ThinkPad T61P (How To Make Your Quadro A GeForce Driver Side)

Hackez,

Are you familiar with the threads on the Motherboard issues with 4GB of RAM? Here is one of those threads: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=47755

The acid test was to take out one of the RAM strips and retest. This only confirms that you have a bad Motherboard. Lenovo is very familiar with this test and will support a mobo replacement for this situation.

Also, try re-installing a standard video driver like:
Nvidia 6.14.11.5685 12/10/2007. The T61p is very sensitive to alternate video drivers.

Alacrity

 

I appreciate the help alacrity but unfortunately that has nothing to do with the issue I am experiencing. Lenovo is taking pretty good care of me as I have a direct line to a manager who is working on my case.

But, please everyone I ask you remain on topic. It was my fault for bringing up the issue in the first place. Feedback and benchmarks from the new drivers I just posted are always appreciated.

Thanks,

Hackez

Edit: If you are having issues with games locking up your computer after playing them for fifteen to thirty minutes send me a PM. I can pass you on some information to determine if it is a driver problem or hardware problem. I ask you only send me a PM so we can stay on topic.

 

Can you make a new thread and post the info please? Problem with PMs is that it doesn't benefit everyone. Even those who don't have the problem like myself or those considering buying a T61p wouldn't mind having the info for future reference.

 

Consider it done, let me go boot into DOS so I can document all the steps necessary to do this. Expect to see the guide up within fifteen minutes.

 

With all the drivers available AND all the gaming software AND specific PC/GPUs, the permutations (driver w/specific game w/specific PC/GPU) are huge. I wish there were some thread that tracked all the recommended combinations.

In my case to share results, my favorite gaming software is HL2 DeathMatch multiplayer. Best results so far have been with laptopvideo2go.com driver 169.28 with a 3DMark06 1280x1024 score of 4316 with no overclocking.

For many of the drivers available, actually playing HL2DM will cause a crash, BSOD, and end with a need to re-image the hdd so.......finding one of the many drivers that provide both a high 3DMark06 score as well as specific game stability is a godsend.

So, for the T61p and HL2DM, use 169.28 for those still enjoying that old gaming software.

 

Seeing these results, I really want a T61P now.... somehow i have to sacrifice the integrated webcam.
While the T61 / R61 has the option webcam but none come with FX570M and T61p doesn't have webcam option....

%$&#@@%$!!

 

If a webcam is truly that important you could always purchase a USB one. I know that cuts down on mobility but if you NEED that extra graphic power it would be a worthy sacrifice.

 

Another OT question:
- Is it necessary to get 256 MB with the FX570M or 128 MB is alright?
I'm not a hardcore gamer.... and play some oldies like D2/ WoW/ Q4, Doom3 etc... .... etc
** I'm about to order a Lenovo so .... this will help me a lot. Thx

 

The 128Mb 570M is nerfed by more than just the 128mb. It performs more like a 8400M. For WoW I think it should be ok but maybe someone who has the card can shed some insight on it.

 

First, Thanks for this its been a great help!

Second, if you are having slight flickering problems with your display after the driver update then try this fix:

I found that my display had this subtle, annoying flicker after I updated my drivers. Tried everything to fix it and couldn't get it done. UNTIL I changed the power manager settings under the NVIDIA control panel. Turning off the "Optimize my battery life" under PowerMizer settings may stop the flicker. So just to be thorough, try this

Right-click desktop
Click NVIDIA Control panel
Under Mobile click Change PowerMizer settings
Click "Not manage my power consumption (Disable PowerMizer)
Uncheck "Extend battery charge by using less power for the display.
Apply


Booyah. No flicker!

 

Can somebody please for the love of God tell me if this will work for the NVS 140m Quadros? In other words, is there anything about the INF file or driver that HAS TO BE specific to the 540 card, and would not apply to the 140m? I can't seem to find ANYTHING elsewhere on the internet.

 

I was able to get one of the drivers that worked on the 120m to work on my 140m. It's the first one in the Vista 32-bit section if I remember correctly. Although I can't tell you of any performance improvements because my graphics card is defective and I'm going to call tech support to get it fixed.

 

For XP right? "Mobile" option does not exist in Vista (yet?).

 

Thanks for letting me know it's in the realm of possibility.

Are there any dangers of trying the wrong driver/inf combo? And by that I mean unrecoverable dangers. I know if it's a bad match, I can usually just reinstall a driver that works, but is there a probable risk that if I install the wrong one it can't be fixed? Thanks.

 

The drivers in this thread are coded for the T61p/ FX 570m GPU only. IMO it would not be a good idea to try to run them for a different GPU.

 

Just to clarify, I tried the laptopdriver2go (or w/e) drivers on my NVS 140m, and they do work, sorta. The most recent one would make the screen go dark when running CSS video stress test, and you'd have to turn the brightness back up. Really buggy. But it got me like 3fps more. Then I tried the other popular download one (with the most downloads), and it worked without this problem, but it game me 2-3fps LESS than the official ones on Lenovo's site. So I'm going back and installing the official ones until better drivers come out.

It turns out that, yes the modded INF file DOES include support for the 140m, but it seems to not help as much in-game as it helps for the bigger FX cards.

 

Hey Hackez, is your modded inf different from the one offered by lv2go? Thanks.

 

Yes it is.

 

Xdrive and Newskin, these drivers are different from Laptopvideo2go's Modded INF files. The drivers you acquired from Laptopvideo2go's website are basically stock drivers with mobile GPU support.

The ones I provide are actually a modified version of Laptopvideo2go's INF that offer GeForce driver side support for Quadro GPU's. (See the original post for an in-depth explanation)

I hope this clears things up.

 

Installed the 169.28 .. the link for the other driver is broken on the lv2g website .. I was hoping that I would get a modified control panel which would let me output video that would be compatible w/ my VGA -> HDMI cable but no luck . anyways, I will game later on and report on some results perhaps.

 

installed the latest FW and holy mother effer I can max out cod4 virtually. Laptop gets really hot but it runs smooth!

 

Got the 128mb version of the quadro fx 570m, but can only get a score of ~2400 on vista 32bit
any ideas?

 

Its a hardware limitation, the 128mb 570m is significantly weaker than the 256mb version.

 

Hackez..

On my desktop nvidia card I am able to choose the output video type but on my 570m there is no option for this. Therefore I am unable to use a VGA -> HDMI cable to hook my laptop up to my TV. Is there any way to get this option on the t61p?

 

Have you tried both my modified drivers and the stock drivers from Lenovo? I just want to confirm you've tried both the stock drivers and my drivers and this option is missing from both sets.

 

What is the reason for using 169 or 174 series drivers, why not the 167 released by other retailers? Sometimes you get lucky and do not have to use a modded inf, but other than that I am not sure the major differences. I know the 169 are desktop drivers + modded inf for laptop, but is performance different/same than others?

 

Its always wise to run the latest stable graphic drivers. I normally comb through the community after a large driver release and if the feedback is good I tend to go ahead and upgrade. Bug fixes, optimizations and even new features are continously added as there is always room for improvement when it comes to software drivers.

On newer games such as Crysis the latest drivers have an inherent performance advantage as Nvidia does their best to catch up to the latest technology and plug any possible problems that exist.

 

Yes.. I have even google'd it and everyone says you need the dock to output to a TV. I so far have tried the stock driver, both of yours, and now I am trying the latest 17x that just came out today or yesterday that supports the 570m.

 

Aw, ty for clearing it up. I think I may try the 169 drivers with the modded inf and see if they are any different than my 167 ones. TY again

 

Let me bump this thread back to the front of the forum.

I had tested this MOD earlier but found out I had bad RAM.

So, a retest took me from a 3DMark06 score of 4102 to 4312 ... a nice 5% jump.

Thanks to Hackez for his great efforts.

 

I tried out this MOD too and mostly found that it made gaming a little better.

I didn't find much change in my 3dmark06 scores. Actually the stock drivers gave me consistently higher scores (about 300 points).

 

webdtc,

can you mention your GPU and the two different drivers and their scores? In particular, what was your stock driver and score...

Alacrity

 

My GPU is a Quadro FX 570M and the driver I used is the one on Windows Update. I also use Vista 32bit. This is all on 1gb RAM because mine doesn't handle 3D very well with 2 dimms.

I didn't save any of my scores, bu know my current config gets a score of around 4300 while the MOD gave me scores around 4000. Give or take about 100points either way. I was kind of suprised at this but I know the numbers don't necessarily mean much.

The MOD was definitely better in gaming. There's no comparison there. It was noticeably faster and could run games at higher settings.

 

Interesting. I just ran all three drivers with the same video card:

...4108 with the same stock Lenovo driver you are using
...4312 with 169.28 Hackez MOD
...4365 with 174.16 Hackez MOD

Playability seems best with the 174.16. I had some short freezing during the most intensive gaming spots with the stock driver....but haven't seen any freezing yet with the 174.16.


1st EDIT: Yes, some very short freezes during the most intensive interactive multiplayer online play. I would think this is the worst case....multiplayer online with many players nearby and fast interactive movement between the players.

2nd EDIT: Ok. Getting unusual errors in non gaming applications. Backing off to the 169.28 MOD.

 

I'm having a bit of a problem while watching movies (possibly with games, haven't tried it out yet) with 174.16. Whenever I'm watching a movie, I can see bars across the screen where the picture doesn't line up. It seems as if the screen refresh rate is all screwed up. Any ideas? I know that I installed it right, as i just did a clean install of XP tonight and 174.16 was the first video driver installed.

 

t1mmer,

Maybe check or try:

...try another movie to be sure the one you are having trouble with is not a fluke
...try another video player
...try the movie in another PC
...go into recovery DOS mode and do a chkdsk /r to correct any corrupt files
...if a lot of corrupted files....go back to 169.28

I found that 174.16 caused file corruption.

 

I had weird stuff going on too with 174.16. My fps went up but overall smoothness wasn't as good as my previous driver. Went back to 174.12...Of the 174.xx, that seems to work the best for me. Haven't tried 174.31 tho.

 

morphy,

Good to hear confirmations of similar results.

For interest, what was your 3DMark06 score for 174.12...if you tested that?

 

I never had a problem using the 570M drivers, but whenever I tried out 168.xx I had the same results as I'm having now.

 

t1mmer,

The search for the "best" video driver seems like the search for the holy grail sometimes.

I think the consensus is that the Lenovo sponsored drivers are the most stable. And, the latest in the Lenovo updates I found to be very good for gaming. This is the 6.14.11.5685 driver. Better to have high stability with moderately good gaming capability than poor stability. I was becoming much too familiar with CHKDSK /r rooting out all the corrupt files.

For me, 169.28 with this thread's mod was the first to give a substantial (5%) increase in gaming score as well as a smoother actual gaming experience without losing too much in stability. The 6.14.11.5685 driver was the next best driver.

But, for others, the specific gaming software may mean a different driver. Even in laptopvideo2go.com, specific drivers are shown for specific gaming software like Bioshock. Many many variables so when you actually find the right video driver for your situation......nail it down for permanent usage.


Alacrity

 

Ya, I have a feeling I'm just gonna go back to the Lenovo drivers. They worked fine for me (most intense game I play now is Counter-Strike Source) and they worked the best for me too. Time to uninstall 174

 

t1mmer,

Yes, use the very good Lenovo driver, do your CHKDSK /r one last time, then enjoy your Lenovo PC!

Alacrity

 

My driver version says 7.15.11.7431.

The 169 drivers worked pretty well for me during gaming. But, the normal drivers from Windows Update works almost as good.

I didn't have any stability issues with the mod, but I only play WoW so I'll stick with the normal drivers.

 

These modded drivers tend to have a more noticeable impact on the latest games such as BioShock because without them the game won't even run without crashing.

Normally you won't notice any issues with stock Lenovo drivers if your just playing extremely lightweight games such as CS:S & WoW.

If you want to go back to the Quadro drivers though instead of using the outdated stock Lenovo ones I would heavily suggest the ones straight from Nvidia.

-----

On February 22, 2008 Nvidia released a new Quadro driver. (169.39)

You can download it here: (Select Quadro under Product Type and then your OS)

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

If anyone would be willing to check the stability/performance of this driver with DirectX applications compared to the two sets I have posted here it would be appreciated.

 

The newest Lenvo drivers for the FX 570m are 174.xx series.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17737

 

Just tried 174.31. Gained small amount in 3DMark06 score but the gaming is unstable (short term freezing and a few PC crashes requiring a manual restart). Rolled the video back to 169.28 with the hackez mod. All stable and smooth now. For gaming and the T61p, I probably found the right video driver with169.28.

 

Big kudos to you cranius! That's an awesome first post by the way

Just installed 174.16 driver on 14.1" T16p and noticed the flicker on the screen. Did exactly as told and no flicker! It is interesting that the Quadro driver with PowerMizer on worked just fine without the flicker.

 

Thanks for the modded drivers, using 174.16 now

Can you post just the relevant changed lines so we can make our own nv4_disp.inf's from newer drivers (the 174.74 seems to be a good release and I tried diffing the inf's from 174.16 lv2go and yours but they updated the enhanced infs so its a bit hard for me to know what is relevant and what isn't).

 

One more, the laptopvideo2go driver interferes with screen brightness settings by Power Management. The Geforce driver comes with a separate tab in Nvidea control for brightness adjustment in addition to PowerMizer and it will revert back to whatever setting there is a few seconds after I adjust the brightness with Fn+Home/End keys. I'm going back to Quadro driver.

 

Here's another potential solution to the flicker problem. I'm on a Thinkpad T61P, and started noticing the flicker after letting Windows Update install a new video driver. It was quite annoying, since the Display was the primary factor driving me to purchase the T61P. After reading this thread, I checked out the settings in the Nvidia Control Panel, and found this:

- go to "Display" -> Change Resolution
- Check the "Refresh Rate". Mine was set to 40Hz (!!!)
- Change it to 60Hz, and Apply

In my case this seems to have solved the flicker issue without having to disable the power management as described in the previous post (though that worked too, at the expense of battery life).

Just another option to consider...

p.s. I'm not sure where the "174.16" number below comes from, but Windows (XP) tells me I have the following driver:

Driver Provider: NVIDIA
Driver Date: 2/22/2008
Driver Version: 6.14.11.7431

This is a Quadro FX 570M