Hello surf, cfn, dream…people,
First of all please accept my apologies for not responding to your messages earlier. I had been visiting the site and the nvidia site almost daily, as per my habit. Actually spend an unhealthy amount of time in forums instead the usual social sites everyone seems to like apart from me.
My current drivers are 163.44beta's which are totally stable for me. As before, installed my base drivers (158.24) and followed the process outlined in
http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=5179241&postcount=27.
Nvidia’s .44 have been pretty good so far and without a doubt the most stable drivers for me.
Some people have been having problems including one of my work colleges, who went all 8800ultra Sli. He followed the all the steps on the link above and still could not get it stable. Finally gave in to all his whining (he bought me a box of Milly’s Cookies and large glass bottle of skimmed milk on a Friday morning and made the most innocent face) and paid a visit to the PC.
Note: Using shorthand as I expect people to read the whole thread. As its only 3 pages long at the moment, I think people should. Maybe later I will consolidate everything and edit the initial post, sry.
a. I started off with one 8800u (BFG) in the PC and installed the .24s. I did nothing special, just simply removed the drivers via the control panel…choosing the display adapter drivers only (remove the drivers before un-sli’ing ur PC)
b. Made sure all the mini-servicepacks (m-sp’s) were installed from MS (3 main ones to get at the moment)
c. The nvl pretty came up without having to stress the PC too much. Halo2 nvl’ed the PC almost on demand. I use H2 as one of my core applications for testing the nvl error now.
d. I then followed my posts(all of them) all the way by removing the drivers via control panel, reboot, using drivercleaner (if u have it) and then manually removing ALL traces of the nvidia display drivers in the system32 folder
e. Now I was pretty sure I had cleaned the drivers out pretty well and installed the .24s. Copied over the nvl file manually to the default nvidia display folder under system32. I did not test the .24s and moved onto .44s…I just knew my install of .24 was good from experience. For .44s, I simply removed via the control panel, reboot, install and before rebooting manually copied the ‘expand method’ or “EXPAND.EXE nvlddmkm.sy_ nvlddmkm.sys” to all the places I needed to…basically any existing folder with a copy of the file, do this manually people and don’t rely on the search feature I have already listed all the places in previous posts. Also remember that the default nv_disp4 or something folder should have a copy of the file as well, even if it was not there before we started all our driver-playing.
f. Finally after the reboot got down to some testing and my work college was pretty much drooling as he saw a single 8800u do its thing on Halo2. After playing H2 for 10mins I closed it down and setup my main stress tests via 3dmark06, CSS and luckily he had installed BioShock already. CSS in spectator mode and 3dmark06 looped for 30 mins without any problems. BioShock was fine as well, played for an hour before I realised though:-||
g. So now that I new that I could get the PC stable with just one gpu, I removed EVERYTHING drivers wise, as if I was wanted to start from scratch
h. Now with BFG 8800ultra’s in SLi mode on eVGA A1 mobo P30, I followed the same steps and while it DOES take soooooo long its something I am almost religious about. Clean up system32 folder, install .24, manual nvl file copy, reboot, install 163.44, manual nvl file copy, reboot. Test.
i. One thing to note is that while manually copying the file across everywhere I needed to, some locations this around would simply not give allow me. I simply used the manual permissions commands takeown/calcs, refer to the thread if u have no idea what I am talking about.
j. After finally rebooting for the final time I went through the same process again of testing Halo2, which crashed first time around but after a restart it played fine. 3dmark06/CSS/Bshock all came through fine. 06/CSS was left to run for around 2 hours before it was stopped. After ending the initial phase of testing I asked my work college to leave the PC alone for around an hour while it prime95’ed away
k. I left his house and after around two hours he called me say he could play Bshock and CSS fine but Bshock did crash on him twice in quick succession before it went all stable on him.
My advice for the Sli users it to be more careful when copying the files. I have installed two Sli PCs now, one with the 8800u above and the other on a Dell with 8800GTS Sli. Both having problems but work fine now. The 88gts users was more a games player and told me that he was really impressed that he could now play all his games in Sli.
I do believe that we can work around the whole NVL error until VistaSP1 arrives, which I am sure will magically consign this problem to history. I wanted to play Bshock, which I was able to…mind u it did crash on me a few times but as I was saving instead of going hours with no save, I was not really bothered and simply closing it down and firing the exe made let me carry on playing.
I am still using one ram dimm, mind you the 2 Sli PCs had 4GB of RAM but I downed them to 2GB (1dimm) and never did test it with 4GB. I have a mental block with vista/nvidia and 4GB of ram…they simply don’t work for me.
I have not tested the latest drivers as I can finished playing Bshock and there is currently nothing worth messing up my driver-equilibrium for. I am sure UT and Crysis will make me go through the whole driver process.
Vista32, after the whole nvl error thing has been pretty stable so far. So apps have killed vista but only had 2 bsods which were caused by a TV usb card I tried to install…there drivers were plain crap...terratec pci-e came to the rescue though
I will be checking back now that I know where the thread is. I know I have said this before but I will be re-writing the first post when I eventually get time. My diary suggests 27/28th October as the most likely time. Before then, can someone upload or send me some links on jpeg screen captures of the nvl errors and PM me the info for the thread?
Finally, something to note, dreamscene…ur choice if u run it or not but personally…I have fallen in love with Cloud (FF7:AC) or more precisely his hair for some reason and totally justify having AC 720p as my dreamscene. Should be getting a Dell 1730 with 8700m SLi so I will have 1xPC and 1xlaptop to test things on soon, need the laptop for playing crysis on the train to work (^-^)
