The Defininitive nVidia Driver Upgrade Guide

Sweet; updated, looks good so far.

 

Meh. On my end, I saw no improvement over .89, in gaming and saw an actual decrease in 3Dm score(which doesnt necessarily mean bad performance). But drivers do different things on each and every machine, so YMMV. I think I'm about done trying out new drivers for a while. It's insane that new drivers are released every couple of weeks anyway.

 

I realize that the drivers work with 9800GTS but how come nvidia doesn't specifically mention support for GTS, whereas it does for GT and GTX

 

I'll have to give these a try to see if they provide any increase in performance over the 177.79 drivers I'm using.

 

time to give these new drivers a run through and see what they come back with....

 

I have not seen you in a while!

 

yeah...i have been busy playing call of duty 4 online on the ps3 lately...lol
along with working. how ya been narsnail? i see you have at least one new review ill have to check out here in a minute or so.

 

yeah I kinda was gunna add things to it but I am still having overheating problems, I might have it sent to gateway if I cant fix it. I have been good though.

 

define over heating?

 

I will PM you cause it is a long story.

 

for you...i have time

 

ahh thank you my good chap

 

i'm having trouble getting these on my 7811-FX. I follow the instructions to a tee but once the drivers are installed i get the error icon in the device manger saying that it isn't working.

I get "windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (code 39)"

Any ideas?

 

Possibly because you have an ATI card, that is unless youre talking about a different machine.

 

No unfortunately that isn't the reason. Today i got the 7811-FX and re-installed vista, put the original drivers on, then tried to update it to the 177.92 driver and modified .inf and the above happened

 

Roger that. I was just going from your siggy. Did you uninstall and then use driver sweeper before installing the new drivers? If not then I recommend going that route. nVidia drivers tend to crap out if there are traces of previous drivers found.

 

Yeah i appreciate your reply regardless. Yeah i followed the instructions completely which are at the start of this thread. Uninstalled all Nvidia drivers, then used driver sweeper before reboot, then reboot etc. etc. Strange because i did alot of searching and haven't been able to find anyone else with same problem with it already solved which is unusual. I don't like to ask these sort of questions because they are generally already answered and just require a bit of looking.

 

That is very unusual. And I dont mind(nor do I think anyone else would) attempting to help you at all, as you arent just taking the easy way out and asking for help before trying to fix it yourself. Good Man! Anyways, back to your issue, am I correct in assuming your previous (factory) drivers worked fine and you had no !'s in device manager?

 

Try re-downloading the driver and modified inf again. Also make sure you download the correct version. I've seen that error before but I can't remember what caused it - it was either a corrupt download or incorrect driver version I think.

Official word from Microsoft:

 

Thank you both. Ok so:

1. Yes after re-installing vista 64, i installed all drivers back on the computer with the disc i created and everything except the Intel VGA UMA installed successfully without fault including the Nvidia drivers.

2. I have already tried re-downloading the drivers and .inf and to no avail. I understand your answer though as it is something easy to overlook.

 

Well in which case there must be something you aren't doing correctly. When you get to step 11 is there only one entry listed?

 

yes 9800M GTS

 

got it working now thanks. off to spore!

 

Well, after trying to figure out a solution on my own for many hours, I have decided to come to you guys for your expertise.

Basically, I followed the guide on the first page and uninstalled and all that stuff. The problem is, when I boot up vista normally again, after trying to run the setup (yes I have the modded inf) windows keeps saying this:




I've tried this with all sorts of driver versions even the stock gateway driver found on the gateway website. At first I could install the driver through safe mode, but performance was still incredibly lacking. I was getting 4400 in 3dmark05 when I used to get 9800 on 177.79 with all stock parts no overclock. Most importantly, how do I work around this "windows refuses to update your files because it hates you" message? I also tried the whole device manager and have disk thing, but windows insists that I have the latest up to date drivers.

Any help is incredibly appreciated!

 

dam...try uninstalling the vga adapter again, rebooting, and then try the have disk method again. if it only comes up with the 'standard vga adapter' click the have disk button and browse for the folder where you have the modified inf file.

if that doesnt work, try the have disk method again, only this time uncheck the box that says 'show only compatible hardware'. if it comes up with 8800M GTX, just click that and let it install.

 

I did try uninstalling the vga driver but windows just reinstalls it again upon the next reboot in both safe and normal mode. I somehow managed to get 177.79 to install in safe mode, and then somehow miraculously I managed to update it to 177.92 in the device manager thing. I don't know the exact procedure to get it to work. It just involved a lot of restarting and same attempts over and over.

However this leaves me with one question. My 3dmark05 scores are still a LOT lower than when I first upgraded from 169.09 to 177.79. I'm currently at 177.92 and the score is less than out of the box. Any guesses on that?

Edit: I tried uninstalling the drivers just to see if they'd work normally again, but they're still doing the same "nothing has been modified" in normal windows boot. Something tells me either driver sweeper or driver cleaner pro is the culprit. The problem came up before I used driver cleaner pro just in case you wonder.

Double Edit: I noticed the decrease in performance after I installed world of warcraft. I'm just letting you know what major thing I did before this problem started, not interested in starting a flame war about the game itself.

 

it almost sounds like powermizer is in effect. you arent testing this on battery power, are you? download gpu-z here and report back with the clock speeds it reports.

 

Nope, I'd be an idiot to be benchmarking on battery life =p Here's what gpuz is telling me when ran it. I don't know if the clock speeds change while doing gaming or whatnots, but this is what it told me while in windows idling, not doing anything demanding. And under sensors, gpu core clock is at 200mhz while memory clock is at 100mhz. Hope this helps with my question!




Edit: Btw, you wouldn't happen to have a favorite defragmenting program would you? So far I'm using perfectdisk but I wonder if there's something better that'd organize things better so that *hopefully* it can contribute to overall speediness.

Double Edit: So I ran 3dmark05 again with gpuz on, the sensors tell me that the core was at 500 mhz while the memory was at 799 mhz during the benchmark. Hopefully this is the info you need.

 

wow...anybody else care to chime in on this? it really sounds like powermizer is in effect, but the clock speeds are right where they are supposed to be.
as for your core and memory clock being at 200/100 respectively, if you arent displaying anything 3D, thats what the speeds should be at. they will clock up to the 500/799/1250 when you are displaying full fleged 3D ie...gaming.

as for defragmenting...i use JKdefrag. very very handy (and free) and it optimizes how the files are sorted (just read the website, it will tell you how)

 

Pretty sure powermizer is not lowering my performance. I have this vista battery saver program installed and it puts vista into high performance mode whenever it's plugged in. Something tells me I may have to resort to formatting. If anybody has the slightest clue as to what this problem is, do share!

 

load gpuz and put it on the sensor tab (check the "continue refreshing...")
run furmark in a window mode (640x480) if its not jumping to 500 799 then your card is underclocked.

 

This may be what you're looking for. I'm still betting the lesser power has something to do with windows being unable to install the drivers under a normal boot. Something tells me that installing video drivers via safe mode is leaving something out. I suppose my last option is a lovely format if nobody else has ever had the "your system was not modified" error.

 

so as you can see your gpu is not underclocked.
look at the main tab of gpuz what driver version is reported ?

 

I have the main gpuz tab screenshot posted a few posts up. The driver version is listed correctly, but a low 4000 score of 3dmark05 with a 8800gts is very wrong. And I already tried defragmenting and all, but it's no good. I'll probably get around to a total format in a day or two. I'll let you guys know if the problem still persists. I hope not. I read in some posts on other boards that other people with the "system was not modified" still had the same problem after a format. =\ Oh windows, why do you insist that my out of date drivers are up to date?

 

sorry about missing that gpuz picture...
whats the break down of your 3dmark06 run ?
i mean sm2 :___ hdr/sm3: ___ cpu :____

 

last thing i can do,pm me with your email i'll send a self moded inf to use with 177.92. use winrar or something like that to extract the 177.92 driver pack and put the inf in it.

uninstall all nvidia stuff from control panel.
boot to safe mode and run driver sweeper twice.
boot normally right click my computer/ manage / device manager /display adapter

should be a vga something there.

rick click on it / update / browse / let me pick

point to inf i'll give you whom you'll put in same dir as to the extracted 177.99 driver from l2g nvision board.

if that fail i'll send you over my notebook (lol last time i swear i'd swallow my mouse - its still here

btw u use x86 or x64 vista or xp ?

sorry if you answered any of these before.

and btw it should all work the same with l2g inf file

 

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=20199&hl=9800m+gts

32bit vista driver for 9800m gts.
this is what i found, easy installtion, no error code,
dont know how it performs though.

 

Well I tried the 177.81 drivers you linked, still no go. Windows keeps insisting that my standard vga driver still no go in installing it under a normal windows boot. The first pic is of my device manager, the standard vga seems to be just fine, not even a yellow ! next to it. And the 2nd pic is of windows clearly being retarded and telling me that the vga drivers are up to date.

 

Updated links to 177.98

 

Well, ultimately I went with formatting my computer and then trying to reinstall the last working drivers for me which is 177.79 and it works! I'm probably guessing that trying to install 177.92 with the modified inf supplied on the forum thread (on lv2go) somehow fubared windows for me. If it works for you, great! But it's no good for me. =(

Thanks to everyone who tried to lend a helping hand!

 

where do i get the modified .inf at?

 

www.laptopvideo2go.com

 

so far...all these so called new drivers are down clocking when you go on battery mode....not cool....

 

wouldnt u want that? why would you play a game in battery mode anyway?

 

you would want the drivers to downclock the gpu on battery ONLY if you are willing to take the performance hit.

 

yep and its not the modded inf fault.
sux it is.

 

maybe....on a plane, train or bus i might want to do a little something. and my gpu should clock down when not in performance mode, but not because i unplugged it.

already fixed it. and i didn't use the modded inf file.

 

so why not share the fix ?
shouldn't be more than a line or two.

 

Never downclock! ALWAYS OVERCLOCK! Kidding..anyways, here's the thread to disable powermizer. That's causing the downclocking of mobile drivers.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=261929
Works perfect. I suggest 3322, not 2222. 2222 disables all. But if that's what you're looking for..go for it! You'll understand, read the thread.

 

disabling powermizer is not the way i was after, been there done that.

thanks anyway