the thing is, i can select the nvidia card, but it doesn't recognize the drivers i am installing ...

i also disabled the intel on-board card, and i was using the nvidia but couldn't adjust the resolution higher than 600*800 ... tried both the drivers that came with the laptop and the drivers from the nvidia site ... but nothing ....

any ideas ?

You cannot disable the Intel video circuit - ALL of the video signal depends on it.

As for the drivers, they MUST come from Dell and they MUST be installed AFTER other drivers are in place.

Start here:

support.dell.com/.../document

At the top of the form is a sticky post  that explains Optimus technology.   Start with that.

Once again:  YOU CANNOT DISABLE THE INTEL VIDEO.  The system is not designed to run - and in fact CANNOT run - on the nVidia graphics alone.  You select the video you want for each application by using the Optimus control panel.

For a brief overview of how Optimus works, see

www.nvidia.com/.../optimus_technology.html

i want to use the nvidia one, not the intel one.

i have all the other drivers intalled, and i already removed the graphics drivers and reintalled them many times, i was also using drivers sweeper to make sure there were no driver files left before i reinstall the nvidia drivers

hmm in fact i could disable the intel card, and i was using the nvidia one, but i tried without disabling it as well, and it did not work, i already tried the optimus options and it did not work as well cause the card appreantly doesn't recognize the drivers ... the intel one is still working ... and its working good, but the nvidia doesn't works properly ...

Enj63 is giving the correct information here.  There is no option in the bios on the XPS notebooks to disable Optimus. With Optimus both the drivers for Intel and Nvidia must be installed. This isn't to say that you can't go into device manager and disable them. Doing so could possibly corrupt both the Intel and the Nvidia drivers, possibly fixing them so neither work.

If this is what you have tried, then I suggest downloading the latest Intel and Nvidia drivers from Support.Dell.com for your XPS and saving them to your desktop, do not install them yet.  Once they have been downloaded go into control panel and look for and uninstall both the Intel and Nvidia drivers completely. Do not restart the system when prompted, uninstall both sets of drivers first and then manually shut the system down.  

Start the system back up while tapping F8 and select low resolution mode from the menu.  There install the Intel and Nvidia drivers.

If you continue to have problems my next suggestion will be to either run a PC restore or manually reinstall Windows. For more on PC restore or manually reinstalling Windows please check out the following link.

support.dell.com/.../document

TB

after i disable the intel card from the device manager i restored the windows, and the intel card went back to fully operational.( u r right, there is no option in the bios for disabling it.)

i can try reinstalling windows, but do u think there is a chance that the nvidia card is corrupted ? the windows recognizes it and the nvidia site also recognized it when i tested  ... so could there still be a problem with the card or is it more likely that reinstalling the windows would fix that ?

thank u for ur time

Eshel

There is a possibility that the Nvidia card is defective,  but even more of a chance that the video drivers have been corrupted in Windows. Without knowing all the keys that the drivers installed into the Windows registry, if uninstalling and reinstalling the video drivers doesnt help, sometimes it is just easier and less time consuming to reinstall the OS.

Obviously if you reinstalled Windows and the correct drivers was installed and the problem continues, everything else has been counted for, then you have to look at the hardware for the problem.

TB

ok after reinstalling i ran into the same problem, contacted the local dell and the tech guy was unsure but told me it should be that way ...

so i reinstalled the nvidia drivers, downloaded a benchmark prog and ran a graphic test, after that uninstalled the nvidia drivers and ran the test again ... and i got a lower score the second time so i concluded it was working :P

I have to say that the new machines that r coming out are giving u a really hard time determining which graphic card they use :P cause i never ran into something like :P

Thank you all for your time and patient :)

Eshel