Larry's INFs for Dell 5150/5160

[LSudlow]

October 13, 2007 Update:

Updated both nv4_97V_beta.inf and nv4_163_disp.inf to incorporate the blue-screen-on-install fix just discovered by ZZPULP and Pieter. The other infs aren't affected by this bug.

Let me know if there are any problems.

[GratefulGuest]

Well, the absolute fastest is 67.66, but it's a little out of date and has occasional glitches with some recent games. If you aren't a gamer, it's still the best driver ever made for the 5150.

That's followed closely by 71.44, a slightly more up to date driver, and the very last one to work properly with the the version of PowerMizer that comes with the Go5200. (Until the 163 series, that is.)

The 84 series isn't quite as fast as the ones mentioned above, but it's significantly faster than any of the drivers that have come later. 84.25 was one of the first of the 84 series in widespread use and works very well for most users. However, I recoimmend 84.98 and that's what I'm using myself. It's basically 84.25 with many bugs removed.

I can't finish this post without mentioning the 163 series, which runs very well on the 5150/5160. It even has a new PowerMizer that works. Unfortunately, it's also significantly slower than the drivers I mentioned above. If you need it for compatibility with a recent game, fine, but otherwise stick with one of the drivers listed above.

I hope this answers your question!

Hey there guys,

I apologize for this being such an elementary question but I'm actually stumped on it. Thumbing through the posts here I have seen that the Forceware 67.66 is really best for 5150. I have looked through Nvidia's archives as well as FileHippo's and I can't find this driver available anymore. The only place I've really seen it is at Guru3D but the files have been corrupted from every mirror I've downloaded it from.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Bill]

You seem to be missing one of the major things about this site. We (gasp) host drivers and INFs here ourselves.

The 67.66 driver can be downloaded from a link in the bottom of the first post in this topic.

http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index.php?showtopic=6601

You'll need that with either Pieter's mod INF or Larry's INF from the first post in this topic that we are in. (read FAQ section stickied topics)

You really shouldn't get your drivers from Guru, sometimes they don't package them correctly. We update drivers with newer versions and INFs, and make sure you get the complete driver package for a particular driver if it is available.

You can also find the driver here.

http://files.laptopvideo2go.com/xp/15

Since our driver archives are better than our competitors, maybe you should slip us a donation sometime to help keep them up.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/about

[GratefulGuest]

Mr. Bill I really appreciate it. I actually feel silly now because I looked around on here but I obviously didn't look close enough. I'll use the links provided as well as the modified INFs here.

Thanks again.

[Guest Guest]

Just thought I would post a follow up. I was the one who had trouble with the 67 driver/nv40 blue screen a couple months ago.

I saw that the XP drivers were tweaked a bit so I decided to reinstall the 67 driver with the new inf.

I saw also Larry's post about cleaning out the system 32 folder so after I uninstalled I decided to take a look.

I found 17 old nv40 dsp files and several other copies of other driver files. I've used the Driver Cleaner program to clear out old nvidia files before but I guess they missed a few things. I know that you guys through that old infs might have been the cause of the blue screen errors.

Using the new infs with 67.66 right now. No video problems at all.

Thanks again

[LSudlow]

Thanks for reporting back - I definitely appreciate the follow-up. I'm glad it's working!

:)

[Guest SnazE]

Hey there, wanted to know if someone could help me? When I uninstall the previous Nvidia drivers from the add/remove programs it tells me to restart the computer to finish the uninstall. When I restart the computer it auto-detects original drivers and uses them. It doesnt ask me beforehand. How can I get it to ask me first?? So far I just went to the update driver setting in display and had it detect the new one I was installing 163.71.

[LSudlow]

SnazE, go into your Windows\Inf folder and look through the infs that start with OEM. (OEM1.INF, OEM2.INF, etc.) delete any of the nvidia infs that you find there, along with its associated .pnf file. I think that should solve your problem.

[Guest SnazE]

Thanks buddy. BTW nice work on the inf. I needed newer drivers to play games like gal civ 2. This is great. :)

[LSudlow]

Thanks for the good words! I'm glad it worked!

[LSudlow]

Good news for owners of the Dell Inspiron 5150 and 5160 - the new 169.17 driver works quite well (at least for me). And it also includes a functioning PowerMizer. I'm finding no flaws and performance seems quite good. I'm running Oblivion at the same framerates as with 84.69 and playing 720p video with no skipped frames at all.

A couple of notes: there is no way to overclock via the nvidia control panel - you have to use something like RivaTuner. And the old nvidia control panel is unavailable - you need to use the new one.

You'll find the customized inf (for XP only) at the bottom of the first post in this thread. It's nv4_16917.inf

Let me know if you have any trouble with it.

[Guest Fuzion]

Good news for owners of the Dell Inspiron 5150 and 5160 - the new 169.17 driver works quite well (at least for me). And it also includes a functioning PowerMizer. I'm finding no flaws and performance seems quite good. I'm running Oblivion at the same framerates as with 84.69 and playing 720p video with no skipped frames at all.

A couple of notes: there is no way to overclock via the nvidia control panel - you have to use something like RivaTuner. And the old nvidia control panel is unavailable - you need to use the new one.

You'll find the customized inf (for XP only) at the bottom of the first post in this thread. It's nv4_16917.inf

Let me know if you have any trouble with it.

Would you say this driver works better than the 67.66 driver series...gameplay wise?

[LSudlow]

It will be a little slower than 67.66, but not much. Just a frame or two per second. The main thing is that it's a very fast driver that's fully up to date and works well with the latest games.

If you're thinking of upgrading from 67.66, I'd uninstall your present driver before installing the new one. My experience is that upgrading from the older generation drivers to the new frequently leaves old files behind. That doesn't happen when you uninstall the old driver first.

[Guest VideoCardNewb]

It will be a little slower than 67.66, but not much. Just a frame or two per second. The main thing is that it's a very fast driver that's fully up to date and works well with the latest games.

If you're thinking of upgrading from 67.66, I'd uninstall your present driver before installing the new one. My experience is that upgrading from the older generation drivers to the new frequently leaves old files behind. That doesn't happen when you uninstall the old driver first.

When you say that it's a very fast driver, what does that mean? What else does it add to your laptop other than higher fps?

[LSudlow]

Remember we're only talking about the Dell 5150/5160 here. Dell's original infs are very conservative and disable many features of the nvidia drivers. (Not to mention they haven't been updated in years.) The customized infs enable all features and get as much speed out of the 5150/5160's Go5200 as possible.

"Very fast" is a relative term - the Go5200 is anything but a "very fast" video chip. However, some drivers perform very poorly with it. 67.66 is a long-term winner, as is 72.14 and 84.98, though the latter two aren't as fast as 67.66. There have been no fast drivers in the 100 series until 169.17, which has been made worse by the lack of PowerMizer in all drivers since 71.44.

We now have a fast, up-to-date driver with a working PowerMizer - a cause for celebration for owners of these older laptops.

On another note - I'll be working on an inf for 169.21 and will report back here in a day or two.

[LSudlow]

December 12, 2007

- Removed 169.17 inf and added 169.21 inf - a MUCH improved version. If the 169 series continues on its present course, this will become the series of choice for most 5150/5160 users.

As always, let me know if there are any problems.

[Guest Incognito]

Oblivion works with a 64mb fx 5200??? I thought the minimum was 128mb VRAM? Thats awesome!

[LSudlow]

Yeah, but it's very slow - running around 5 fps (or even slower) most of the time, at 640x480 resolution. Even so, it's still very playable, for which I'm thankful.

If you want to try it, let me know and I'll e-mail the customized ini file I use.

[Guest Incognito]

If Oblivion runs has anyone had success with Medieval II on the inspiron 5150/5160??

[Guest SnazE]

Not sure about Medieval II but I know the original works quite nicely on the Inspiron. Also, thanks to Larrys newest inf, Rome Total War works like a charm. Very good work :)

[Guest mercurius]

larry MANY MANY thks,,

you solved my problems with my insp 5150 with a fxgo5200 32 mb.

now i have a brand new driver,

I only have a problem with openGL application: like celestia and stellarium: the texture are at horror-resolution.

if i revert to the old built in driver theese apps run fine.

i tryed googleearth in a openGL fashion and No problem.

I have installe 169.21 driver and your relativ modded inf...

some advice?

thks a lot

mercurius

[LSudlow]

I know next to nothing about OGL, but there are some settings in the inf you can experiment with:

HKR,, Ogl_01887890, %REG_BINARY%, 01,00,00,00

HKR,, Ogl_DefaultSwapInterval, %REG_BINARY%, ff,ff,ff,ff

HKR,, Ogl_QualityEnhancements, %REG_BINARY%, 14,00,00,00

HKR,, Ogl_TexClampBehavior, %REG_BINARY%, 02,00,00,00

HKR,, Ogl_TripleBuffer, %REG_BINARY%, 01,00,00,00

I think the top line and the TexClampBenavior line are the most likely culprits.

You don't need to reinstall to play with these values. Just run regedit and go to:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video and find the key with all the nvidia settings. You can modify any of those values, but you may need to reboot for them to take effect. Try setting both of those lines to 0 and see if it helps. (You can also just delete those lines from the registry to test whether one of them is the problem. Again, you'll need to reboot.)

Alternatively, you can just remove or comment out those lines in the inf and reinstall. You need to uninstall your current driver first or those values will be retained.

Thanks for spotting this! If we find some of those values are bad, I'll be glad to remove them!

[LSudlow]

December 23, 2007 Update:

- Added 169.28 inf

This Looks like another good version for 5150/5160 users. The 169 series continues to be a good one for us.

As always, let me know of any problems.

[Guest Guest]

It has been slow days at my work so I spent reading all this thread from beginning to end, and I must say I am really impressed for the work you guys have done over the past three years. :) Just by reading I have learn so many things I didn´t know about the driver files and their INFs. I used to work at Dell so I have an A+ and Network+ certs (not a necesity but I needed them to get a salary increase) and there are still so many things you can learn around.

One thing that I have found is that you can actually learn more when you have an old computer, compared to having a new one than run almost anything without tweaking.

I own a Inspiron 5150 which I used for casual gaming and I love it. I have it since I was on college and it has never given me any problem, aside from the fan clog. Thank you guys for your efforts, now I think I can use my notebook for gaming for one more year until I buy my next notebook. Thank you guys again and keep it up. :)

[LSudlow]

Thanks for the good words - it makes our work worthwhile!

:)