Quadro NVS 140M and Team Fortress 2 / Left 4 Dead

[Guest Wotching]

I'm on a Thinkpad T61, with Quadro NVS 140M GPU. I'm running the latest Lenovo-issued drivers, and yet both TF2 and L4D crash right after the "preparing to launch..." phase. It just says "HL2.exe has stopped working...", and Windows provides no error.

Before I restored my computer to factory state, these games worked decently (TF2 had some stuttering issues, L4D was smooth as butter). NOW they won't run, which is counter-intuitive since my OS is cleaner now.

How do I get these games up and running? Audiosurf and Quake Live are functional, btw.

[Andrew55]

I see your problem. Okay, what i suggest is trying the Dox 181.22. If it doesn't work i will consider another solution.

Also what OS are you using?

[Guest Wotching]

Andrew, thanks for the response. I'm on Windows Vista 32bit. I google'd the Dox 181.22, and found http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index....showtopic=22937 Is that what you were referring to? I'll give it a shot. Thanks again; feel free to post other solutions you have in mind.

[Andrew55]

Yes, that's it. If this doesn't work then i will post other solutions (these may involve reinstalling your OS) so hopefully this works.

[Guest Wotching]

Ok. Please note: I looked up the windows crash report, and found this info:

Problem signature

Problem Event Name: APPCRASH

Application Name: hl2.exe

Application Version: 0.0.0.0

Application Timestamp: 470c11ae

Fault Module Name: shaderapidx9.dll

Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0

Fault Module Timestamp: 4877a85b

Exception Code: c0000005

Exception Offset: 00029d16

OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3

Locale ID: 1033

Additional Information 1: f708

Additional Information 2: 2d645f9807c58f9e6bcea951e3ac2c9c

Additional Information 3: c034

Additional Information 4: 6440dcaf6dd47c04a38ee61d3da3113b

[Guest Wotching]

*PROBLEM SOLVED*

I'm not sure precisely what I did to solve the problem, but I know 2 things I did:

-I ran a DirectX 10 installer

-I went to cmd and typed "net localgroup administrators NetworkService /ADD"

Thanks for your help.

[Andrew55]

This is with the new drivers?

[Guest Wotching]

No, actually. I never tried those drivers you told me about. Maybe if I encounter future issues I'll give them a go. =]

[Wotching]

Hey guys, thread creator here again.

Now that I've fixed the HL2.exe problem, I'll mention that within the past several weeks, I've been encountering a different, very unique problem. Whilst gaming, or immediately after gaming, or upon exiting a game, my laptop will literally *power itself off.* Note that this is not a normal windows shutdown; everything is literally dead within seconds. Sometimes, but NOT always, I'll briefly see an error message before the computer proceeds to turn off. It reads something like this: "The .net performance counters on this machine are corrupt. Run exctrlst.exe in the Windows Resource kit to address the problem."

I searched google and microsoft for the Windows Resource kit, but none of the ones I could download pertained to the problem. I finally just searched for "exctrlst.exe" and downloaded it. I didn't know how to use it, so I just unchecked "performance counters enabled" under all 3 bullet points. I just tested under these settings, and the problem still exists. Please provide any knowledge you may have, about performance counters, .NET Framework, or the Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M!

Edited February 18, 2009 by Wotching

[Guest JP-OC]

Aside from what you've done on this thread, I also found another way:

Go to Steam

Right click on Left 4 Dead > click Properties > click Set Launch Options > type in -w 800 -h 600

This will start the game at 800x600 - not the default start resolution L4D does (which doesn't work with quadro cards)

Then, while in L4D, use the recommended settings with an aspect ratio of 4:3.

Then try to play. If it works, quit L4D and go back to L4D properties in steam and erase the 800x600 in launch options and the game will then start at the proper resolution and play nicely.