Sager 5797, Geforce GTX 280m

So it seems with the newer games that have been coming out and now even older games, my Nvidia drivers continuously crash no matter what I do. I have tried every kind of drivers imaginable and no matter what they continue to crash. The computer is not overheating, the games run perfectly fine with no lag and yet no matter what they just continue to crash over and over again. Does anyone have any ideas on what I could possibly do to resolve this crap?

Also for example, Fallout New Vegas, the video driver crashes nonstop on this and makes the game unplayable.

 

Have you tried the latest 260.83 drivers? Also have you tried old drivers like the 196?

Make sure you are installing them correctly.

First uninstall the old driver (and delete it), then reboot. Run driver sweeper, and reboot again. Then install the new drivers and reboot yet again.

 

Yea like i've said i've tried all 200+ to latest drivers and 180 series, as well as 190 series.

 

Did you follow the steps of installation I listed?

 

Haven't used Driver Sweeper, but I've done everything else. I'll attempt it using that program and see what happens.

No can do still crashes

 

cleean instal? after that it's preatty much RMA

 

I just completely uninstalled the drivers, deleted everything, ran sweeper, installed the brand new drivers and it just continuously crashes. The GPU seems to cap at 60degrees Celsius while in game and thats not bad.

Dunno, I believe I used the 197.16 Driver but not the 196. Not sure how big of a difference it makes. Regardless the brand new nvidia drivers should work fine. I have no idea what is causing this problem.

 

A fresh install of Windows and starting fresh is good to do from time to time I think. Maybe it's time for you? See if that solves it. If you have your games and files on another partition, you can just reinstall Windows.

 

did you overclock anything, or did you o/c in the past

 

Naw never, just reinstalled OS, going to see how it fairs.

Well, after COMPETELY reinstalling my os, the nvidia driver CONTINUES to crash.

Anyone have any ideas what it could possibly be?

New and Old drivers tested
Attempted turning Aero off
Reinstalled OS
It isn't overheating (caps at 60 celsius while in game)

Apparently what this is called is Timeout Detection and Driver Recovery, yet you have to add keys to the registry in order to turn it off. has anyone done this?

 

Sounds like you should just RMA this card. Seems to be nothing but trouble.

 

Its not just this card, the TDR is a function built into windows. If I can turn this off everything will be fine. It plays the game perfectly fine without any issues. The TDR works as such: If the GPU is going through a lot of stress for more than 2 seconds, it crashes the driver and recovers it. If I can turn that off everything would be fine, but it seems no one really knows how.

 

Although you think it'll be fine to simply turn off TDR, that may not solve your problem entirely. The TDR may be correct and that your card may not be as fine as you think it is. The function is there for a reason and if it's screaming to tell you that there's something wrong with the GPU, do something about it instead of ignoring it. Even if you turn it off and it seems fine, you might end up with a card that will die soon enough or damage other parts of your notebook ._.

 

Yea I've realized that may be the case too but even a temporary fix is better than nothing. I can't get myself a new card so instead of looking into a new computer which I can't do right now I might as well fix this issue temporarily.

 

Are you not able to RMA it? No warranty of the sorts?

 

Don't think so, bought the unit like a year and 2 months ago o.o

 

It looks like your going to have t o buy a new video card.

 

Ask your seller. They sometimes sell them ._. Otherwise, try looking for trusted sellers in ebay or something

 

Eh been trying to contact sager, haven't gotten back to me.

Anyone know of any possibly solution to this crap, new cards are like 500-800 dollars which is ridiculous. Rather just put that towards building a new desktop.

 

From $474, just make sure its the right slot: 280m items - Get great deals on Graphics, Video Cards, 260m items on eBay.com!

 

Im trying to avoid that, buying a new card is just not nearly cost effective.

 

you don,t have much choice you cna ethier buy a new card, build a desktop, buy a new laptop or keep your notebook and it's curent card potentialy kill it and have nothing

 

Gah it's ridiculous. Of course this would happen a few months outside the RMA possibility.

 

If you're not willing/able to buy a new video card, then you now have an expensive paper weight.

 

TDR Information here

Look under registry. I suggest you don't mess with the registry though.

Seems that TDR works such that if your graphics suddenly freezes, it recovers and gives that message. Turning it off will probably just leave you with a frozen screen instead of your supposedly "It'll run fine just that the error message annoys me".

So yeah, either buy a new GPU or disassemble your notebook and sell the parts so you can build a nice desktop to play games with and get a netbook or something for portable work usage.

 

I've researched TDR, it works as I explained it before, it gives the GPU 2 seconds to render what it needs to or it crashes the card. Turning it off would help completely, and I know what i'm doing when it comes to the registry yet the keys are not there and if you add them it does nothing sadly, atleast on win7 64bit.

 

Maybe if you turn around 3 times, do 7 jumping jacks, and scratch your leg twice it will stop freezing up.

Deal with it man, your video card is shot, you have 2 options. Buy a new video card, or sell your old laptop and buy a new one.

 

if it was shot , it wouldn't boot... i think there's some driver issue... try a clean install with the 195.62 driver from NVIDIA website.. that driver gave me no problems at all.. if it works , than it might be driver issue.. otherwise for now , turn TDR or whatever it is off and use the card.

 

@TheJoker, I was being sarcastic -.-.

@sean, eh last resorts

 

Not necessarily. But I guess it depends on your definition of "shot"

Thats not a last resort. Thats standard system maintenance.
Its just not easy to run the same install for a year and keep it clean.

 

Thought I'd come back on here and let everyone know I found a solution that has never been cited like anywhere. Games run fine now, no crashes, perfect framerate. Not a bad video card. -.-

 

While a follow up is nice, most are probably more interested in what the solution was. Guessing ram or hdd

 

Nope, basically most forums say altering the registry keys TdrDelay and such would fix the issue, yet all OS dont have those keys and even if you add them it doesn't do anything, in HKLM>SYSTEM>Control>...GraphicsDriver>DCI there is a key called Timeout that is set to 7 seconds. Replacing the 7 with a higher number results in giving the video card more time to process graphics, as a result it no longer crashes.

 

Seen any artifacts?

This could be useful for testing overclocks.
Its interesting. I wonder if you can do absurd overclocks at the sacrifice of extreme artifacting...

 

It is interesting. I'm pretty sure this is what limited the overclock on my system as the kernel would appear to crash for no apparent reason (thermal and voltage were well within limits), it most likely was some kind of reset.

Also, I'm fairly certain it's most likely 7 millisecond or maybe microseconds, but 7 seconds is a huge span of time when it comes to rendering.

 

Naw no artificating as of yet. Hoping not to =|. But glad to have opened options for everyone o.o

 

7 milliseconds is a pretty tiny amount of system timing but you're probably right. It makes me sad to think about audio however which is above 30ms on all systems.

I wonder, is there something like this for RAM or CPU or something?

Whenever I overclock my FSB to 1333 everything seems so stable until I try to do something... google chrome tabs crash and then blue screen...
I haven't tried it slowing my RAM timings yet tho...
Its just that the STOP errors are different every time for me. And some people have said that the m860tu simply doesn't like strange RAM timings even if they are stable...