8400M GS Problems

I have a Dell Vostro 1500 with an 8400M GS. It runs games fine, gets normal framerates, runs programs like sketchup and other 3d apps fine, etc etc. I do some development on it, however, and in AutoCAD, my cursor is really slow. It's almost like the D3D drivers are not working properly, I'm not sure. It isn't the speed of the computer, because I had a slower laptop with a Radeon 1150 running it just fine. I can fix the problem by setting the desktop to 16bit mode, but it looks like crap, and it's a hassle to switch back and forth. I think the graphics card is throttling itself, and because CAD isn't very GPU-intensive I'm not getting any acceleration out of it (this is my explanation, anyway.) I've updated the drivers from the stock ones from June 2007 that Dell bundles to the most recent ones on laptopvideo2go, but still no improvements. I've read it can be fixed by switching the hardware acceleration option in troubleshooting (display settings, advanced, troubleshooting) to the option one less than full acceleration, but this card/driver for some reason doesn't give me the option to change it (or any previous releases that I have tried loading.) Any ideas?

C2D T5270
2gb ram
8400M GS (forceware 169.47, from laptopvideo2go.com)

 

I don't wanna end your parade here, but the 8400 is NOT for CAD/3D anything. The Quadro series is more fit for that than any GeForce is. I guess you could OC it to make it perform a little better, but bottom line is that you should have considered a card fit for the job.

 

2D CAD isn't graphically intensive. On top of that, my laptop runs Sketchup better than my C2D desktop with an 8800GT (who knows why.) An 8400M GS has more than enough power to run CAD. If an xpress 1150 can run it fine, its a software problem. Period. I just don't know what it is, and I was hopeful that someone here would.

 

The latest driver from laptopvideo2go is not the 169.xx driver. Check out the 174 series. I'm sure you might see an improvement there.

Also, make sure you follow the correct way of installing/uninstalling your drivers. Add/Remove Programs, restart, boot into Safe Mode, run Driver Cleaner Professional, restart, install new driver.

 

Some ideas to fix the problem: Overclock your 8400, set Autocad at a higher priority in the task manager, upgrade to the newest 174.XX drivers, add Autocad in the Nvidia Control Panel, and lower everything for high performance

 

I'm having trouble tracking out the 174.xx drivers. Sorry to make someone hold my hand here, but --

 

Can you let go now?

 

Thanks, vashts. Going to give those things a try. I didn't realize all the updates were in the forums.

 

That's why when I list laptopvideo2go's website, I include the forum in the URL. Their main page doesn't have all the driver updates, including the most current ones.

 

need to rephrase NOT for CAD/3D anything...at uber high resolutions+settings

edit: I think I just started a flame war

 

Tried all of the above, the only thing that gives me any traction is changing the color depth to 16 bit. Any other ideas? Harpreet, you have an 8400gs, have you tried running CAD?

 

actually I haven't. I'll try it out sometime tomorrow and post how it runs.