Dell's Graphic Driver vs. Modified Nvidia Driver for 445M

Shouldn't happen on this, it may have been a bad install before. I've never had anything like that happen on anything I've owned and no one has had any issues on this. If you want another good DX11 benchmark other than 3dmark try Unigene Heaven benchmark

 

heh, well you seem to be the most experienced
i "might" try it with your settings but is pushing it to the max a good idea?
were my results ok with the settings i used?
as ive said, im new to all this benchmarking and testing so i dont really know what results to expect
thanks

on a side note, ive dowloaded hardware monitor and with only IE open and typing this message, the i7 is running from low to mid 40s and the gpu is on 42C, is this ok?

 

It's not going to harm it just by starting it, you're fine with pushing it as long as you don't push it too far lol. The results were good for what you used. And yes your i7 temps are good as well.

 

Dane,
If you say that Furmark v.1.8.2 is a better indicator of Driver performance , I Can change the protocol to reflect this, I do respect your opinion since you have provided us with the products to use,so...
What say ye?

splinterpc,
you shouldn't have any worries about using 3DMark6, and if you are worried about installing it, just do a restore point before you install, and no problems...
Just sayin...

heeeeeey.....was that a jab @ muah ???............ (lol)

I agree with Dane, your temps are fine, you need only worry when you have sustained GPU core temps that hover around or above 75C to 80C for a prolonged period of time.
I originally just asked for 3DMark6 scores for the main reason that it's not a prolonged test, and simple and free to use.
But I will defer to Dane IF he says the Furmark is a better indicator.
So, Dane, in your "professional" opinion, what should we do?

Rooster

 

with standard clock i got:



after overclocking with 712/1424/911 speed

 

In my opinion stay with 3dmark06/Vantage/11 products for performance levels, use Furmark only for stability testing on overclocks and to ensure temperatures are inline on new drivers. To see how a driver performs 3dmark or even Unigene Heaven or games w/Fraps is the way to go, but before you push it in one of those find your highest stable levels on OC and temps in Furmark. I hope that made sense lol.

 

Alright!!!!!!!!! thanks splinterpc!
nice score by the way....
question though, which driver are you testing?
Rooster

 

the man from the mountain has spoken!!!!!!! ( heh-hee!)

Seriously,
thank you for all your help and opinions, you are making this thread relative for the 445M users and you add credibility to this thread.
Thank you.
Rooster
p.s. I am going to check into the Unigene Heaven , so thank you again for your help.
P.S.S I haven't got the chance to play SCII yet dang it!....welp, guess I better start downing redbull...

 

You are very welcome, glad I can help. Make the day at work go by faster and better

 

lol im just a bit concerned that it will reach way to high temps dont wanna run into problems with only havin had the lappy for a few days but i will try this tomorrow, perhaps with not all the settings you posted

no way my friend! lol, you are of great help rooster!
im so glad i found this forum, if it wasnt for threads like this, id still be stuck in the dark and also probably still deciding whether to buy the xps lol im very very pleased with it.
you guys have got me tweaking and testing my lappy which i find pretty cool, ive never been into this sorta thing before
now i just gotta get some games and watch em be owned by this beast lol.

yup, made sense to me >.<

ditto!
thanks to everyone contributing to the thread

 

Hi fellas,

I've been reading this forum and the 701x forum for a few days now. A lot of info to soak in. My xps17 arrived today and can't wait to get home and mess with it. So as of now is the 266.44 that DaneGRClose (sorry mispelled your name first time around) modded the best at this point? I'm new to this overclocking stuff so I'll probably just use the driver and leave everything else alone.

Btw thanks o all you guys for this information. I've learned a lot reading everything these past few days. I'll see if I can post my results also when I have everything up and ready

 

266.44 also idles around 50C. The Dell's stay down around 44C which kicks the fan down to the quiet setting. 50C always keeps the fan at the medium speed.

 

That's interesting compwiz, I thought it was idling at a decent temperature for you when you had it installed before the 266.35 package? My 266.44 idles lower than the Dell driver and I think most people have had decent temps on it too. Has anyone else noticed an increase in temps with the 266.44 package I put together?

 

266.35 and 266.44 both stay around 50C. Now my Dell one is at 41C.

 

confirm, the average is about 46° when idling or surfing web with no flash, the fan is off for about 5 minutes, runs medium speed 1 minute or less and it returns off.

 

my 445m runs in the low to mid 40s when idle or checking this forum.
i run 3Dmark06 earlier again and checked the temps at the end of the test it it was mid 50s, but im sure it reached a slightly higher temp during more demanding clips during the test.
oh and the 3Dmark06 score was 12365

 

What driver are you using? Mine idles at around 50-55 degrees and I'm pretty sure it goes to 60-70 during the 3DMark tests.

 

im running the modded 266.44 driver provided by Dane
what about you?

 

Same one. I wonder what makes the difference then. :/

 

I am also currently running 266.44 and idle temp is 50C, max 67 during 3DMark6.
When I began this thread, I knew that the Dell Driver(s) did run at a lower core temp than the Nvidia's (avg about 5C to 7C lower) but, and the this is the key point, the performance of the Graphics increased with the Nvidia, and since the temp's we run while using intense graphics( games etc) usually don't exceed the 70's, there shouldn't be any concern for alarm. But I guess it all depends on preference. And as of right now , this is an ongoing test to find the best performing driver without harming the Vid card.
So, if there are concerns, voice them here, and we will find out together what is best for our systems.

Rooster

 

metal militia, have you upgraded any other software component such as bios, or other drivers ?12k is great!

 

just at a quick glance I would say the majority of us using the 266.44 have a static core temp of 50C, can this be lowered? should it be lowered? how will it effect the peformance?

Rooster

 

no change to the bios. the only driver ive updated is to the modded 266.44 nvidia driver, havent made any other changes apart from the overclock.
my laptop is also near a single glazed window (not opened though), so maybe that helps a little

 

wha?????
because of the light?..lol...
don't understand your reasoning that being near a window increases your score....
are you saying that it performs better because of the ambiant temp?
ya lost me...
but that's not saying much, I am easy to lose....
Rooster
just on a side note, you should update your BIOS if it isn't up to date. the new BIOS includes improvements for CPU cooling and such
offering my 2 cents....

 

I think metal's reasoning on the window is the window probably has cooler air near it lowering the idle temp because of the lower ambiant temps around it Rooster On the note of idle temps 50 degrees could probably be a bit better, I idle in the 42-43 range but that's after some thorough repasting, 50 idle isn't a problem at all, really the temps you guys need to focus on the most is your max temp under load and with the temps I've seen everyone is fine. Keep in mind the temps may go up a bit with the 266.44 drivers as they are moddified drivers that were originally designed for desktops. This is the reason why I've been stressing temp monitoring so much, but monitoring temps is a good practice no matter what on gaming rigs. As I said your temps I've seen so far are a long ways from the danger zone, I think the thermal shut off on the cards are like 105 degrees and thermal failure zone is like 130 degrees so your good.

 

yeah its pretty cool around the window, and my flat in general. its also winter here in the uk lol.
i guess the ambient temp helps a bit

 

They definitely do, the ambiant temps here in Utah during the winter may also help out a little bit on my temps too. I think the highest temp we've seen in the last week was about 18-20 degrees Fahrenheit lol.

 

I dont like that the fan never goes to the lowest setting while not gaming with the drivers from nvidia.com, and I don't really see any huge performance difference, so I'm just sticking with Dell.

 

eek thats pretty cold lol, its around 9C here in london, but this is probably the highest its been all week.

 

I figured as much about the ambient temp, just wanted him to clarify for other readers.
On the issue of idle core temps, thanks for clarifying. I am still compiling the "noob's guide to installing graphic drivers"( not really going to call it that ), can you suggest any additional opinions or sites that might be important to include? I am going to try and limit it to Nvida and Dell drivers for the the 435M/445M cards that normally comes with the L701x to keep it "thread" specific.
thanks again!
Rooster
p.s. SCII is f'n fantastic! gonna buy the full version soon. even with this "controversial screen", the settings set on Ultra blow me away! any other suggestions to test the Vid card on?

 

One great thing ii noted about modded drivers is that black ops has stopped to freeze randomly when changing detail level of maps during game and if choose a different resolution the loading it's faster

 

Fair enough. I think all opinions are important for this issue and I appreciate you posting.
personally, I do see a difference between the Nvidia driver compared to Dell's, but I agree it's not huge but better none the less.
Thanks for being involved and when Dell does update their graphics driver I hope you will still post your performance and score.
Thanks again Matt,
Rooster

 

how about "installing and testing graphic drivers for dummies"? lol joke

cool, thats good news then. my black ops order still hasnt arrived! better call and see whats happening, it was supposed to take 2-3 business days

 

That's actually a good title!

One thing that I have learned on these threads is that the L701x owners have a good sense of humor,though some of us are a little slow on the uptake( that would be me )

just curious, why not download through Steam? cost? and/or time?

Rooster

 

As splinterpc said, the biggest difference isn't necessarily in overall performance measured in frames per second it's more in smoothness. Another huge benefit of the drivers is that most cards should be able to hold a higher stable overclock because of the increased stability and reduced lagginess that's a result of drivers being less than optimized for the specific hardware. The only recommendation on websites to include or not include is don't make the mistake of including crap websites like notebookreview's gpu benchmark list, it's not right and it sucks. The only real opinions are these 2 things:

1-Monitor temps at all times, it doesn't matter what driver you are using(modded, nvidia, dell, etc). If you overclock it will always change the stability of the card so monitor, monitor, monitor.

2-When overclocking(especially with anything other than Dell drivers) go very slowly, using 5-15mhz increases each time, then run a stress test to ensure stability. Also only overclock one thing at a time, do not up the core and ram and shader all at the same time, up just one of them then stress test. It's a slow process but it will save the possibility of damaging you system.

 

Just to be maniacally exaustive in our thread ( sorry,i'm graduating as informatic engineer ) how does new driver affects battery life? Something different in estimated autonomy?

 

Haven't personally noticed any difference in battery life, I'm sure there is a small difference as the additional heat created by the GPU will cause a faster drain on the battery. Until you start changing the power draw and voltages of the card there won't be a major difference. Now while flashing the vbios to different voltages is possible, simple overclocking like most if not all of us are doing in here won't cause more than a few minutes in difference if any If the correct overclocking is done it may even increase the battery life in some situations as the GPU could theoretically become more efficient if dialed in 100%.

 

I would think it would have some causal effect in just how it "instructs" the GPU to react to commands. the power draw would have to be effected just from the amount of calculations it performs per requests from the program thats being run, especially if "overclocked". The effect on battery life should be minimal though.
but that is just an educated guess.
Rooster

 

heh heh!

and i ordered it from amazon while waiting for my laptop to arrive, it was on sale and i got it for £28
ive only had one experience with steam years ago when i installed half life 2, so im not very familiar with it.
can i burn the games i buy on a dvd? are the prices usually cheaper than buyin an actual disc? thanks
ill go take a look at their site now n get clued up a bit!

 

just from my experience, you normally get the product license or "key" when you download the game, so I think you can burn it to a DVD(or find a way around it, but I do not advocate doing so), but the site usually keeps a copy online for you download at your convenience if you ever need to reload the game. I have downloaded from Steam and Amazon without any problems, other than the patience testing that comes with the usually long download time.
As to price, it varies from vendor to vendor, it pays to shop around.

Rooster

 

Thanks again, I will include your information( or at least the essence of it) and update the intro page when I have it done.

Rooster

 

I just installed the newest Nvidia GT445M (A03) from Dell. I installed and played Grand Theft Auto 4 but the machine is NOT letting me change graphic settings. It said that my system's graphic card is too low so I can't change it. Can somebody help please???

 

I am not familiar with that error message but if I had to guess, it's actually running on the generic driver that windows reverts to if there is a problem with Nvidia's graphic driver and it sounds like your system isn't recognizing your driver correctly. Can you verify the driver version? When you downloaded from Dell's "Drivers and Downloads" panel, did you use the Dell downloading manager or did you choose differently? I found it best to use Dell downloading manager as it usually allowed a clean install of the driver.
Are you sure that the driver installed correctly, your version number should read 8.17.12.5951

to verify this if you don't know how, go to control panel, select system, select Performance information and tools at the left hand bottom of panel, select Advance tools then select "View advanced system details in System Information".

expand "components" that is on the left side under "Hardware resources"
select "display", allow it to "refresh" and then write down or copy the Driver version and compare to the number I posted above.

Now, that being said, I also had problems with that version of Dell Driver. The older version of the Dell graphics driver ( 8.17.12.3959) performed better without any problems that I am aware of. If this was the driver that your laptop came with, I suggest you do a restore point before you updated to your current driver, that will allow you to go back to the older driver.

If you want to go the Nvidia route, let me know, k?
Rooster

 

Thank you RoosterRed, I am able to verify that my Dell's GT455M driver is this 8.17.12.5951. However, I cannot do a system restore to go back because I wiped everything off and reinstalled the OS. This is why I went to Dell and downloaded this A03 version of GT455M. I am looking for the driver that pumps out that coolest temperatures possible, can you suggest me something for that? Also, What should I expect to see if I go back to A02 for this particular driver? If I need to reinstall the video card driver, should I just uninstall it and then install the new driver or should I do everything in safe mode? Thank you so much for the help since I'm such a noob

 

Hi guys I´m new here..I say hello to all.
My englisch is not perfekt..so I say sorry for some mistakes I make in the future.;-)

My problem is..I have a new XPS,too..with a i7 and a Geforce 445M and installed the 259.51..before I had the 239.59..and Rooster says the truth..the older was the better one.I played crysis with it on high settings..no problem..but with the new one..problems,glitches and low frames.Is it possible to go back to the older version for me?I´ve not made a system restore.

 

In my eyes, there are no "noob's" on this thread, Just users with inquiring minds ...

So far our research shows that Dell indeed supplies the "cooler" running drivers, and for performance the 8.17.12.5939 is the driver I used as comparison vs the modded Nvidia driver on the first page I started this thread with.

Since you reinstalled the OS, restore point is out of the question as you said. I haven't checked, but it might be on the drivers and utilities disc that Dell sent with your Laptop. Let's start there, and if that comes up zero, maybe we can get some help from our posters here on this thread.
Let me know, k?
Rooster

 

Welcome and don't worry about your english, I am sure we can figure out something if need be, this is a international forum and we are all in the XPS 17 "boat"

your system may have done a "restore point" whenever Windows updates so check to make sure, just look for a date before you installed the newer driver. There is also the "rollback" option under your device manager that might let you "revert back" to the previous driver. Also I just suggested in a earlier post to check your "drivers and utilities" disc that Dell should have sent along with your Laptop. If none of those work,
we will try something else. k?
Rooster

 

Äh,Rooster..is the older dell driver really 8.17.12.3959 or 5939?I went back to my older version in the windows 7 manager and the programm shows me the installed older version is the 8.17.12.5939.I???s that right?

 

Good question....
I guess it all depends when your laptop was built. when I first ran this test (with typos, but I did include pics with the driver shown as 5939)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/532182-dell-xps-17-l701x-thread-111.html post #1103.
It's 5:39am where I am at and I am "red eyed and droopy tailed"(sleepy in non redneck talk ) so I am getting my numbers mixed up. sorry but the driver I used and talked about is definitly the 8.17.12.5939
Rooster

 

cool, thanks for that.
i have also read that you can make a backup of the files on a dvd so you dont have to download each time !
my next game purchase might be through steam