Elitebook 8540w Still Not Stable Driver Available For Its NVIDIA QUADRO FX 1800M Card

Hello, it is almost one month I keep on trying with the HP support the stable version of the NVIDIA driver with no result.

The issues happened for the last (certified by HP and Microsoft) 261.28 and that of the NVIDIA web site: 267.76 driver.
The issues are of three kind: black screen (windows 7 may recover it), windows stop responding (a restart is needed to fix), random crashes (without blue screen).

Some older version of the same driver does not works; they have the same one or more of the three issues.

Now, as suggested by the HP online support I'm using the 188.12 (certified by HP) till the next crash. It has happened once with it!

How to fix it please?

I have contacted the NVIDIA support and after having tested their not HP customised driver the issues are occurred; they have send me again to HP.

Any help is welcome.


Thank you.

 

please describe your random crashes in more detail

 

Thank you for your interest; I wonder: have you an elitebook like mine? have you ever happened those issues?

windows 7 professional 64 bit;
RAM 8GB;

Anyway, the crashes happened two times randomly without a blue screen; one of those times a message in an taskbar icon route me via a Microsoft link to a HP web site with an error code: 0117 related to the NVIDIA driver. That time was installed the driver version: 2667.76 (the more updated available on the NVIDIA site).

The first time with the last NVIDIA driver installed the one availale form the manufacturer web site.


Thank you.

 

You can see my laptop in my signature. It is the 17" version of your laptop. I had many problems with random crashing, HP replaced my laptop over and over and finally got it right now that I am on my 4th laptop.

On my first two laptops, the crashing was preceded by the fan suddenly spinning up to a very high level for 30 seconds, then he laptop would suddenly power down, and this would happen at least once a day. This was a fairly common problem for my type of laptop with quad-core CPUs early in release. The problem was identified and fixed by HP a while ago, but there could still be some laptops with this problem in stock with resellers.

My third laptop also crashed randomly, but there was no warning from the fan as with the previous laptops. These were completely random and very sudden. I might be typing one second and staring at a dead computer the next...this would happen on average once a day. HP replaced a bunch of hardware on 2 service calls but was unable to fix the problem.

If either of those situations sound familiar let me know.

 

The crashes happened only recently; I have bought my HP in february 2011, second hand from an ebay Austrian customer who bought it in november 2010; it is covered with a three years guarantee.

After one year of releases, I noticed the NVIDIA driver on the HP site has not a stable release yet!
To summarize: 1 crash with the HP and Windows certified driver version: 261.28, after some stop responding event; my laptop freezed and I had to restart it to regain its use;
1 crash with the latest NVIDIA driver 267.76; it happened black screen events with the same driver.

Black screen and stop responding events with early releases of the driver suggested by the chat support of HP.

Here attached the email sent me by HP after one of the crashes; this is the link to the web page generated by HP following the crash for surveying me about it: https://www.hpwebgen.com/conf.aspx?userid=3633313&key=1792678616

Now it is installed the 188.12 releases of the driver as suggested by HP, it lacks several features of the graphic card!

Thank you.

 

I'm having the same problems over here. I bought my 8540w in september 2010. With that driver i didnt have any problems, until i installed the 261.28 version and the 267.67 version. Every time i play a game, the screen will turn black and the game freezes and shuts down.

Does rolling back to 188 work without these errors?

 

Thank you for your interest; I guess the HP elitebook 8540w customers are not so much in order to urge HP to fix any issue; they are not easy at all if decided to buy and use such an advanced "machine"; so it is always useful to team up to speed up HP fixes.

I do not know if the attempt I'm doing to find a fix is applicable to your laptop; so many might be the differences in terms of hardware and software configuration, nevertheless I will tell you what I'm doing.

First, verify you have installed all of the latest drivers for your operating system from the HP site: if you run the windows 7 professional 64 bit is this: HP EliteBook 8540w Mobile Workstation- Download drivers and software - HP Business Support Center
There you'll find the latest BIOS upgrade - unfortunately it is not being detected by the HP SoftPaq Download Manager - so all of the suggestions have to be made "manually".
Update the BIOS first; it is like a normal software installation. Go to the following NVIDIA driver list: NVIDIA Driver Downloads - Advanced Search select the graphic card and it will list all of the drivers available for downloading. Install and try starting from the latest beta and test which of it is the most stable!
I'm testing the: 267.24 since yesterday.

I would like you to let us know all of your tests in order to be useful to all of the elitebook users in this forum.


Thank you.



g. c. (cypherinfo) on Twitter

 

the nvidia timeout error has been (mostly) fixed on the 8740W with a vbios update.

however i have yet to find an update for the FX1800M, which would provide a similar solution.

I need to you go into control panel, 'admistrative tools' then 'computer management' then 'event viewer' and look at the 'critical errors' and post them here. they are sometimes also called 'bug check's

The TIMEOUT error (stop 0x116) is a driver problem with the Nvidia Software and the Intel Chipset

Stop 0x124 is most common error i've found on our systems, and this was fixed with a vbios update on the 8740W but nothing as yet fixed the issues on the 8540 i have, but i'm using the beta driver for games, and it seems to be more stable.

Contrary to this, i have noticed people with factory installs of their operating systems have this problem, my machines are all reinstalled.

Post your bugchecks here and i'll see if i can help.

Sio

 

nice, just updated to the new beta driver 270.xx (clean install option). And it works fine. First i couldnt even play dragon age 1. the screen blacked out within a second. Now the game just rolls on.

Also dragon age 2 is going very smooth. This game also blacked out when there where a lot of enemies. Now it goes smooth with the graphics.

Maybe this is good for you too, cypher

 

Here attached is the list of the critical events. The black screen or flickering represent crtical issues from my point in terms of my needs.

g. c. (cypherinfo) on Twitter

 

for games to run with the FX1800M you need to ensure you have the Directx 9.0C libraries from microsoft.com/directx.

Secondly if the game is older than 2008 you need to run it in windows xp mode as well, (don't need to on the 270.xx driver)

but it will stop black screens.

 

well i dont have the fx1800m, but fx880m. It still solves the problem for me. So i think i will let it be.

 

Hello, just for inform all of the 8540w users: the NVIDIA 267.24 gave a black screen!
See the attached image!

I wonder if I have to restart my test on the already tested drivers with the new Windows 7 professional 64 bit updates as from yesterday.
See the attached image.

Tried the demo version of Crysis 2 by Electronic arts and it seems to go pretty well with the newly installed driver by NVIDIA: 266.58 I'm trying now.

Posted all of those pieces of information to the NVIDIA support forum and contacted the Electronic Arts support.


Thank you.

 

Personally I have found that a lot of "unexplained unstability" of NVidia laptop cards stem from their "Powermizer" dynamic frequency switching technology.
In theory, it should change clocks of video card dependant on load to somewhat reduce power consumption. In practice with some boards it results in instability, where GPU clock switch causes a glitch/hang/bluescreen.

Its eary enough to turn dynamic frequency switching off and see if it helps, just use free PowerMizer Manager utility - PowerMizer Manager | Some More Bytes

I have a Quadro myself and used PM Manager to set "static" profile, with max clock on AC power and min clock on battery. And it completely cured all sporadic bluescreens/freezes I've observed, my laptop uptime now more than a week usually.

 

hi all...

I have the same issues above and have tried the PowerMizer controller and no resolution was found with it.

Has anyone solved this yet or know of another solution?

HP Elitebook 8540w
fx1800m - Driver 12/4/2010 \ 8.17.12.6128

Thanks in advance...

 

Hello, thank you for your interest:

1. update to the last INTEL CHIPSET from the INTEL web site: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sea...Intel®+Chipset+Software+Installation+Utility;
2. daownload and install the latest driver from the NVIDIA web site: NVIDIA DRIVERS 270.61 WHQL
3. read carefully the PowerMizer manager application before to use it: PowerMizer Manager | Some More Bytes
4. post if necessary your issue in the NVIDIA community forum for the official thread related to the 270.61 version: Official WHQL NVIDIA 270.61 Display Driver Feedback Thread For NVIDIA Geforce Desktop/Notebook/ION GPUs - NVIDIA Forums - Page 18

Let us know if all of those fixed.

Thank you.

www.twitter.com/cypherinfo