Using Nvidia 275.33 drivers with 485M?

I received my P170hm (in sig) from Malibal on Monday and I'm very happy with it. However, last night I installed Nvidia's latest 275.33 drivers and saw a massive drop off when I ran 3D Mark Vantage. 2 days ago the computer scored 13541 overall with 12244 GPU and 19855 CPU, last night scores dropped to 7609 overall with 9004 GPU and 5194 CPU . I only have the free version of 3D Mark Vantage so I cannot make any changes to settings (locked to performance) and the only notable change I've made to my laptop is the new driver. Has anyone heard of any similar problems with these drivers? Do you recommend going back to the stock CD drivers? Any ideas on how to fix the problem? Could it just be this particular benchmark?

I ran the tests exactly the same, no apps open, enabled fn+1 fans and the laptop was plugged in. I believe I uninstalled the old drivers properly and used driver sweeper to make sure. Luckily I have a system restore point before the driver install, so I may use that and then reinstall the old drivers again.

If anyone has any recommendations, they would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance

 

when my alienware dropped from 10,000 to 3,700 it turned out to be a fried motherboard.

but dont panic yet.
reinstall the drivers from the supplied driver cd/dvd and try the benches again.
im sure the vantage software only let you run 1 free scan and then you had to buy it unless things have changed since dx11 software was released.

 

Perhaps the rules changed because as long as you press upgrade later when it asks for registration, you seem to be able to run it as often as you like. I'm not necessarily going to jump to thinking that the motherboard is shot, but would there be any other signs if this occurred? I don't believe there are any other problems, but if I had more specific issues to look for that may help.

I used the custom clean install for the new drivers if that makes any difference? From what I read that seemed to be a good choice, as it eliminates any remaining parts of the old drivers that may conflict. Maybe another benchmark software would be better? I'm new to the whole benchmark thing, I know they are not end all be all, it just struck me as funny to see a drop like that when I was expecting the new drivers to increase performance.

I know the clean install also resets Nvidia settings to default? Not sure if this may be an issue though, as I never even touched the old ones after the install.

 

you could try 3dmark06 or 3dmark11 Futuremark - world's most popular benchmarks and PC performance tests - Benchmarks

you can get a rough idea of older models scores in my sig below but i have no idea about 3dmark11 comparisons.

have you overclocked by any chance?

 

Nope, haven't overclocked it, it would be nice to see what it can actually do with stock clocks first lol. I don't think I've changed any settings at all actually, just a few things to optimize Windows for my SSD, which I'm pretty sure I did before either benchmark was run so I doubt that has much to do with it (especially since this is a graphic benchmark). I don't even have any games installed on it yet, just got Steam on it a little before the new drivers.

I figured the best way to check for any defective hardware would be benchmark testing, as that would push the system near its limits. I didn't want to get excited and install a game only to find that there was a problem.

 

I'd install a game and see what your performance is like. If they come in around the ones posted here, then it's an issue with 3DMark

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 485M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

If they come in low, then completely uninstall the new driver and go back to the stock ones. Sometimes new/beta releases from Nvidia are hit or miss.

If you STILL have issues, then it could be a driver conflict (which would take a Windows reinstall to fix for sure, or at least a system restore back to original).

 

the other day i was experimenting with different drivers, and it seemed like the older ones were better. Im waiting for an nvidia 280.xx driver that isn't a beta.