Clarification Please - NVidia GeForce 8600m GT Driver

My Dear Friends,

I know this has been discussed here in so many places (and also in the laptopvideo2go community forums) but there are way too many drivers out there, and being a novice myself, I am like super confused now about whether I should get the latest or as someone said, as long as everything is working fine, just let them be and update the drivers only when you have something showing up in the automatic updates or whatever. Also there were others who said not all drivers work for everyone and some create new issues and some work for one and not for the other, and so on...

So, just to have one final assurance for myself (at least for now), I am currently on 174.31. I had updated this from previous versions, and I also did a manual update with 174.74 from laptopvideo2go. It was fine as well. But I just wanted to see what happens when I then click on "update driver" from the NVidia Display adapter in the device manager, and my driver automatically reverted to 174.31. So currently I have left it like that - the reason being 174.74 showed up as not being signed and this 174.31 shows up as being signed. I don't if this is why it actually 'updated back' to .31 from .74. Anyways, as of now I don't have any problems. I did not do any real benchmarking (partly because I just don't have time right now to do it because I am busy with my PhD thesis and stuff) but I did do the NVidia builtin in stability test and performance test and stuff. It went on well, the default time of 10 mins, and it gave a result as "57 passes completed".

By the way - I tried updating to 175.xx from laptopvideo2go but it did not work. I could not update. I got an error saying hardware not found to be compatible for this driver. I had no idea what it meant. Luckily nothing was changed in my system and the update was cancelled. So I did not try it again, and decided to stay with 174.31 (though Silas I guess was talking about 174.74 and I don't know if thats good to be manually updated again or just wait for that to be released with a digital signature).

So can one of the experts out here please assure me that at least for now I don't have to be confused with this thing and leave it alone as long as its working fine, and until there is an update done automatically from device manager settings? Or if anyone knows of a driver more recent than the one I am using, can you please let me know and most importantly (since I am super confused with so many of them around) can someone with similar/same specs as mine let me know what driver they are using and if its fine and well and if their world if a happier place?

Thanks a lot and sorry if its asking for too many things. But I just want to assure myself that my system will run fine. Thanks a lot once again.

PS., can one of the Mod's please add the term "XPS M1530" to the thread title? Because I would like to make this request specifically for this system, since I read around that there are some (and also nVidia recommended that I would have to update the drivers from the dell support / drivers page, when I did a search for the latest drivers in the nVidia site.) Thanks a lot. Sorry I forgot to add this term in the title.

 

The reason it updated from .74 to .31 is that the .31 is the later driver (in date). The .31 driver is also an official Dell driver, whereas the .74 is an unofficial beta.

You are correct in not always wanting the latest driver. Your best bets are official drivers released by your OEM (in this case Dell), which are usually hopelessly old, or a driver you can locate somewhere on the NVIDIA site (ie when you search for betas). To use these you will nees to download them form laptopvideo2go and copy the modded inf to the same folder you extracted the driver files.

In your case though, there is a175 series driver that is signed on the dell website. Just check with the m1330 and download the latest video driver. It will also work without issue for you.
Hoping to be of help

 

Ah ok, I never knew the that the version numbers are mixed up with the release date. Thanks for that info.

Well, for your second part, I did check in nVidia site and looked into the 175 drivers (I think the result I got was 175.19) but I could not install it. May be I will check again. And I will also take a look into the m1330 place and get the latest driver. I'll get back soon with the updates. Thanks again mate. It was helpful.

 

In the device manager, it show my driver for the 8600M GT, 7.15.11.7431, dated 2/22/08 can anyone tell me if that is the latest driver for this card? My GPU reaches 69 or 70C before my fan comes on, and cools it down to around 57C before the fans shuts down. Is this normal? I may have only my browser open and CUPID monitor running. Thanks for any advise.

 

Well, please check Ruben' post above.. he' explained it pretty well. And I am using the same driver as yours, and as he said, i guess this would be the latest released by Dell (though there are newer ones around) and I am trying to get in newer ones and see how it goes. Probably as ruben' said, I would try the 175.xx (175.97 to be precise) either from Dell M1330 driver page ( http://support.euro.dell.com/suppor...-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=6&fileid=261031 ) or from laptopvideo2go ( http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19274 ). Else there was also a suggestion from one member in that forum where he recommended 174.74 ( http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18049 ) - and this 174.74, btw, seems to be quiet popular there with many users recommending it and also many more reporting that the new 177.xx or some 175.xx stuff have some problems/issues and some are reverting back to 174.74... So there!! I think its more like every man for himself, which just makes life for us computers-not-well-informed poor souls much harder Anyway.. I am going to give it a try though. First I want to try 175.97 and see how it goes.. else get back to 174.74 and stay with it for a while. Lets see...

PS., I have no idea why I get so paranoid sometimes with all these technical details thats beyond my reach.. I feel they are important because so many people / experts are discussing them but I myself have no idea if I need to follow it or just let things be!! lets see...

 

Okie dokie - I am staying with 174.31 because of some issues (as reported by others in the community forum there in laptopvideo2go).. it was eerily the same issues I'd faced as well and so I reverted back to 174.31.

Can others please drop in a word to let us know what drivers they are using currently in this machine / config, and so we could probably have a general consensus about the most stable driver available out there? Probably once this thread builds up with more driver version reports, I am sure its going to help the newbies a lot. Thanks for your cooperation.