7900 Go GS + Vista Problem

[Guest Elod]

First of all I'd like to say Hi.

I've spent hours searching the web for a solution to my problem but nothing works entirely. I'm not one too post on forums, but you all seem to know your stuff around here so maybe you can offer assistance.

First of all I've got a Toshiba P100-SD8

It's got a 2ghz dual core processor, 2gb of ram

and a 7900 Go GS at 256mb I believe.

It originally came with windows XP Media Center but I'm now running Vista Home Premium 32bit.

I did an upgrade and full install to vista and concluded the 'Vista Compatible' sticker on my laptop was pointless. No drivers were retained during the upgrade, so I went to a full install and alas, the same thing.

When I first got things running, I ran a driver from laptopvideo2go.com (nVidia didn't feel like making a vista driver for the 7900) I can't remember the number, but about the mid 150s. Anyways, typically when it started up it ran very smooth with vista! But soon problems became clear. If I played a movie or video in WMP, sometimes it would go to extreme slow motion for video, but the sound would play at normal pace. When this happened all of Vista was affected. Minimizing/Closing/Opening windows was not as smooth, in fact you could see the choppy frame rate from aero when I performed these actions. Games too were obviously affected. If I restarted (or even went into and back out of hibernation) it would be smooth again! But usually for no longer than 10 minutes. So basically windows would slow down, sometimes in 5 minutes of running, something it could last hours until it slowed down. And activity didn't seem to dictate when it would slow down, sometimes I'd play dungeon siege 2 for an hour just fine, others checking my email and bam! slow down. I lived with this problem for a while then I decided to update my driver yesterday.

Now here is where I am. I'm currently running the 169.09 from laptopvideo2go.com with a modded INI (or is it INF?). It still does the occasional slow down/stutter I described earlier. BUT now it doesn't need to be restarted to fix it, sometimes it will just fix it on its own! But this is still a hassle. On top of this, unlike I did with my old driver, I get crashes now. Straight up computer shuts down. Again, activity doesn't seem to matter, sometimes when it is just sitting there it dies. Also, my fan is going nuts. As in, it is on much more often now.

So today I saw nVidia has a new 169.25 Beta that is supposed to support the 7900 GS. So I downloaded it, but I get the 'cannot detect proper hardeware' error and it just closes. I got this with other drivers but they had modded inis to fix that.

So.. I would like to see what your diagnosis would be. If what I'm getting is normal or specific to me. I hope that I have offered enough detailed information, if not feel free to ask questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

My ideal driver would no longer slow down/stutter windows, no longer have crashes, and no longer cause my fan to run on high 24/7! Whether this is possible I don't know.. Please offer any help or relevant comments! Much appreciated and thank you!

[Guest Shmakley]

First of all I'd like to say Hi.

I've spent hours searching the web for a solution to my problem but nothing works entirely. I'm not one too post on forums, but you all seem to know your stuff around here so maybe you can offer assistance.

First of all I've got a Toshiba P100-SD8

It's got a 2ghz dual core processor, 2gb of ram

and a 7900 Go GS at 256mb I believe.

It originally came with windows XP Media Center but I'm now running Vista Home Premium 32bit.

I did an upgrade and full install to vista and concluded the 'Vista Compatible' sticker on my laptop was pointless. No drivers were retained during the upgrade, so I went to a full install and alas, the same thing.

When I first got things running, I ran a driver from laptopvideo2go.com (nVidia didn't feel like making a vista driver for the 7900) I can't remember the number, but about the mid 150s. Anyways, typically when it started up it ran very smooth with vista! But soon problems became clear. If I played a movie or video in WMP, sometimes it would go to extreme slow motion for video, but the sound would play at normal pace. When this happened all of Vista was affected. Minimizing/Closing/Opening windows was not as smooth, in fact you could see the choppy frame rate from aero when I performed these actions. Games too were obviously affected. If I restarted (or even went into and back out of hibernation) it would be smooth again! But usually for no longer than 10 minutes. So basically windows would slow down, sometimes in 5 minutes of running, something it could last hours until it slowed down. And activity didn't seem to dictate when it would slow down, sometimes I'd play dungeon siege 2 for an hour just fine, others checking my email and bam! slow down. I lived with this problem for a while then I decided to update my driver yesterday.

Now here is where I am. I'm currently running the 169.09 from laptopvideo2go.com with a modded INI (or is it INF?). It still does the occasional slow down/stutter I described earlier. BUT now it doesn't need to be restarted to fix it, sometimes it will just fix it on its own! But this is still a hassle. On top of this, unlike I did with my old driver, I get crashes now. Straight up computer shuts down. Again, activity doesn't seem to matter, sometimes when it is just sitting there it dies. Also, my fan is going nuts. As in, it is on much more often now.

So today I saw nVidia has a new 169.25 Beta that is supposed to support the 7900 GS. So I downloaded it, but I get the 'cannot detect proper hardeware' error and it just closes. I got this with other drivers but they had modded inis to fix that.

So.. I would like to see what your diagnosis would be. If what I'm getting is normal or specific to me. I hope that I have offered enough detailed information, if not feel free to ask questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

My ideal driver would no longer slow down/stutter windows, no longer have crashes, and no longer cause my fan to run on high 24/7! Whether this is possible I don't know.. Please offer any help or relevant comments! Much appreciated and thank you!

There might be some problems with other hardware drivers so try updating as many drivers as you can as well as your BIOS (from the Toshiba website). I have a Dell 9400 with the same video card and I have no problem with driver 169.25 so, again, try checking other drivers.

Good luck.

[apiXx]

Try 167.45 fixed alot of problems for people with a geforce 7900 go gs

[Guest Rene]

Hi,

I also have a Toshiba laptop and the same graphic card and unfortunately the same problems. Yesterday, Toshiba released a new driver for Nvidia graphic cards (156.66). I didn't check the game performance yet but the fan still runs on high speed.

[Guest Elod]

Hi,

I also have a Toshiba laptop and the same graphic card and unfortunately the same problems. Yesterday, Toshiba released a new driver for Nvidia graphic cards (156.66). I didn't check the game performance yet but the fan still runs on high speed.

Updated my Bios to 4.2 and tried several different nvidia drivers and many from this site. Still same problem, just to different severities. All in all I'm disappointed by the compatibility with vista. I admit the features are nice and it does run smooth when the video card isn't been pushed too much but it is not worth it. And so, back to XP I go so I can watch movies and play some games..

[Guest Guest]

There might be some problems with other hardware drivers so try updating as many drivers as you can as well as your BIOS (from the Toshiba website). I have a Dell 9400 with the same video card and I have no problem with driver 169.25 so, again, try checking other drivers.

Good luck.

Gave it a try and nothing.. not as many crashes but 2 in 2 hours is still pretty bad :)