I cant take it anymore Crashes/glitches/lag! on 8600GT please help me :(

Guys I truly hit my limit today. Ever since i got my Dell Inspiron 1520 I have had this problem. I figured it would go away with updates, It has not. About 60% of the games I try to run on this computer run horrible. My system is

2.0 Centrino Duo processor (Not a Core 2 Duo). The first 1 ~.~
Windows Vista Home premium (32 bit)
Nvidia 256 8600 GT <----- PROBLEMATIC AS HELL >.<
4GiG's of Ram.

The problem is with a lot of games, the game will run fine at first, but after a few moments online or in game, the lag and Frames per second stability issues happen. And its not the game, Trust me, If I cant run a Free 2 play Korean Grind fest MMORPG like Cabal online without lag there is a problem, My 2004 Desktop with 1GiG of ram and a ATI Radeon X300 graphic card 1.8 pentium 4 processor can run Cabal online just fine on high settings!!!!!

What would usually happen is one of 2 things when I play games,

A- The game lags like crazy it feels like the frame rate goes from 60 to 1 randomly at random times with no warning at all. I could be playing perfectly in a area with 100 people on the screen all busting out flashy moves and then in the next in a empty desert I could lag spike to the point where It looks like i'm teleporting, Or if i make my character dance Looks like im doing the slow Robot. These lags spikes sometimes last from 1 min to until I log off and re start my computer. It happens at random times random places. I have tried to update my drivers already and it always gives me the same error (update from the games page where it tells me to use those drivers 90% of the time I get this error. "( The NVIDIA Setup program Could not locate any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware. Set up will now exit)"

This happens When ever I try to update drivers from anywhere other than the ones provided by dell.com which by the way just are not cutting it with any of my games.

Rarely but it happens I also get a message saying (your display drivers have stopped working and have recovered successfully) This happens once in a while and I usually lag a lot and get a black screen before it happens.

I know I dont make my sense..sorry for this odd long post guys but I dont know how else to word this problem. I have tried everything Even downloading custom drivers getting support form dell (Which they avoid helping me with this issue if it does not come from dell.com). and Nvidia which tells me to go to dell.com. You guy's are basically my last hope at this point, I have a geat laptop but I cant run anything on it half decently thanks to this driver problem. Please Im begging you guys help me !

 

Search around for how to cleanup your driver in safe mode and install some laptopvideo2go.com drivers. This will hopefully solve some of your issues. You may be overheating as well, so use Riva tuner ad perscribed in these threads to look at clocks and temps. I suggest using Driver Cleaner from guru3d.com to clean up, but there is a huge number of guides here, just hit search.

 

when updating your GFX card drivers you need to use the modded INFs from laptopvideo2go.com.

 

Ok cool Ill try that, Got any more suggestions ?

 

Download the 169.04 driver with the modded INF from laptopvideo2go. I have always used that card without problems, and people on this forum have fixed their problems by switching to it.

I've tried tons, that's my favourite for the 8600m GT.

 

174.74 Are the real deal baby. Performance drivers on the go! i use them, you get results

 

I use 167.62 because it's the only ones that don't crash on me. I miss 174.xx performances in lotro though

 

Hope these new drivers won't give me the "(The NVIDIA Setup program Could not locate any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware. Set up will now exit)"


Any clues on what I would need to do if i get this problem by any chance? It usually happens when I try to download drivers from many places.

By the way my card is 8600M GT. Sorry I said 8600 GT

 

That happens when you download drivers and dont mod the inf, as the drivers are for desktops your mobile card is not included in the inf. Hence you get the compatibility error.

To fix this download the drivers and modded inf's from laptopvideo2go.com, extract the drivers, copy & paste & replace the modded inf into the extracted folder and run setup

 

Ah alright, Im just waiting for my friend to get home from his surf class today so that he can help me do all that, I only know as far as basic computer stuff & how to click a download button from the Dell.com site. lol Don't wanna mess with stuff to much but he's a freeken computer wizard, he had his xbox running ps2 & pc games when he was 15

 

Its good to screw up once in a while, this way you learn.

If your still using vista 32 bit follow instructions below, they are pretty straight forward and easy.


1). Download drivers and modded inf ( just click my links, it will download the files)

2). Once downloaded, double click the drivers and choose a place to extract.

3). Copy the modded inf into the extracted folder, it should ask you to overwrite, do so.

4). Download and install this application

5). Go to control panel and uninstall your current drivers for the graphics card

6). Restart your laptop and boot into safe mode (keep pressing f8 after bios splash screen, if you press too early it might ask which device to boot from just select the default which should be the hard drive and keep pressing f8 again)

7). In safe mode run the application installed in step 4

8). Double click nvidia and nvidia chipset then select run (brush icon)

9). Restart again and boot normally

10). Run the setup in the extracted drivers folder and install the drivers

11). Thats all

 

Actually, don't download from Laptopvideo2go.com if you're not too sure about computers. Download the 174.31 from the Dell website. They are really recent.

 

I lost performance when I went with the Dell driver.

Ill also add this - My inspiron 1520 had the jumping problem. I should have paid attention to what exactly fixed it, but I updated the BIOS and went with the 163 or 169 driver. Fixed it great.

When I did this, I also got MUCH better performance on the stock clocks that I would have if I was overclocking.

 

See if there might be any BIOS updates on Dell's website.
Also, make sure there isn't a large amount of lint and dust in the exhaust vents.

Third, I usually recommend the 169.25 driver, because it seems more stable than the 174 drivers lately.

Otherwise, follow blackbird's guide, it is really good.

 

Well I got the 174 drivers, My friend said they would be best idea, I saw a slight improvement in performance but not by a lot. Can it also be that Vista is to cause all these problems? Would running the same games on Windows XP solve this issue? I have a.... copy of windows xp I can put into my computer, But I'm not sure if

A- All my hardware is compatible with windows XP

B- Still take advantage of the 4 GiGs of ram I have.

And also What in the world is BIOS, and if you could link me the dell site spot where you find the download for these BIOS I'd be very grateful, Thanks.

 

you can download all the drivers for your hardware off of dell's website.

just go ahead and do a fresh install of the operating system. sounds like you messed up the registry with your driver mishaps. windows xp 32 bit will use about as much ram as windows vista 32 bit. not quite 4 GB, but not a big deal really.

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19

 

Open up the Nvidia Control Panel and make sure that it's set to Single Display Performance (in the Manage 3D Settings, Global Configuration). I had sooo many hiccups in my games and I toyed around with the NV Control Panel, and that was the deciding factor (for me) if the fps spazzed or not.