Larry's INFs for Dell 5150/5160

[LSudlow]

Xragon, I appreciate your letting us know your results. I agree with your conclusions. Most people will probably be happier with one of the earlier drivers unless they need to solve a game problem.

If you do go back to an earlier driver, remember to uninstall the 97 driver first. Upgrades/downgrades between the 97 series and earlier drivers don't seem to work for some reason.

Thanks again!

[DarthCake]

Thanks for the advise, i will test it out and see what is the best for me.

[LSudlow]

January 5, 2007 update:

- Fixed the problem where resolution and nView Display Settings weren't being saved on reboot. It turns out the Nvidia Display Driver Service, which controls those things, needs to be set to autostart. If you've already installed the December update, there's no need to reinstall. You can just go into the Services menu (under Administrative Tools in the Windows Control Panel) and set the startup type to "automatic." The infs are now fixed for your future installations.

- Renamed the 97.44 inf to "97" since it should work well with all 97 series drivers.

As always, please let me know if something doesn't work correctly.

[Xragon]

Thanks a ton for the fix, the not saving of settings where getting annoying.

:)

[David1231RC]

Hi, I have only recently signed up for an account on these forums, but I have been using these drivers for quite a while. First off, I would like to thank Larry for his awesome INFs, and also the driver recommendations by all you guys.

Along with some in-game modifications, I am now able to play CS:S at a playable FPS. :) I use the 71.44 drivers, and I very much enjoy the detailed control panel compared to the Dell driver. The only thing I have been wondering is if I should switch to the 97.44 drivers, since I like updating everything I have. The one I have works fine, but I was wondering if there was any improvement in the new drivers that would make them worth getting.

One thing I have to say is that the Side Band Addressing causes my computer to randomly blue screen with a nv_disp error, but disabling it has seemed to fix the problem.

Once again, I thank the LaptopVideo2Go community for helping nVidia laptop users actually get something out of their computers. Especially I want to thank you Larry for your customized INFs for my 5150. This community has helped me a lot, and I hope I can return the favor in the future!

[LSudlow]

Thanks, David - we appreciate the good words!

If 71.44 works for you, I'd stick with it. The main reason to jump to the 97 series would be to play a game that doesn't work with your current driver. You wouldn't see any other difference and your framerates would be slightly slower.

If you do decide to experiment (which we here at LV2Go completely understand!) remember to uninstall 71.44 first and do a clean install. Also uninstall the 97 driver before downgrading. Upgrades and downgrades don't seem to work, but clean installs work fine.

It's interesting about your SBA - The blue screens are the reason Pieter disables SBA in his infs, but it usually works okay in the 5150/5160.

[sakinfire]

Hi larry,

got a bit of a noob question i tried looking around and coudln't find anything and thought i'd ask you, do your drivers have compatibility with Vista? i'm running the 32bit version with the inspiron 5160 thanks :)

[Ultima]

Well, seeing as how he mentions Vista compatibility several times in the changelog... The answer to that would probably be "yes" :)

Edited January 8, 2007 by Ultima

[LSudlow]

Ultima is right. You won't have Aero glass effects, but you'll have better performance and configurability than with the native Vista drivers. Since the Go5200 is too slow for Aero anyway, it's a good trade-off.

[adhock]

Hi there,

This seems to be the thread to go with for posting queries/issues for the Inspiron 5150 GeForce - I apologize if I should be asking this elsewhere... (if so, can someone point me in the right direction)

I'm trying to help out with a relative's Inspiron notebook, but am coming across some problems with graphics card drivers. It's an Inspiron 5150 notebook, with a 64mb GeForce Go 5200 card in it. It's a bit hard to describe the problem, so bear with me...

Currently (ie with the provided drivers), whenever the resolution is changed from the native 1400x1050 that it is currently running at (either in Windows or by a game booting at a lower res), the image on the screen literally starts shaking and smearing (sort of like a really weak TV signal with a lot of interference). The right-hand side of the image also 'wraps' over the left, covering up the left-hand side of the image. Even changing back to 1400 leaves the screen like this - the screen stays doesn't fix itself up until the machine is reset. The lower resolutions will also work after a machine restart. The drivers (according to the nVidia tab in the display properties) is 6.4.10.4586. So, it *is* possible to run applications and games at lower resolutions, but this involves changing resolution in windows, restarting computer, running program, then changing resolution back, and restarting again.

I tried updating to the latest drivers offered by Dell (from sometime in 2004). These worked, and let me change resolutions without the shaky effect. However, when using these drivers, it now thinks that the native resolution of the panel is 1600 wide, not 1400. So, when running at 1600x1200, the image wraps over left-hand side. In addition, switching to a lower resolution such as 800x600, and setting the graphics card to center the image as opposed to stretching it, results in the 800x600 image being offset from the center (right and down) - basically, I assume what would be the centre of a 1600x1200 image.

After this, I tried the latest drivers on this site, with the provided INF. Same results as the newer Dell drivers. Finally, someone mentioned in the Dell forums that they had had luck with the late 50's-early 60's releases, so I tried the 61.72 release, but this resulted in the same shaky-smeary-blurry screen effect that I started with - only I could not get rid of it with a machine restart. I then searched the laptopvideo2go forums and found this thread, generally recommending either the 67.66 or 81.44 drivers. I've tried the 67.66 drivers with the provided INF from this thread, but still the same problem - it keeps telling me that 1600 is the native res of the panel in the machine.

I've now reverted back to the drivers that I started with, but it's not the ideal solution given the amount of effort required just to run something at a different resolution. I'd greatly appreciate any advice/comments, if anyone has any.

Thanks! :)

[®®®]

Can you post a NERD logfile (see my signature) of your relative'S Inspiron? Are you using Larry's INF (see first post of this thread)?

[adhock]

Can you post a NERD logfile (see my signature) of your relative'S Inspiron? Are you using Larry's INF (see first post of this thread)?

I tried Larry's INF with the 67.66 drivers, which resulted in the machine thinking that the panel's native resolution was 1600 wide.

I've gone back to the drivers that came with the machine now. Attatched is the NERD logfile from the machine as it currently is (supplied drivers, 1400x1050 is listed as native res, unable to change resolutions without shaky screen/screen wrapping).

LaptopVideo2Go_LogFile.txt

[LSudlow]

I'm not sure what might have caused that. I have the same LCD here and it's recognized okay. Try a clean install with my inf and see if that solves it. Be sure to remove the origianl inf to be sure it's not being used by mistake.

Let me know the results. It might give us some more clues. Thanks.

[adhock]

I've tried uninstalling the original drivers through the 'Add/Remove Programs' part and then installing the 67.66 drivers, replacing the 'nv4_disp.inf' with the one provided in the first post. Is that counted as a clean install?

Basically, this results in it still detecting 1600-by-something as the panel's natural resolution, so things are either off-center when set to centre the image, or stretched to beyond the panel's size... :)

Thanks again for the help by the way, I appreciate it.

[LSudlow]

I'm reaching here, but one problem I've seen is that an installation will sometimes default to Clone Mode or DualView. I wonder if that might be happening to you, with the installation defaulting to what it thinks is the best resolution of the external monitor. Check the nView Display Mode (under nView Display Settings in the nvidia control panel) and make sure it's in Single Display Mode.

Can you manually set the correct resolution, or is it completely unavailable?

[adhock]

I'm reaching here, but one problem I've seen is that an installation will sometimes default to Clone Mode or DualView. I wonder if that might be happening to you, with the installation defaulting to what it thinks is the best resolution of the external monitor. Check the nView Display Mode (under nView Display Settings in the nvidia control panel) and make sure it's in Single Display Mode.

Can you manually set the correct resolution, or is it completely unavailable?

I noticed when I first installed the drivers that it was set to Clone, so changed it back to 'Single Display'. However, there was no external monitor plugged into the computer, so it couldn't have been picking the maximum res for an external monitor.

The resolutions can be changed thru the Display Properties to all the usual resolutions (800x600, 1024x768, 1400x1050, etc), but are all either off-centre (when image is centered on the screen), or stretched to a size greater than the screen is, and overlapping over the left-hand side of the screen (eg you can't see the left-hand column of icons of the desktop because the right-hand side of the image - where the close/minimise/maximise icons on windows are - is covering it).

Don't worry too much about it - they're going back home tomorrow, so I don't have much time with the machine. Just thought I'd ask here in case it was a quick fix that someone else had come across. Thanks again for the help :)

Edited January 12, 2007 by adhock

[LSudlow]

I admit to being stumped. I've seen someting similar when playing games with the earlier 90 series drivers, but never with 67.66 or 71.44. Is there any chance that laptop has been rebuilt and is using a different LCD than the original?

[®®®]

Yes, according to the NERD log the laptop seems to be equipped at least 3 times with different LCDs and even the motherboard was recognized by XP 4 times :)

DISPLAY\LGPD154\5&1E63B5AC&0&00000110&01&00 : Plug and Play Monitor

DISPLAY\LPL0000\5&1E63B5AC&4&00000110&01&00 : Plug and Play Monitor

DISPLAY\MEA1999\5&1E63B5AC&0&00000100&01&00 : Plug and Play Monitor

DISPLAY\NVD0D00\5&1E63B5AC&1&00000110&01&00 : Plug and Play Monitor

Furthermore the NV display driver is -at the time of NERD checking the system- not correctly installed. Crucial files seem to be just missing.

A complete uninstallation of NV display driver, then reboot in safe and removing of all PhantomDevices from Device Manager (see my signature) is what i suggest. Then fresh install of Larry's recommended driver and his INF.

[adhock]

Thanks for that. Not sure if I'll get a chance to try it, since I wont have access to the machine after this afternoon - and I'm not sure if I'm game to try something quite so drastic, in case I stuff it up irretrievably. But next time, I'll give it a go. So yeah, thanks for the help :)

[Xragon]

Ultima is right. You won't have Aero glass effects, but you'll have better performance and configurability than with the native Vista drivers. Since the Go5200 is too slow for Aero anyway, it's a good trade-off.

When I tried Vista RC1, the Go5200 was able to render Windows Aero, although it was a little pokey the card is capable of this, do you recommend though that this gets turned off? Because Vista tries to turn it on by default saying that the computer is capable of it.

[LSudlow]

Aero Glass (as opposed to non-glass, without the transparency) did work on the Go5200 in the earlier releases, but has been disabled in the final release (at least on the 5150/5160) because we only have 64MB VRAM.

I don't necessarily recommend disabling it, if you're running a build where it works, but your performance will be much better if you do.

[Dorian]

Hi all,

I've got a problem with my Inspiron 5160. No more games work fine on it, even Unreal Tournament, Baldur's Gate 2 or Warcraft 3, are unplayable. The frame rate become extremely bad when there is a motion. I've updated all the drivers with Dell site, and got the lastest 97.44 Video Drivers + custom INF. But it changes nothing.

What is really strange is that i remember that Half Life 2 was quite playable in the past. I format my computer, without any result, and unfortunatly there is no Error Message.

Any ideas of the problem ?

Thank you.

[LSudlow]

If all games have slowed to a crawl, check for heat. The GPU clock may be running slow to keep it from frying. Blow out the cooling fins in the port next to the A/C jack with a can of compressed air and see if it helps.

Other things to check:

- PowerMizer settings set a max performance (if you have a driver with PowerMizer).

- Clock speed set for default or slight overclock.

- All performance settings at their fastest

- Frames to render ahead, set to 0

- Single display mode - not Clone or DualView.

[Dorian]

Thanks for help it was a dust problem. Now i've got dust in my eyes but my PC is running normally !

[Xenofon]

Dear Larry,

I have a pb with WoW. After the last patch (11 January) the game plays in slow motion. I do not lose frames, just everything goes very slowly.

My card is the NVIDIA Geforce FX Go5200 with 64Mb.

I realized that my drivers were very old (2003!!!).

After updating them with the 67.66, since it is the optimum for this GPU, I still encounter the same problem.

By installing the expansion TBC, nothing changed, I still have the "slow motion" problem.

Can u plz help me, I am desperate.

thnx

Ps: Never before I had such a problem and that the in-game graphic details are all in minimum. It is normal to loose frames when MANY players are in the same spot and the game not to be fluid, but I am not talking for this. Just everything moves so slowly.

Ps2: The problem does NOT appear ALL the times. Sth like 2 out of 3 times i log on. Either it will exist or not at all.