16x.xx Desktop corruption fix for 1920x1200

[ShadrachBond]

I too am having the same issue described here. After doing a fresh install of Windows, I installed the 163.69 drivers (from here), and changed the line to read

HKR,, LVDSReduceFreq, %REG_DWORD%, 1

but the issue still occurs as described by others: vertical bars, that look like you're looking through water running over the screen. The only drivers that I've been able to find that do not have this issues are the 101.19 drivers from Dell's support website, but these drivers are far too old for my purposes.

[Valmont]

the thing i don't understand, was it was only until after the factory restore, that everything got screwed up.

Factory restore isn't the cause of corruption - it's a "popular" error of Dell laptops with 79xx cards.

The only drivers that I've been able to find that do not have this issues are the 101.19 drivers from Dell's support website, but these drivers are far too old for my purposes.

There is 158.45 driver - it works fine. As I now it is the latest.

[meetdave]

thanks for the reply,

i noticed alot of people are having the same problem as i am having.

i just don't understand why it worked perfectly before, but won't anymore... i was just hoping to beable to play bioshock again without having my desktop look blurry.

i can run perfectly on 1920 by 1080 using the nvidia scaling, but its not as clear, and now i don't even have the option to move up to 1920 by 1200,

(i didn't do the factory restore because of any video problems)

i don't understand why the driver doesn't work anymore, i took the same driver file with the same inf from before the factory restore, and installed in on my computer post-restore and now it doesn't work..

but hearing about it being a "memory problem" from a reply i read, i should note that before i did the factory restore, i had accidentally ran the memory diagnostic tool... and that was before i installed the driver. sometime after my windows base index score thing went from from 4.7 to 5.2 making my memory not the lowest score anymore, but something else.... i always gave the driver credit, but maybe the memory tool did something? maybe i should try that again..

[meetdave]

well the memory diagnostic tool did nothing for me...but when i install new drivers i recently have been getting lots of rundll.exe errors... Im not sure what that exactly means though... anyways, any solutions would be wicked, i want to be able to run my computer at 1029x1200 again

Edited October 17, 2007 by meetdave

[debaucher]

meetdave, Shadrochbond, Guest_Paul and others,

The problem you are describing is due to the 2D memory problem.

What you need to do is flash your vid card bios to either an unlocked one then adjust your 2D memory speed to at least 121mhz via software (ati tool, rivatuner etc..) or flash your bios with the 121mhz memory speed added to the bios.

This is quite easy and there are many tutorials about how to do it.

(Notebookforums etc... has a post with many of the unlocked bios' available.... but be sure to read the whole thread).

I personally modify my own vid card bios to unlock and adjust speeds via NiBiTor.v3.5 or above.

If you have specific questions I am willing to help, but please be sure to read the tutorials and understand the process first.

Thanks!!

D.

Edited October 18, 2007 by debaucher

[meetdave]

Factory restore isn't the cause of corruption - it's a "popular" error of Dell laptops with 79xx cards.

as much as this make sense, i have no idea how to reflash a bios , overclock, and have only changed one number on a .inf file before. ( on this line: "HKR,, LVDSReduceFreq, %REG_DWORD%, 0" and that post restore, when everything stopped working)

but somehow my computer worked perfectly with these drivers before i did the system restore... so i must have done something differently beforehand for them to have worked, ive only had my laptop for a few months now and i don't remember having any problems, or having to fix anything other than download a few modded inf files...

i just wish i could figure out what i did differently before that im not doing now.

anyways, it would be nice to figure this out, alot of people seem to be having this problem too

p.s. thanks to all the people putting in the work to make these drivers work for us and stuff, its pretty amazing, its like online volunteer work.

[meetdave]

meetdave, Shadrochbond, Guest_Paul and others,

The problem you are describing is due to the 2D memory problem.

What you need to do is flash your vid card bios to either an unlocked one then adjust your 2D memory speed to at least 121mhz via software (ati tool, rivatuner etc..) or flash your bios with the 121mhz memory speed added to the bios.

This is quite easy and there are many tutorials about how to do it.

(Notebookforums etc... has a post with many of the unlocked bios' available.... but be sure to read the whole thread).

I personally modify my own vid card bios to unlock and adjust speeds via NiBiTor.v3.5 or above.

hey, i was actually about to try that earlier today after reading the solution you posted,

however when i was reading the tutorials, it started talking about bios version, instructions for graphics cards that weren't mine, and if something were to go askew, i may not be able to start my computer back up. which scared me out of doing it.

im going to try it again tonight, but do you have a link to a specific site that give clear directions, ive found alot on it and its varied a bit. im just worried about wrecking my computer because of my inability to do this kind of stuff.

i downloaded rivatuner earlier, and i guess i have to do the unlocked bios thing before it works, something i didn't know until i played with it for a while.

for my go7900gs card, im not sure if this is a noob question or not, but what should i never exceed for the memory speeds?

[debaucher]

Ok, I did some quick leg work for you in order to help you understand vid card bios flashing.

Be sure to read what to do (especially with the different bios' between rev0 and rev1 7900gs')

Here is a link to the origianl thread on how to do the vid card bios mod and flash

<a href="http://www.notebookforums.com/thread185501.html" target="_blank">http://www.notebookforums.com/thread185501.html</a>

Here is a link to the iso and the archived web page they came from (with basic instructions)

<a href="http://www.notebookforums.com/post2753201-1152.html" target="_blank">http://www.notebookforums.com/post2753201-1152.html</a>

So here are the 5 main steps.

1)This pertains ESPECIALLY to 7950gtx owners

Uncomment ( add a ; ) to

HKLM,"SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak", CoolBits, %REG_DWORD%, 0xffffffff

Or just delete it

2) make sure the modded inf has

HKR,, LVDSReduceFreq, %REG_DWORD%, 1

3) Make sure the modded inf has

HKR,, PowerMizerEnable, %REG_DWORD%, 0

(this disables powermizer but step 3 re-enables it)

4) remove the ; from this line (ie.. remove the uncomment)

HKR,, PerfLevelSrc, %REG_DWORD%, 0x3333

(this re-enables powermizer)

5) Flash your vid card bios to either unlocked and adjust 2d memory to 121mhz or flash your locked bios with modded 2D memory timings to 121mhz

Now, you may be able to skip steps 2 and 3 (ie... leave #2 at value 1 and leave #3 uncommented) but this is what worked for me.

Also, upon unistall of the driver do this.

1) uninstall driver and click "delete driver software for this device)

2) Don't reboot when it asks

3) right click in device manager and do "scan for hardware changes"

4) when the dialog box pops up asking you to search for drivers etc... choose "cancel and do not ask for this device again"

5) reboot

6) upon reboot run ccleaner or equivalent a few times to remove any old registry settings

7) install LV2GO drivers with the modded inf added (and the changes above input)

8) reboot once done

9) test that 2D fix is working by monitoring core/memory speeds using ATI tool, riva tuner etc..

The reason why we do steps 2-4 are so that the stock vista vid card drivers wont be installed automatically upon reboot

Hope this helps

D.

Edited October 18, 2007 by debaucher

[meetdave]

okay, so i flashed the bios, and everything was identical... i flashed it using 791gsunv.rom... and i ended up with the exact same bios according to the data it showed me, im not sure if this is supposed to happen...

Edited October 18, 2007 by meetdave

[debaucher]

Your fine.

The only difference is it is unlocked (ie.. .able to be over/underclocked)

If you were to compare the Perf. tables (entry 3) you would notice the difference.

The next step would be for you to either use software to change the 2D memory speed to 121mhz (or above) and set it to apply at boot.

Or, you can use NiBiTor.v3.5 or above to modify and save the vid bios with the 121mhz speed and flash that bios to your vid card (up to you which you want to choose).

If you use the software method..... be sure to APPLY OVERCLOCKS at STARTUP (with what ever program you prefer to use)

D.

Edited October 18, 2007 by debaucher

[meetdave]

wow.... i can't believe everything is actually working right now... thats amazing... thank you!

i still have some ending questions though, i might not get the opportunity to figure these out later.. :

while i have someone who knows what their doing on hand, can i ask about core temps and rivatuner...

my first question is that whats a good core temp to be at for my computer... i keep hearing about how the largest problem with overclocking is overheating, and right now my system is running at around 60 to 70 *C. (sometimes a bit under 75,

also on rivatuner, i set my startup settings to run at windows startup via startup registration key. (the other option is via startup folder).

and i also clicked "apply overclocking at windows startup: startup settings: 100MHz/ 121MhZ "

i think thats what you were talking about, but i figured id check, because im scared to restart my computer and have to do this all over again.

how far should i push my graphics card, i don't want to ruin it, but ive always heard to much about overclocking and was just too scared to follow through with it.i don't think i have the know-how to test the boundaries, because i saw alot of posts from people who knew more about it than me talking about how they burnt out their computer.

and lastly, i have three options for the overclock, standard 2d, low power 3D, and performance 3D. all of them have Mhz numbers that vary by alot.

currently.(coreclock/memoryclock) 100/121, 200/121, 375/507).. respectively

which one of those settings does my computer usually run under?

anyways. those were all the questions i had off the top of my head,

for anyone who had/has the same problem, try this solution, it worked perfectly for me.

thank you! :)

[mobilenvidia]

2D is desktop speed, lowest power consumption needed as not much is happening, I use 80/121Mhz

3D low power not sure where this fits in, and I've only seen it for 30sec between 3D power and 2D modes, I use defaulr 200/300Mhz

3D power this is of course in anything 3D related, games etc, I'm currently using 475/800Mhz, this is the max that I can use, TimeShift runs good with extra's turned up.

[mobilenvidia]

Here are some interesting 3D Performance mode findings.

Below 750Mhz Memory clock and any GPU core speed Powermizer will go back to 3D low power then 2D mode with both Core and Memory speeds lowered as per Rivatuner settings.

Around 750-755Mhz Memory speed the Screen throws a big wobbly is completely garbled, reboot needed, system has not crashes just screen full of rubbish.

755Mhz - 800Mhz (max in nTune overclock) the core speed will lower down in 3D low power and 2D mode as it should, BUT memory speeds stay at the overclocked speed.

I would there for recommend not to go past 750Mhz as for my machine it will not use powermizer for the Memory, this will run at full tilt and probably get rather hot and waste power.

Upping the 3D Core performance setting is less fussy and powermizer will work just fine at any speed, max for me is around 485Mhz before screen corruption appears (pixelation or lego sized pixels apear)

But I wonder why 750Mhz Memory speed has the screen Issue and everything after it is fine :)

Anyway more to think about for potential OCers, speaking of which remember OC at YOUR OWN RISK, there is a risk of meltdown, I take no responsibility for any inferno's on your lap

[debaucher]

Anyway more to think about for potential OCers, speaking of which remember OC at YOUR OWN RISK, there is a risk of meltdown, I take no responsibility for any inferno's on your lap

Well said pieter,

I have a 2500M in my E1705 right now (have my 7900gs sitting in storage just in case)

So my overclocks are different (as I have 512MB memory compared to the 7900gs 256MB).

I run my 3D OC speeds at 600core 700memory (default is 500 core 600 memory)

My low power 3D settings are 200core 300memory (default)

My 2D settings are 80core and 121memeory (default 100core 110memory)

I could push the OC more, but I like to keep a little safety margin to prevent frying my system

meetdave, if you want to test what you can do for an OC on your GPU, a program called ATI tool is pretty good (get the latest 0.27 beta2 for your system... or above if it is finally released)

You can do a find max core oc and memory oc which isn't perfect but will give you an idea of how far you can push you GPU.

Once it finds the "max" I would then lower it a bit and call that your OC (for safety reasons)

Also, keep an eye on your temps, I don't like my GPU to get over 90C but as long as it doesn't sit at 95-100C all day you wont kill your card.

Anyways, for anyone interested in learning more about GPU overclocking etc.. you can check out notebookforums as they have a lot on that subject.

D.

Edited October 18, 2007 by debaucher

[WetSawdustDemon]

Hello there,

Thanks for taking the time to explain this for us debaucher, I really appricate it. I am however a bit fearful of flashing my video bios. If it is the only way I can run the latest drivers then I will give it a go, but I am hopeful that there will be a purely software based solution soon (eg just from installing drivers) as my dell drivers seem to work okay (they are not the latest but they do work without the vertical screen distortion), so what is in my Dell drivers that stop this happening that make it happen in the newer drivers? Would an Inf change sort that out or would that be impossible? I feel a bit stupid here as I don't really understand the problem fully sorry!

So if I go ahead with the flashing should I use 795GTXNN.ROM or 795GTXUN.ROM for my 7950GTX? Also if the flashing works okay might there be any problems further down the line with future drivers? I just want to be sure I don't mess my notebook up and not be able to get it back to how it was.

Any help is always appricated. Many thanks,

Paul

P.S. I've registerd now, if things work out well I may stick around as I quite like reading this forum :)

[debaucher]

WetSawdustDemon,

Flashing your vid card is quite easy to do (just follow the instructions you can find listed thru the 2 links I provided earlier).

This should in no way affect future driver performance but if it does, you can adjust clock settings via software or just reflash to your previous bios.

As for which to use, if you have a 7950GTX you should use the 795GTXUN.ROM (as the other is the same one you already have on your card).

The U in the bios name stands for "unlocked" meaning you can change the clock speeds on your card via software.

Why exactly this happens I could not tell you.

I feel it is a problem with how nvida has the drivers set up with vista and not something we can fix via inf settings.

D.

[meetdave]

hello again everyone, i hope this forum is still being checked!

i flashed my bios and ive been managing quite well with everything so far, however i keep getting the blue screen as a memory parity error or something along those lines

it only happens whenever i take my computer off power and use it as a laptop, and i haven't quite determined if it happens when i plug it back in... anyways im using rivatuner, and even though i set it to start up at 100 and 121 for memory, i seem to still get the vertical bars unless i set it up every time at the startup

i randomly also get a rundll32 error, usually 2 - 3 at a time, nothing ever seems to really be effected other than when i unplug my computer

none of this is critical, just annoying, hopefully someone might have some solutions,