NVIDIA® GeForce� 8400M GS drivers for Windows XP

[thunderhead]

Hi all,

I have recently placed an order for the Dell XPS M1330 notebook.

It is going to ship with Windows Vista Home Premium and the NVIDIA® GeForce? 8400M GS 128 MB video card. I will have to remove Vista and install Windows XP Professional with SP2 on the laptop because I will be using it for academic purposes, and my university has complete support only for the latter.

I was looking for a 32 bit Windows XP driver for my video card. The closest I can find is the NVIDIA drivers for the NVIDIA® GeForce? 8400 GS (without the M) [Link: Here].

So my queries are:

1.) Is that driver sufficient as a substitute (I am willing to take an acceptable performance hit)?.

2.) If there is a mod available here, could you please guide me on how to download and install it (I am a complete novice to rigging and modding :) ).

Thanks for your help in advance.

[Bill]

That is a desktop driver, it has to be modified to properly function on your laptop card(s).

Read this topic.

http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index.php?showtopic=8128

Now you can find the 162.18 driver here on these forums and extract the driver, replace the INF with our modified one, and then install the driver. (read the FAQ section pinned topics)

Repeat as necessary till you find a nice working/fast/good quality driver.

If that or another driver works well, please tell us about it here.

http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index....showtopic=14343

As this topic gets some more posts somebody with the same graphics card is bound to test some drivers and post feedback as well.

You should know that the latest drivers are not always the best to use, although with an 8 series card you will probably be exclusively using 1xx.xx drivers or higher.

[thunderhead]

Hey,

Thanks for your reply. I will try out the same ASAP and get back. Hopefully it'll work smoothly.

Meanwhile, I just want to ask the following:

1.) Why are you recommending I get the 162.18 driver? Why not any of the later ones?

2.) Will I encounter any serious issues on doing this?

3.) Are there any additional things I need to download in order to install this driver?

Thanks a ton again. Appreciate it.

Edited August 8, 2007 by thunderhead

[Bill]

1. That is just the driver you mentioned, if you found it on nvidia's driver release site that is usually an indication of a good driver.

2. You shouldn't encounter any serious issues, your just replacing the INF that contains instructions on how to install the driver for your card, your not modding the driver. Now things like the xtreme G drivers, if you were to get those, the actual driver files are usually modified.

3. You might want to check out this program.

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html

There might be a special new version somewhere else for your notebook though, you might want to search for fangui and your notebook model.

You could also search for nvtweak, and tvtool, those are also good programs to have that you might want to use.

As for other drivers from nvidia, the only think you could install in addition to that with be 3D stereo drivers. (for 3D gaming)

To use those you have to find the driver (on nvidia's site) and it HAS to match the driver you have installed. (if not expect problems or refusing to install/run)

Nvidia does not update the stereo drivers very often, so most likely you will have to downgrade if you want to try those, but you might want to get a hold of some 3D glasses first. Some don't work on standard lcd panels, so do some research before you buy anything expensive.

I will probably go for dual homemade polarized High Definition projectors in a few years or so for a proper 3D setup. (powered by 2 or more high end cards

Last you should remember we will not hold your hand here, you need to test drivers and things on your own, read FAQs before asking too many questions.

This reminds me, I should do a 3D stereo FAQ topic someday, for all 5 of the members here that use stereo. :)

[thunderhead]

Thanks. I understand that modding the INF simply changes the instructions to make the video card compatible with the OS and the laptop device [Am I correct?].

Once I'm done with the installation and modding of the driver, can I get rid of the extracted folder?

About holding hands, I really am paranoid about doing stuff to the hardware of the notebook, because I depend on it critically for all academic purposes. So I just want to get things absolutely straight before venturing out and doing anything. Also, I'm heavily constrained for time :) .

Appreciate your help once again.

P.S. Before installing this driver and making changes to the INF, should I uninstall the existing utilities from NVIDIA? (like nTune, I've heard...).

Edited August 9, 2007 by thunderhead

[Guest vista blows]

i have the same video in my laptop and im not 100% but because this card supports directx 10. there will not be drivers for xp. m$ said that xp will not support directx 10, so in turn any card that does support 10 will most likely not have drivers for XP

BUT i found this link. i work a lot so i do not have time to try it. i do not like vista its slow and crap.

http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/GRAPHICS-...are-16315.shtml

Hi all,

I have recently placed an order for the Dell XPS M1330 notebook.

It is going to ship with Windows Vista Home Premium and the NVIDIA® GeForce? 8400M GS 128 MB video card. I will have to remove Vista and install Windows XP Professional with SP2 on the laptop because I will be using it for academic purposes, and my university has complete support only for the latter.

I was looking for a 32 bit Windows XP driver for my video card. The closest I can find is the NVIDIA drivers for the NVIDIA® GeForce? 8400 GS (without the M) [Link: Here].

So my queries are:

1.) Is that driver sufficient as a substitute (I am willing to take an acceptable performance hit)?.

2.) If there is a mod available here, could you please guide me on how to download and install it (I am a complete novice to rigging and modding :) ).

Thanks for your help in advance.

[Guest vista sucks]

try this, it says its for Vostro Notebook 1500 but does that really matter.

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/...p;fileid=211242

let me know here if this works thanks.

[smax]

All of those drivers are available on this site with modified INFs to enable some features and to let them work with all video cards.

My favorites so far are 163.16 or 163.44 (if it will work on your computer).

[Guest thunderhead1]

Thanks for your inputs folks :)

[Guest Dave]

try this, it says its for Vostro Notebook 1500 but does that really matter.

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/...p;fileid=211242

let me know here if this works thanks.

This tip worked great for the video drivers on my M1330/XP system! Thank you

Dave

[whitetigerx7]

I hate to say this but you really didn't have to downgrade. Just turn off UAC and keep your drivers updated and you can use Vista in place of XP without having to downgrade. All applications coded for 32bit Windows should have the same compatibility on Vista as they do on 2000/XP. And if your university doesn't have Vista on their list then make them start testing things and do your own part by testing things as well and let them know what works and what doesn't work.

[Guest j.k]

Hey Lads,

the driver you are hardly lookinf for is available on this link is as follows

http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/GRAPHICS-...5657-Beta.shtml

j.k

[Guest rob]

Thanks for your inputs folks :)

did you get it working? if so can you please send me a quick e-mail as to what driver yo used. mine is working good except for the fact that when the computer goes into sleep mode it will no wake the screen on wake. thanks hmcmiami@gmail.com

[Guest no one]

try this...

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/...p;fileid=215217

[Guest Loay]

I had same problem and it solved by intsalling this magic driver on XP

http://rapidshare.com/files/77779602/NVIDI...Go_156.56xp.exe

[Guest Gearoid]

I just tested three different drivers on my XPS using 3D Mark '06 and the results surprised me.

First of all, my specs:

Intel Core Duo 2Ghz

2048MB DDR RAM

GeForce 8400M GS 128MB

I tested the following driver versions and the 3D Mark results are beside them.

175.70: 1690

167.26: 1677

156.83: 1561

I was quite surprised at 156.83, because it is the official driver from the Dell site for Vostro laptops, with the same card. The other two were with modded INFs I found on here.

Hope this helps someone!

[Guest blitzkreig27]

Hi all,

I have recently placed an order for the Dell XPS M1330 notebook.

It is going to ship with Windows Vista Home Premium and the NVIDIA® GeForce? 8400M GS 128 MB video card. I will have to remove Vista and install Windows XP Professional with SP2 on the laptop because I will be using it for academic purposes, and my university has complete support only for the latter.

I was looking for a 32 bit Windows XP driver for my video card. The closest I can find is the NVIDIA drivers for the NVIDIA® GeForce? 8400 GS (without the M) [Link: Here].

So my queries are:

1.) Is that driver sufficient as a substitute (I am willing to take an acceptable performance hit)?.

2.) If there is a mod available here, could you please guide me on how to download and install it (I am a complete novice to rigging and modding :) ).

Thanks for your help in advance.

I have the same problem you do. I bought an XPS 1530 w/ 128mb 8400 GS. I installed XP Professional and now I can't get a lot of drivers for it. Dell and Nvidia have been no help so far in figuring out the correct drivers. I still have yet to find a suitable driver for the WLAN card. If I were you, I would give Nvidia a call and see if they could help you.

[Guest Qox]

Just installed R173730 (156.83) and it works fine. According to spec at dell it actually supports M1330.

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/...p;fileid=236107

/Qox

[Guest Grogi]

Just install driver from rapid link, work perfectly. Problem solved. My recommend. Now just to solve prorlem with Bluetooth and card reader 5 in 1 and expansion card, and that will bi all. O, hp pavilion dv6480ev, 6700 model.

[Guest frank]

Thunderhead..

please share and inform on which method worked for you as I'm having the exact same problem.

Thankyou

[Guest FinDog]

I had a friend do the Vista to XP "downgrade" for me about a year ago. I recently started having problems (computer rebooting itself, colored stripes, white lines on the screen etc. click visit

to see an example). We figured it might be the video driver installed for the GeForce 8400M GS 128MB.

For the downgrade the driver used was the R190091 whose version notes only reference Vista (no support for XP). After reading this forum I downloaded the R173730 driver from Dell which specifically says it supports the M1330 and XP.

My question is: Do I uninstall/delete the R190091 (old) driver or should I leave it in the C:\DELL\drivers folder?

My apologies if this is a poorly framed question. This is not my forte. Thanks for any help you can provide.

[Bill]

That folder is just a location Dell stores the installation files in.

It has no effect on the driver you actually have installed.

You can delete that folder if you don't want to keep the old drivers ready to install.

You should probably uninstall the borked drivers through the add/remove programs menu or device manager before you install the new ones.

[Guest FinDog]

That folder is just a location Dell stores the installation files in.

It has no effect on the driver you actually have installed.

You can delete that folder if you don't want to keep the old drivers ready to install.

You should probably uninstall the borked drivers through the add/remove programs menu or device manager before you install the new ones.

Thanks for the help. Unfortunately, the problem persists. After doing some research it appears my issue is not due to Vista --> XP downgrade and incorrect drivers.

Rather my GeForce 8400M is faulty. A problem was discovered in the 8400 and 8600 line related to overheating issues. This is what caused the screen and mysterious reboot problem. Dell offered a fix for several models experiencing the same problem http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/200...update-for-dell. This is more of a bandaid than a fix since the revised BIOS (A12) for the M1330 simply makes your fan run more to mitigate the underlying heat issue. Obviously, this drains your battery faster too though. This may prolong the life of the GPU however, since it's not a fix you run the risk of it dieing anyway only now your warranty may have expired. Luckily, mine has not expired.

The purpose of this post wasn't to bash or flame NVIDIA or Dell. I just wanted to give an update for those who, like me, wrongly attributed this issue to the driver.

[Guest shif6]

[try this 100% run write to google ----XP32 156.10(WHQL) -------ge force 8400m gs

[Guest lsdinc]

Hi,

I may be have a slow day but where do I download the inf file from? I dont understand?

I have downlowded the driver but there is no inf file in it and I cant find where to download the inf files from.

I have a dell xps m1330 trying to install xp on it and the card is a 128MB nVidia® GeForce® 8400M GS.

Thanks

Les