Fermi drivers, which is best?

Hi guys,

Sorry for the generic thread title, but I could use some recommendations for my 192 bit 560m (G74sx). So far I've tried:

275.50
280.26
285.62
295.51

All clean installs and tried both with a reg scrub and without in safe mode.

The issues - either poor gaming performance and/or visuals or a crashing display driver in any type of video. Best example is youtube. My daughter and I spend a lot of time going through music videos together and a crash is guaranteed every 5 minutes or less. Temps never go above 65c according to afterburner, confirmed with HWMonitor.

This is maddening - thanks much in advance for any recommendations

 

The latest is always going to be best but are you sure that it is driver related your crashes?

You could try right clicking on the youtube movie and selecting the settings and turning off Hardware Acceleration as this can cause problems.

What browser are you using? Are you overclocking?

 

I think you just fixed my video playback. 2 videos in a row without a crash, thank you. Oh, Firefox 10.1 and no overclocks.

The gaming issues are driver related for sure. But the 285.62s seem to be giving me a decent balance so far. Most cut-scenes, which is where the issue was most prominent seem ok now. With the 295s I would get severe artifacting in cut-scenes and some throughout the games. Disabling shadows helped.

Thanks for the help Yiddo.

 

No Problem

I use to see this problem all the time on my old 8700M GT so maybe it is Nvidia related but that Hardware Acceleration thing does absolutely 0 in terms of visuals.

 

If you're getting artifacts without overclocking then obviously your GPU is defective.

 

I'm not sure if artifacting is exactly the right word - it's mainly cut scenes that flash and distort, or heavily shadowed areas. Right now Halo is the only game I'm seeing it in. L4D was doing it during the short, intro cinematics beginning each level...

*sigh* I hope it isn't defective - this is my second laptop in a month..

 

Did you try disable your GPU accel while surfing on the web ? Just check your browser setting.

Try to do a clean windows install , if you still got the problem , your gpu may be deffective.

 

That's the definition of artifacting. You may try to reinstall Windows. If that doesn't solve it - your card is defective.

 

It sounds as though the artifacting is being caused by heat especially as you are not overclocking. This can commonly be related to degraded compound or poor application of thermal compound which leads to the memory controllers overheating not necessarily the card being defective especially if it is only when the card is under load. Poor compound application is also one of Asus most profound specialities

One thing the Nvidia does not do is to give separate readings for the different sections of the GPU it will only show your thermal diode reading, I reckon your equivilent to what we get on our ATI cards the MEM(IO) reading is going to be very high. It would be a good idea to go for a repaste. If you are within warranty you could RMA otherwise check out the dissassembly guides floating around.

 

Yes, I disabled the GPU accel and that definitely fixed the video issue. This install is what was on my G73 -been trying to avoid a fresh install but that may be next.

Thanks sarge - I'm hoping it's that easy...

That makes me nervous

Understood, thanks for the explanation - I didn't consider that. I may give a repaste a shot. Got some MX-4 laying around and the guides I saw didn't look terribly difficult.

I'll do almost anything to avoid yet another RMA - I really appreciate you good folks feedback and help with this. Cheers

 

Which model do you have? If it is the JW then you can also follow my guide use the BTOTech video but ignore the bending the keyboard part because you dont need to bend it. I believe the SW is similiar with some differences. The process first time round can be quite daunting and if you get to a point which you are unsure about wait and post back here dont just try and pull it off as some do

The two most important parts of the dissassembly are the Keyboard Removal and the Audio Plug and you must be willing to take your time and be patient during their removal.

Applying the compound is the easy bit

 

I really should put a sig in place - it's the G74SX-NH71.
2670QM, 12Gb ram, 192 bit, 3Gb 560m with a momentus XT (latest firmware) as my OS drive. Bios and all drivers are the latest except for the Nvidia, which is the 285.62s. These cut the artifacting down tremendously from the latest betas, which makes me think an OS re-install might do it.

This hdd is what was in my G73sw, which was a major crash fest - it was difficult to keep it running long enough to troubleshoot.

I have almost 150Gb of apps and material installed, so I was hoping to get away without reinstalling windows. This is what I get for trying to take a shortcut.

 

Ok change of plan then because the G74 is a totally different dissessembly process but more importantly it sounds as though you are within warranty?

If the HDD you are using is completely wack that could easily be causing you a problem. Run HDTune and if you are punching out red squares on a health check then that is your first point of call getting rid of it and considering a replacement, or more importantly an SSD for that model to really improve things.

That thing will be running cooler than a freezer I would have thought because Asus seemed to win the war on the cooling problem with that model. It still could be a problem with the compound application but it might be best to consider an RMA if you have attempted all possible changes and you are still seeing the same issue. The heatsink might not be seated correctly or one of the screws not tight enough.

Reinstalling windows will not fix a hardware issue and if artifacts are coming up under load and drivers make no difference I cant see there being any point, if it is not artifacts you are seeing it could easily be your HDD on its way out. Back up your stuff if you can however it is always a good idea to make a cloned image of your OS.

 

I should have mentioned the G73 also crashed with the original hdd too, but this gives me some peace of mind.




Something odd though, after my last post I began going through device manager just rt clicking on everything, scan for hardware changes and searching for driver updates.

After, I fired up 2 of my worst offending games, and no artifacts - not one flicker at all.

Nothing updated, that I could see anyway. Nothing asked me to confirm, no downloads etc...I think I'll run furmark and prime95. I don't normally use them for anything, but if there' a temp issue those would certainly show it.

I'm going to owe you a cup of coffee or a beer...as patient as you're being helping me out here sir.

EDIT: Yes - still under full warranty, I've had it only a week or so.

 

I don't think temps are an issue. temps peaked somewhere around 2.5 minutes, so I let it run for 6.
Not a single sign of artifacting either. Strange...but I won't complain if something got squared away while tinkering with it.

 

Have you seen any artifacting since turning off Hardware Acceleration on the video playback settings?

 

Only some very minor flickering, again only during intro scenes in L4D now. Halo is pretty clean now, again just minor flickering. So far the others including Skyrim, Metro 2033, AVP (the new one) and Dead Island are clean, not even a flicker, and much better performance than I would have thought capable.

Videos are fine since disabling hardware acceleration. After all this I may update to the latest drivers again. If it's worse I can always roll back again.

 

I dunno if that sounds like artifacting it sounds more like screen tearing. Vsync will sort out that problem when the game is pushing more than 60FPS.

Artifacting is normally random blotches of colour flicking on the screen. Like this.

 

Yeah, that's why I was saying earlier I didn't know if this was really artifacting. I've had artifacting due to bad ram on desktop cards before - this is more like a heavy flickering when it's bad to just minor flashes when not so bad.

fwiw I just bought Alan Wake and the visuals are beautiful, not a hint of flickering in menu or cut scenes yet. I'm thinking just calling this solved Yiddo. Just a combination of settings and possibly glitchy driver installs...time will tell for sure.

I do appreciate the time you put in helping me sort this out, thanks.