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XPS M1710 - 3D performance dropped?
I bought an XPS M1710 about a month and a half ago. Its GeForce Go 7900 ran 3D games very well and all was good. Recently, I thought I'd noticed 3D performance drop a little, but couldn't quite place my finger on it. Today I had a crash that prompted me to update the graphics driver, which I hadn't done in a while. I upgraded the 9x.xx driver to the 156.xx series from Dell's website. 3D performance subsequently plummeted - my games now run like slideshows.
Pondering further, I installed the latest 174.xx driver from laptopvideo2go.com. This exhibited the exact same performance problem. I then decided a reinstall of Windows was in order, so put Vista back on from scratch and allowed the system to update from Windows Update. Still, performance was terrible.
Something has definitely changed. My Vista Experience Index is now 2.0 (Graphics) and 2.7 (Gaming Graphics) where they were both once over 5.0. Is this a hardware problem? The laptop is under warranty and can be returned if necessary, but it would be an inconvenience.
Pondering further, I installed the latest 174.xx driver from laptopvideo2go.com. This exhibited the exact same performance problem. I then decided a reinstall of Windows was in order, so put Vista back on from scratch and allowed the system to update from Windows Update. Still, performance was terrible.
Something has definitely changed. My Vista Experience Index is now 2.0 (Graphics) and 2.7 (Gaming Graphics) where they were both once over 5.0. Is this a hardware problem? The laptop is under warranty and can be returned if necessary, but it would be an inconvenience.
tigerwolf7
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Posted March 3rd, 2008 14:00
That old driver you were originally running isn't going to run all new games. I'd try to get the newer ones working.
Did you use a driver cleaner program to clean off the old drivers before installing the new ones? Shouldn't normally be necessary though.Message Edited by tigerwolf7 on 03-03-2008 10:37 AM- I tried a complete reinstall of Vista. Windows Update detected a newish NVIDIA driver (there were none installed beforehand) and I let it install it. FPS were awful and Aero was noticeably slower, but the driver was definitely active. :smileyindifferent:
What confuses me is that Dell posted a 15x.xx series driver to my laptop's support site. It's presumably been tested for that hardware, so why is the performance so bad? tigerwolf7
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Posted March 3rd, 2008 16:00
I never let Windows Update install video drivers (at least on my main systems that run games). Causes all sorts of problems.
When you reinstalled Windows, did you get the chipset drivers installed first? If Dell dosen't have new drivers that work, you may need to use laptopvideo2go or force the regular reference drivers to install (you may need to use a fan control program to make sure the fan is clocked fast enough).
Performance should be at worst roughly the same as with old drivers.- Well, with a little help from Dell's technical support the problem turned out to be quite simple to fix. I just had to uninstall the old drivers (there were two, NVIDIA's and Microsoft's) in Safe Mode and then reinstall a new driver.
Now the latest laptopvideo2go.com is running smooth. :smileyhappy:
jcornwall
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Posted March 2nd, 2008 20:00
Now 3D performance is good again?! So it seems that the update Dell shipped on their support site doesn't like my graphics card. :smileysurprised: