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jesus.inzunza

7 Posts

83434

December 9th, 2007 02:00

M1330 NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS display problem

Hello,

I purchased a XPS M1330 Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7300 (2.0GHz/800MhzFSB, 4M L2 Cache) Vista Home Premuim 32bit Slim and light LED display, 2 GB ram, 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS this past September 2007. Everything worked great, until this week when I first got the "nvidia display driver nvlddmkm.sys has stopped working..." error. Since then, I haven't been able to run Vista again with the Nvidia card enabled. I tried everything, from upgrading drivers to even rolling back. I downloaded the drivers from Dell's support page, as the GeForce 8400M GS drivers aren't available in the Nvidia site, but those didn't solved anything.

The problem has gotten worse, as sometimes my computer will freeze, and the display will show weird vertical lines, or when I start up vertical lines will show up that change color and get brighter and then dark again and never get past that. This happens even at the startup Dell loading computer, immediately after I press the ON button on the laptop. This got me thinking, is this a driver problem, or a hardware issue? What solution or option would be the best for this kind of problem?

I will restore my laptop to its original factory settings next week if this continues. Maybe then I will be able to determine if it's a driver or a hardware issue. But in the meantime, please somebody help!!! I'm desperate!

XPS M1330
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7300 (2.0GHz/800MhzFSB, 4M L2 Cache)
2GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm
28MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
13.3 Inch Wide Screen WXGA TL WLED Backlit LCD
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition

jacksmcc

1 Message

December 9th, 2007 18:00

Hi,
 
I am having the same problems with my newl XPS M1330. It is similar spec to yours but with 4Gig of RAM. I have been having the problem since I got my laptop a few weeks ago. The problems started on Day 1. I have done some research and it seems if I do anything to do with advanced graphics (e.g. webcam or watching a move in WMP) I start getting the " Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered." error. I did apply a MS hotfix KB940105 which has seemed to have helped but not fixed the problem. The one thing I would say is that I got the problem fairly early on, that is before I had really installed any software on the laptop. I would be interested to know what happens when you restore the laptop to the factory settings if the problem goes away or remains.
 
Thanks.

pmayo

12 Posts

December 10th, 2007 11:00

Welcome to the club -- same configuration same issues.  I have noticed mine will do this even before the drivers are loaded (when in the bios loading cycle).  I have also gotten a blue screen of death -- parity error.  I think we all have some hardware issues releated to Video RAM...

jesus.inzunza

7 Posts

December 10th, 2007 13:00

Hi all,

After doing some research, I found some advices to this type of problem, and seemed to worked well until now, as I have managed to have my laptop running with the nVidia card enabled without problems all Sunday, and today as well. Here is what I did:

1) I downloaded the nVidia drivers for the GeForce 8400M GS card from Dell's support page, as they are not available trough the nVidia's site:

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&ServiceTag=&SystemID=XPS_M1330&os=WLH&osl=en&catid=&impid=

2) I installed some of the Vista hotfixes recommended by the nVidia's site:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/windows_vista_hotfixes.html

Some of these where already installed previously by Windows Update, so after downloading them and running the installer, they sent the message "This update doesn't apply to your system". I downloaded and tried to install all of them just in case I was missing any (which was the case).

3) I don't know if this helped in any way, but I also set in the nVidia control panel my preferences emphasizing "performance" instead of "quality". I read this advice in some other forum, but like I said, I'm not sure if it actually helps.

I hope this can help anyone having this kind of problem. jacksmcc and pmayo, it would be great if you try this (if you haven't) and confirm if it really does help fix your problems.

pmayo

12 Posts

December 10th, 2007 15:00

Thanks for the info.  Spent the day running hardware diagnostics with no failures.
Have tried the latest driver but did not have it set for performance.  Have done this and will see how long it takes for me to break it :)

pmayo

12 Posts

December 11th, 2007 04:00

Did any of you do a windows update and install the NVIDIA graphics driver from the microsoft site?? I did and it seems rolling back to the one on the Dell site and applying the fixes seemed to work...

jesus.inzunza

7 Posts

December 11th, 2007 13:00

I have Windows Update enabled, so when trying to apply the hotfixes from the Microsoft site, they were already installed in my laptop. All but except one, the Kb936710. I'm really not sure why it wasn't installed before, but its seems that this hotfix solved the problems I was having (alongside with all the others of course).

I continue to have no problems at all for a third day in a roll.

jesus.inzunza

7 Posts

December 11th, 2007 21:00

Ok, bad news. My display stopped working again this afternoon. I'm blaming the display because I could hear normal Vista sounds, so the computer wasn't freezed at all, just the display. I restarted, and in the bios loading cycle(even before any drivers were loaded) were the same weird color lines. I didn't touched the laptop so I could see if this would go away, and it turns out it loaded Windows Vista (I heard the welcome sound).

I restarted it a couple times until the display worked correctly. Started in safe mode, and after disabling the nvidia card, the display went black and returned with many weird color pixels, although it still worked.

I restarted again, now in the windows normal mode. It work ok, but sometimes the display just stops working and shows vertical white and gray lines, then after a couple of minutes it works again.

I really think this is a 100% hardware issue. I don't know if it's a defect in the backlit LCD, or as pmayo said, a hardware issue related to Video RAM.

If anybody got a solution, please help us. I'm contacting Dell's support anyway

nathanrt

7 Posts

January 1st, 2008 20:00

I have had a similar problem with my XPS M1330. At first it was intermittent, then it got to the point where I could not boot. As soon as I hit the power button I would get the vertical lines. I talked to Dell Support today and they had me run a diagnostic to see if it was the LCD or the Motherboard/graphics card (Fn key + Power button). The LCD checked out so they are sending someone out to replace my motherboard later this week. Hopefully that will fix the problem. If not, they said their next step would be to replace the LCD.

Juniorr6

6 Posts

January 21st, 2008 17:00

Same problem here. Just started this month. I did re-install the factory state thinking it would fix it, but it is still getting distorted and locking up.

nathanrt

7 Posts

January 21st, 2008 18:00

After having my mainboard replaced, I haven't had any more display problems. So, it's definitely a hardware issue. I'm guessing video RAM going bad.

Juniorr6

6 Posts

January 21st, 2008 19:00

i'll find it.
 
thanks for evrything

Juniorr6

6 Posts

January 21st, 2008 19:00

did you have to send it back to Dell or you mentioned they came out to you?

nathanrt

7 Posts

January 21st, 2008 19:00

They sent someone out to replace it.

Juniorr6

6 Posts

January 21st, 2008 19:00

do you remember the number that you called?
 
Thank you

nathanrt

7 Posts

January 21st, 2008 19:00

I don't remember the exact number, but it's the one listed in your documentation for XPS Support. If you can't find it I can dig my documentation out and look it up. edit: I can't get a link to work, but if you look on their support page there is a list of their US Support phone numbers.

Message Edited by nathanrt on 01-21-2008 03:40 PM

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