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

So..made the same run with the 266.44 and the setting from here..you can see,that the heat goes up and up in the second test.Before the second test I installed the 266.44 with cleaning the old components.But why is running on higher fps in the first test?(in the left corner on the pic)

Here the first run before crash..:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

here is the second run:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us


And here the EXTREME run after crash and all new installing..at 21minutes and 79C heat I cancelled the test..:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

Kroenen either your gpu is damaged from overclocking too high or your driver is corrupt. I hate to do this to you but I'm going to recommend a full reinstall of Windows and all of your drivers if you've already tried a reinstall with the GPU driver. Your GPU isn't being utilized in your screenshot at all, unless you gave me a screenshot of the wrong portion of the log(while it was idling and not in a game) your gpu/ram/video isn't kicking above about 6% usage which I guarantee is a lot less than Crysis sucks down. You CANNOT run the same OC's somebody else has posted, your driver at the very least has bounced and there may be a possible chance your GPU has damage because the overclock you ran was too high. I've stressed it before but I will say it again, do not automatically jump in large increments on your clocks(this includes not running clocks others have posted). Start at stock and increase slowly in 5-10mhz increments until you see instability in the form of high temps, glitchy graphics(artifacts), crashes, etc then back everything off by 10-15mhz to make sure it's safe.

 

Oh my god..and what´s when the gpu is damage?New card?New i7?

I updated the first upper post...the 79C was the extreme mode.Sorry.

I made another test...but why does it run with lower fps???

 

It seems that your GPU is not running correctly and is on standy mode with restricted levels to keep the card from damaging it self any further

if after you do complete install exactly like Dane' said, and just with driver running, with NO OVERCLOCKING, and it acts the same,
then yeah, your will need to replace your Vid Card.
I doubt you damaged the CPU but I can only offer an opinion from across the Ocean.
take your time and follow Dane's instructions and just get it up and running and go from there, but until you understand the overclocking procedure a little better, hold off on that.

Rooster

 

The GPU with this computer is part of the motherboard so it means a new motherboard/gpu assembly. The cpu is in the motherboard but is a seperated part so I doubt it will require a new CPU. Your gpu is still acting up even after a reinstall based on what you've said so unfortunately you're going to need to do a full reinstall of Windows and all drivers to make sure you've narrowed down all suspects that could be causing a problem. If your gpu still acts up after doing a reinstall then your gpu is damaged and needs replaced. As Rooster stated do not run it overclocked when you retest it after the reinstall.

My honest opinion after looking at everything in full detail is that the gpu is probably damaged. This computer doesn't suffer at all from throttling due to power so the throttling your showing is probably the computer throttling on it's own to prevent further damage. Let us know what happens after a reinstall.

 

How I can make a full reinstall?And how can I see that the gpu is making problems after reinstalling?

 

You have a few options for the reinstall:

1-Use the hidden recovery portion of the hard drive(can't remember how to access it though, you have to push F11 or one of the function keys at boot)

2-Use Dell Datasafe to make a recovery flash drive or recovery discs

3-Do a full reinstall using a standard Windows disc

You also need to download all of the latest drivers from Dell's website and the graphics driver that you want to use. You may want to try the 266.35 drivers from Nvidia at first until you know that the GPU is still alright as the drivers I modded push the GPU a little bit further.

Once you do the reinstall you need to test it with a game and with furmark at STOCK clocks with Gpu-z running in the back ground so you can upload the entire log file again.

 

Ok,I made a complete reset of the system...driver is the 5939 from dell that was standart with the computer.I installed Crysis and it crashed the first time in the startmovie when I removed my usb headset.I startet the pc new.Than I played 2 Levels..but in the beginning of level 2 it crashed(but this time I could go out with the escape tab).Startet again from last checkpoint with gpu-z in the backround..here is what it´s saying:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Today is coming a dell technican to my home.He removed my fan and looks over the other parts,too.What must he control to find the mistake in my system,when the overclocking has destroid something?

 

Did you mention to Dell that you overclocked the GPU? If you did you will end up paying for any of the repairs if there is damaged hardware. I hate to say it but unless you've done something majorly wrong with installing the software your GPU is damaged, those clocks are on what I like to call "gimp mode" meaning that they won't go to full clocks because the GPU is already damaged it senses that and won't go to full speed to prevent further damage. By no means am I stating that you shouldn't tell Dell about the overclock, that's your choice. I wish you the best of luck.

 

No..I never told dell about the overclocking and will never do.I am not an idiot.
The technican was here...but he told me,that he can only change the parts when broken..no diagnostic.

I played Far Cry 2 for a while...all on ulra high settings...no crashes..only some little jugger..but good to play.And the gpu has a lot higher rates than with crysis..
Here are the dates:





Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

Strange, but it looks like the vid card is working....
did you do as Dane said or just a restore?
it appears with at least "far cry" that the performance of your GPU is back to normal, so I can also agree
the numbers at the beginning of your log is what confuses me and leads me to think that indeed the CPU was "gimping" the GPU for protection, but since you did a reload or restore it appears the Vid Card is working.

Dane, what's your opinion?

and on a side note....
If you can you edit the size of your pics?or just "snip-it" the important info?
just for future readers sakes, I have been guilty of this plenty and it's really no big deal, just nit-picking I guess,
I am trying not to come across harsh, but its hard to type with intent of emotions...

Rooster

 

New driver out

NVIDIA driver 266.45 Quadro WHQL released - LaptopVideo2Go Forums

 

Doesn't appear to be for mobile cards.

 

Yup, tried to install but did not work. I guess it is just a matter of time before it does come out though.

 

Agree, not for Mobile cards, but It is amazing how many updates for Vid cards arrive daily, it just shows how much attention is given for those who are looking for the "next best thing", and I am guilty of being so...
but thanks to Xymox for looking out for us 445M owners...kudos!

Rooster

 

The latest snapshots show the GPU working, before it wasn't. I don't know what's changed but something has and you need to pinpoint it. And a bit of an FYI the 266.44 drivers were desktop drivers too, does anybody want me to mod these as well lol?

 

Yeah, why not. I can test it out when you do.

 

Again, I bow to the master
hopefully we will hear again from koenen04, this has been interesting sidebar about our 445M and I commend him for posting his troubles for all to judge( although I hope not too harshly...)
as to the new driver, yes please...
this is what I created this thread for
Rooster

 

I'll mod the driver later tonight and upload the file and link hopefully tonight worst case scenario tomorrow, it's gonna be a bit different because it's a Quadro driver rather than standard desktop driver so it may take a bit more time. And no I am not the master I am just the blind leader that hasn't stumbled on a rock in this thread yet lol

 

Yes,I will post my problems for you guys.It´s a warning!
I don´t know,why the card is working so good with "Far Cry 2"..the game has excellent graphics and awesome weather and fire effects(DuniaEngine) on the highest settings.
Tommorow I become "Aliens vs.Predator"...must show what the card is making with it.

And about the size of my pics:Yes,they are a lot too big..but when I resize it smaller,you cannot see the numbers.

In the long run,I will look,that I become a new mainboard.So I can be sure,that its 99% ok.Hope from dell..but when not..whats the price for a new mainboard for the XPS17?

 

with the resizing you can just include the pertinent information IE time of test, settings etc..) with a little practice ( I am still learning as well...) you can whittle it down some...
as to price of motherboard , I just did a quick re-con and it looks like the price of said item is $426.00 US, but that's not confirmed...
but with a little luck and some more testing, you may have escaped replacing anything...
keep posting and let us know, this has been a good learning experience for us all, but at your expense, so I appreciate your efforts for doing so.

Rooster

 

The mobo isn't going to be cheap, I'll leave it at that and help you troubleshoot and try to fix your current one instead On the pics what I and a lot of other forum members do is upload the picture to imageshack.us then once uploaded(in full size or larger) copy and paste the link next to "Forum Thumbnail" directly into your post, it will show a small icon that when clicked on show the full picture Still working on the driver guys I'll post it when it's done.

 

Awesome, I'm ready to test.

 

A related question posted by batmemo came about on the XPS 17 owner's thread asking it would be possible to upgrade the 435M/445M that is equipped with the L701x to the GTX460.
Physically, it would require replacing the motherboard which is the case with our L701x because the Graphics card is integrated with the motherboard, and financially impractical to both the experienced and general user.
But what if it were possible by using the MXM port that allows "piggybacking", for lack of better description, the desired Graphics card, overriding the onboard 435M/445M and "fooling" the motherboard into thinking that newer card is the only Graphics card.
I posed this question to EricG, the author of Dell's News, Tips & Tricks that has been quoted and linked in the XPS 17 owner's thread for information about the soon to be released L702x. His response was as follows:

"Your question is very important, and all readers should know about this:
Even-though the MXM slot sets a standard for graphics cards in (reasonably-sized) laptops, it's really up to laptop manufacturers to determine how it's implemented.
In case of the XPS L701X, Dell has chosen to put the discrete graphics card OnBoard (along with its memory chips), meaning that you can't replace the graphics card alone, you'll have to replace the entire motherboard.
There are 2 motherboards available for this model, one with NVIDIA 1GB GT 435M discrete graphics and the other with 3GB GT 445M discrete graphics.
So I'm afraid you don't have an option to upgrade to the 455M or 460M."

So, if this was a question that was in the back your mind, consider it answered (for now....)

Rooster

 

Unless... the mainboard for the new L702x fits in out L701x chassis Then you would get a better graphics card, and the possibility to put a SB CPU in as well... It should still be cheaper than buying a whole new laptop.

 

L701x doesn't have an MXM slot but what Eric G. didn't tell you that he mentioned elsewhere in his blog is the L702x does when he states "since the new laptops have the MXM slot, it's fair to assume that it'd be an easy upgrade from a 400M GPU to a 500M GPU". That was before he knew the L702x was getting a 500M. I believe if this is the case we will be needing a L702x and a GTX 460M and a guinea pig, any volunteers?

 

This is what I was thinking. The pictures from CES sure look like my XPS 17, and Dell loves to re-use their chasis when they can. Latitude D600 and 610 shared the same one, D620 and D630 share the same one too. I have a variety of optiplex systems that are all the same chasis (different models) as well.

My guess is it will fit no problem.

 

I agree as well, I figured that the L702x was just refurb with new board and screen. The chassis is nice to begin with and no need to update it yet, maybe in a year or so.
But the cost of the CPU, Mobo, and GPU though cheaper than a new computer would still run at least $6-700 US and I am sure I am underestimating that... I don't know if it would be worth doing that especially if the overall gain is what...maybe 10-15% faster?
Maybe in a year or more like two, I would consider doing the change out, but just to have slightly faster GPU, which the initial question was,my answer to that question would be nah, not worth it.
I will run this configuration into the dirt and then and only then would I do the change.

Rooster

 

Today I played "Aliens vs Predator" with very high textures and medium shadows and it works fine.But sometimes the framerates goes down..but most scenes are running very smooth.I don´t know it´s my card or the game.

 

And here a great pic for calibrating your monitor..:

[IMG=http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/694/rorschach1920x1200.jpg][/IMG]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

Have you been keeping up with your log showing if and how your graphics card is doing? Is it still "gimping" down to those suspiciously low settings?see attached pic to refresh your memory...

What driver did you revert back to?

Rooster

 

********** FOR ALL THAT HELPED WITH KROENEN04*************
You know...
I started this thread for us that like to tweak, tinker and experiment to try to improve the performance of our XPS 17. The information and ideas that have been collected here are used while keeping in mind that no certain person can be blamed for suggesting or supplying that particular information or ideas that may cause a problem(s) for his or her's system.

It's the unmentioned statement that's understood by users like us who can't leave well enough alone. We are the computer geeks that are going mess with just about anything that has a keyboard and a screen, and sometimes, even that is optional. If it beeps, we want to make it beep louder, faster and more different than anybody else's. So I commend all those that helped or just chimed in.

But something has been bugging me ever since kroenen04 attempted to overclock his GPU, with the results being his XPS 17 crashing and or overheating. And then there's the weird log results, showing the GPU basically absent or barely even registering.

I have been re-reading and rethinking about if I supplied him incorrect information or gave him support when I should have cautioned him even more about being aware of the software involved and being more familiar with his Laptop. It just didn't make since to me.

The information available to kroenen04 on this thread was no different from what I've used or Metal Militia, or just about every contributor to this thread has used, even our resident expert DaneGRClose, who has a different laptop all together, uses or has used the same information. It just didn't add up.

So I kept re-reading and researching this thread, and I believe I found the culprit.

originally posted 1/10/2011 post #237

It states in the Dell XPS 17 Setup Guide " Your computer might emit a series of beeps during start-up if there are errors or problems. This series of beeps, called a beep code, identifies a problem."

This is my hypothesis:
I believe that kroenen was already dealing with a faulty graphics card, his initial reason for even wanting a different driver and information for overclocking was due to the below par performance of his graphics card with the games that he had attempted to play. the laptop was most likely already "complaining" before any improvements were installed. If indeed this is the case, kroenen04 can have the problem fixed through Dell.

Either way, we still learn some tid bits of information to add to our "tweaker&tinker" guide.

Rooster <!-- / message --><!-- edit note -->

 

Btw, is there an up to date driver to test? I'm still at the modded 266.44 one.

 

Dane is currently in the process of modding the Quadro ones that were just released.

 

What Matt said
on a side note, I been noticing less and less of you, Has the new L701x have you under it's spell?
I mean, your one of the few from the early days of Mitchell's thread that still post along with compwiz0620 but your posts are now short and sweet...
just curious...
your a talented poster and would hate to lose ya...
Just sayin
Rooster

 

I'm there, I'm there. However, yeah the machine has me under its spell but also I'm under a heavy workload at work, so less time to read and post there. But I do try to keep abreast and post when I should.

 

I know the feeling. Sometimes it is hard to keep up. I'm only following like four or five threads, but miss a single day and you need to read up on ten pages

 

This proves, to me at least, the value in this forum.

I'd been reading this thread with a large wince on my face, as from a cursory reading it looked like someone attempting OC'ing, then frying their card - which is never good (and not good for the warrenty either).

+1 for the investigation / level of detail in this thread, you're all providing a valuable help line.



p.s.

When my 701x arrives tomorrow, I know where to come if there's anything I need to know - within the 1st 10 mins, I'll be adding the new drivers / screen calibrations


[edit]

I've never OC'd anything before - are there any diagnostic tools for GPUs that can prove damage 100%? (I'm thinking here in terms of CHKDSK, and bad sectors on 5 1/4" floppies, which might show my age). e.g. A tool that renders X thousand repeated actions, and monitors the % of incomplete / dropped ones? And alerts you? The furmark program just stress tests, it doesn't seem to actually say "Oh.. looks like you have % damage".

 

5 1/4" floppies where you could cut the piece out and make them double sided!!! +1

I'm guessing since there are diagnostics for regular RAM, there must be something for VRAM.

 

O man, I did those many many times. Wonderful days back then. My first computer did not have a HDD, only two floppy (5 1/4") floppy drives. Playing Police Quest resulted in lots of floppy changes during the game! :-D

 

Hi, nice thread you guys got here..

I updated my drivers to 266.44 and overclocked using Afterburner to the settings mentioned in this thread and I got a 3dmark score of around 11700..

funny thing is that before updating my nvidia drivers (was using the dell stock), my temps used to go up till 75c while gaming.. after 266.44 and overclocking they haven't gone past 68c yet. although as mentioned in this thread the idle temp has increased from mid 40s to around 50.

anyway I decided to play around with afterburner a bit more.. increased the 3 values by 10.. didn't get much of a difference in performance.. and the card temperatures were still below 68c. I further increased the values by 10 yet still no increase in the max temp over 68.



so is this normal? card performance has improved because of overclocking.. but the temps under 68 have me a bit worried. what is the norm max temp with overclocking with games like bfbc2, l4d2, mw2 etc.. settings are mostly high except for bc2.

another thing.. is a 12081 score in 3dmark much better than 11700~ which i was getting with using the settings from this forum?

-SMKT

XPS-17 i7-740QM 4gb 500gb 445m

 

Will have to investigate that, good observation though...
I think I still have a 5 1/4" here somewhere, I still have a 5 1/4" drive stacked up with my other obsolete hardware.

Thank you for your kind observation, we aim to please!( most of the time....)

I think i have a copy of Duke Nukem (the original 2D side scroller) on a 3 1/2" somewhere, ah.. memories. and OMG! monkey Island with 7 or 8 disks just to load the game....anyhoo...
Rooster

 

Thanks for posting!..
I still can't get my score above 12000...
a;dlfkja;adkjfdfj;lakdjfq;lkdfj
*********takes a deep breath********
I am happy fer u...no really, I am.....
(just kiddin...)
As you can tell from my reaction that yes 12081 is a better score than 11700
but that shows that your are taking the suggestions seriously and thats a good thing.
the 68C is nothing to worry about ... just the driver doing it's job.
you don't require the GPU to have really high temps to quantify good performance
It could be that your GPU recieved better than average pasting to keep the temps down

keep posting!
Rooster

 

Lemme see if I can give this a try. With the new 1080p screen, I no longer need to attach the external screen to do a proper 3Dmark run

 

this should be good....
Been waiting on the "originator" to step in...
But if your score is above 12000 I will start chewing on this motherboard ..lol!
Good Luck!
Rooster

 

Then you should first adopt photography as a hobby. I hope to take you up on that offer later tonight

 

If he has to run it at native res, I doubt it, but at defaults with an nvidia.com driver and a decent OC, he should be able to do it. My OC is going good so far at 740/960 or whatever the max is you can set the VRAM to in Afterburner. I got something like 11790 in 3dMark06 with the latest Dell driver.

 

I don't plan on using native res, but the defauls 1280x1024, which I couldn't do with the stock panel unless I hooked up my external display.

Thanks for the timing settings. I was wondering about that, and I will use yours as a starting point.

 

I looked back in this thread and actually got over 12k with the Dell A02 video driver, but haven't been able to with A03. I would use the nvidia.com ones if the fan wouldn't stay on medium when I'm not gaming.

However, that was at 750 GPU, which doesn't stay stable when I OC the VRAM at the same time.

 

did another 3dmark06 test with my oc settings

CreClk: 733
Shaders: 1466
Memory: 931

results were 117xx lol do they vary with every test even if you don't change anything?

maybe i'm not doing something right.. do i need to close everything when 3dmark is running? even gpu-z or cpu-z to monitor temps..? or maybe a restart when i change something from afterburner before running 3dmark?

and what about the 3dmark and nvidia settings? should i alter them for better performance?

what settings and resolutions is everyone using for 3dmark in this thread? and what tests are you doing? the default 6 or the additional ones as well?