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  22. Belien

    Belien Notebook Geek

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  23. Mickbt26

    Mickbt26 Notebook Evangelist

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    I think ill wait for feedback on this one (258.69) before I change from the new DELL BETA 197.84
     
  24. tuenkamen

    tuenkamen Notebook Deity

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    new beta already well ill wait on feedback to do an update to that driver. happy with my 197.45 drivers
     
  25. Belien

    Belien Notebook Geek

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    Installed 258.69 - First impression:

    - in game performance need for speed shift a bit better than 257.21 (older one has some rare fps drops @ start grid scene sometimes). Crysis also fine (although I think an older 186 or 197 was better, might be subjective).
    - up till now no BSOD while browsing (keep fingers crossed)
    - fans of discrete cards are still 'starting/stopping' whilst running on integrated.
    - the erratic behvaiour of the SLI Physx setting in the control panel is back :confused:

    Will leave these for now as longs as they don't BSOD.
     
  26. _XIII_

    _XIII_ Notebook Consultant

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    I've just been thinking that maybe that fan bug is caused by windows 7 as hybrid ins't supported by windows 7 so maybe it's a windows bug :confused: if not all my bets go to BIOS issue
     
  27. Mr Pras

    Mr Pras Hardware and systems

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  28. Chaaskul

    Chaaskul Newbie

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    I have the M15x and every time i try to use drivers after 186.03 it refuses to work.

    I get the BSOD 'gxgkrnl.sys'

    randomly decides to reboot and wont use the new drivers. Windows reports that the device has reported problems with error code 43

    realy p'ing me off, never worked on even a fresh win7 install

    i have tried vista 32 / 64 and win 7 32 / 64 bit. same problems every time

    not sure the HDD can take another wipe and restart. Any ideas?
     
  29. Psychotic deformity

    Psychotic deformity Notebook Consultant

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    i played Killing Floor for several jours yesterday (first time player) and had 4 freezes. Each times it froze, i had to do a hard reboot there was nothing else i could do.

    Since i never played this game with a different driver i don't know if there is a causal link between 257.21 and the crashes. But it was really anoying.
     
  30. Terminal42

    Terminal42 Notebook Evangelist

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    Should I download .15 or .21?
     
  31. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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  32. Terminal42

    Terminal42 Notebook Evangelist

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    Thats what I hear, people with .21 have less issues. Right? I guess ill go with that.

    My current driver works fine besides the fact that I cant turn sli on.
     
  33. Mickbt26

    Mickbt26 Notebook Evangelist

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    You dont by any chance have hybrid enabled in the BIOS do you? I noticed when it is enabled I couldnt change from SLI to single card because it was greyed out.
     
  34. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    HybridSLI and Integrated Graphics need to be either:

    Both enabled

    or,

    Both disabled

    Do not mix these two - if you boot on battery and then return to AC, be sure to go back into the BIOS and redo these two as they will have changed.
     
  35. Terminal42

    Terminal42 Notebook Evangelist

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    No gpu optins show in the nvidia control panel. So I cant change it from there. I know sli is off and I have both card settings disabled. Its telling me to get a new display driver to fix the problem.
     
  36. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Actually, I would stay away from DriverSweeper unless you are at the end of the rope with a corrupt driver issue. The process I use is:

    1. uninstall NV Display driver ONLY via Programs & Features CP
    2. Reboot into safe mode
    3. run CCleaner Registry
    4. reboot normally
    5. Run the display driver installer

    This has not failed me on the 17x. Give it a try. The reason to stay away from DriverSweeper is its outdated and I am not 100% confident it doesn't muck with the NV Chipset driver or PhysX.

    Note, when using the process I outlined, be sure you disable Windows automatic driver installation - if you dont, it will re-install the latest driver from the driver store. If you are not familar with this, google "Disable Windows 7 automatic driver install"
     
  37. Terminal42

    Terminal42 Notebook Evangelist

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    Reboot into safe mode, run ccleaner. Reboot normally (into non safe mode)? Thats possible? I know it probably is, just seems like an odd step, since you have no display driver installed.
     
  38. BatBoy

    BatBoy Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    After you reboot (normally - not back into safe mode), windows will load/use the Standard VGA Adapter driver. That is when you install your actual NV display driver :)
     
  39. Terminal42

    Terminal42 Notebook Evangelist

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    Oh right :p forgot about that. Ill try this then!
     
  40. tyranus7

    tyranus7 Notebook Evangelist

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    you can't enable SLI????? but can you see both cards (+ the 9400M) listed in the device manager?????... thats will be the weirdest thing ever.... if you can't see the cards in the device manager, then go to bios and change graphic options.
     
  41. Terminal42

    Terminal42 Notebook Evangelist

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    I can see both cards in device manager, nvidia control panel wont let me turn sli on. The gpu options dont even show up.
     
  42. KracsNZ

    KracsNZ Notebook Evangelist

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    Just had my first in-game crash with these drivers. Just reactivated my Age of Conan account to check out Rise of the Godslayer and during one of the loading screens while switching levels the screen distorted for about 1 second, returned to normal, then locked up.

    This was only a single lockup in around 10 hours of playing the game though.
     
  43. Psychotic deformity

    Psychotic deformity Notebook Consultant

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    257.21 and 258.69 randomly give me total system lock while playing Killing Floor
     
  44. KracsNZ

    KracsNZ Notebook Evangelist

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    Found it funny when reading the official feedback post on the NVidia forums. It's not just the mobile cards having problems, seems allot of the desktop cards also having problems: installation failures, blue screens, hard locks, and our old favourite 'jor driver fried my card!111' posts.
     
  45. Terminal42

    Terminal42 Notebook Evangelist

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    This is why I hate drivers. It seems every single one has problems.
     
  46. Terminal42

    Terminal42 Notebook Evangelist

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    Yup. .21 seems to be trouble for me. Some games run fine, but I get drops in mirrors edge and fall out 3. Just annoying, already had gpu crash a few times just now. Ganna just put in old drivers. Or whatever is the next best.
     
  47. Photolysis

    Photolysis Notebook Consultant

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    Both these and the latest beta drivers seem very unstable. I've had the system lock up completely, and I've had blue screens. Shame because the audio is far better, even on the A02 BIOS.

    I think the most time between crashes was about 90 minutes of playing WoW, so they were quickly reverted.
     
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