M1530: Latest nVidia drivers + Blu-ray playback problem and solution

Alright... so here's the whole story, including the solution to the problem for those of you with a Blu-ray equipped M1530, because you'll definitely run into the same issue as I have.

I recently purchased an M1530 with the Geforce 8600M GT, Blu-ray drive, and 1920x1200 screen so I can watch the movies at native resolution. Since the machine has 4 GB of RAM, the clear choice was to install 64-bit Vista to get access to all 4 GB.

Installation went beautifully. With the exception of the wireless driver (which was easily downloaded from the Intel website) and the fingerprint sensor (found a 64-bit driver somewhere on this forum), Vista had built-in support for basically everything. Great.

However, knowing that video card drivers make a huge impact on performance, I wasn't going to settle for some 2007 vintage graphics drivers. Unfortunately, Dell refuses to support 64-bit Windows, so no drivers from Dell.

Second option: Get the drivers right from nVidia. Not so easy, though - the standard nVidia drivers (from the nVidia site) refuse to install, since the driver checks to see if it's a mobile computer. According to a friend who works at nVidia, nVidia wants to support notebook PCs with integrated Geforce cards, but they won't because the notebook manufacturers exert pressure on nVidia so they can have complete control over what drivers their users get to install (making tech support easier, presumably). So no drivers from nVidia.

Third option: Install latest nVidia drivers from laptopvideo2go.com, by using a modified .inf file (provided on the site). This worked great - games ran remarkably well with the latest driver. But there was another problem: Blu-ray movies refused to play back. I did some digging and found this was for another crazy reason - modifying the .inf file invalidates the WHQL signing, and HDCP mandates that Blu-ray movies can only play back on a computer with signed video drivers. So no drivers from laptopvideo2go.com.

The solution is much easier than it seems. If you want to install the latest signed graphics drivers, it turns out that the check (to see if you're using a laptop PC) is only done in the nVidia installer. Lucky for us, we can bypass the installer in Windows by using the "Have Disk" method: Go into Device Manager, select the graphics card, "Update Driver Software", "Browse my computer for driver software", "Let me pick from a list of drivers on my computer", and finally, click the critical "Have disk..." button. This forces Windows to install any driver of your choice directly.

Browse to the folder containing the stock nVidia WHQL-signed drivers (downloaded from the nVidia website), and select the graphics card that's closest to the one in the M1530; in our case this is the GeForce 8600 GT. According to my source at nVidia, the driver is essentially identical for the desktop and laptop versions of the chip, and since it's WHQL-signed, the Blu-ray movies will work.

Anyone else been trying to deal with this? This has been a really annoying headache for the last couple of days...

 

Or we can make this REALLY easy There is a folder in most of the the later drivers from Laptopvideotogo named "original_infs". Take out the inf named nvdm and put that in the folder with the driver in it. Then run setup. It is a native INF. Not "modified".

 

what nVidia version you are using?

did you follow laptopvideotogo instruction how to upgarde to latest nvidia version?

 

Using 175.16, downloaded yesterday from the nVidia site.
Didn't follow the instructions on laptopvideo2go, I just installed the driver directly and everything works fine.

 

i have the same problem with you, right now i'm using old nvidia driver from dell....can you please give me step by step instruction how to upgrade to 175.15?

i dont have any choice but to use nvidia driver from dell or else, i can't use my blue ray.

thanks!!!

 

Your other option: Dump Dell Media Direct and use another BD-player like WinDVD + BluRay. WinDVD +BD doesn't require a WQHL certificate and functions with all of the lv2g 175.xx drivers I've used so far.

EDIT: I just loaded the 175.19 drivers from www.nvidia.com, and it works even with Dell Media Direct! The key is to load via update-driver from Vista's Device Manager as described by the OP above. However, don't run any driver-sweeper/cleaner utils before doing so, because it seems to prevent the update afterwards.

 

i'm using powerDVD8 (trial version).....how winDVD compare to powerDVD8?

the problem with winDVD is they dont have trial version for BD.

 

It's not worth dumping PowerDVD 8 for, that's for sure

I use PowerDVD 8 [Ultra] meself

 

i heard lots of good things about powerdvd ultra. RIght now im having issues with media direct playing ironman blurray.

 

Ironman didn't work for me on mediadirect. It did work on PowerDVD ultra. Note that ironman BD was recalled (so you might want to look into that). (My copy was via netflix)