Prev: Motherboard replacements for Inspiron 1420?
Next: Dell Latitude D610 ialmdev5.dll Blue Screen
From: Larry Hermann on 28 Dec 2009 21:58
I received an XPS 9000 equipped with Windows 7 (64) and the nVidia GT 220
video card on December 1st. From time to time the computer would freeze; the
screen would go black, then recover and produce a message saying that the
video card had registered an error but recovered. From past experience, I
knew that Dell was often sloppy in updating drivers for their peripherals
and went to the nVidia website to see if the drivers had been updated. It
turns out that the drivers shipped by Dell with the the GT 220 are over six
months old, predating the release of Windows 7, and there have been a whole
series of updates since then, the latest a Microsoft certified driver
released in November.

After downloading and installing the new driver I was amazed at the
difference in the performance. Not only did the freezing and video problems
disappear, but the computer runs much faster; it had obviously been very
crippled. I re-ran the Windows Experience utility that comes with Windows 7
and found that the GT 220, which had scored 5.6 with the old driver, was now
scoring 6.5 with the new one. Out of curiosity, I checked Dell's website
forums and found numerous complaints about this issue with customers
requesting service calls and having video cards exchanged. Apparently the
technicians do not update the driver and the problems continue. Several of
the customer postings talk about the installing the current nVidia driver
and solving their problems,

I would expect that someone at Dell would monitor their own forums. Problems
with the video card have been occurring for at least six months and it is an
ongoing issue, yet Dell continues to ship systems with the obsolete driver.
Where is Dell's engineering department and/or the XPS product manager? Don't
they check out the systems they ship, especially when there have been
numerous complaints? The computer itself is a joy, lightning fast and
problem free, with a driver that is Windows 7 compliant.

I put a message similar to this on their website but I will be very
surprised if they take any action.

Larry


From: Brian K on 28 Dec 2009 23:27
Larry, my mate's 9000 was doing the freezing act too. We updated the drivers
a few weeks ago but I've forgotten to ask him if things have improved.



From: lgreenwood on 29 Dec 2009 08:53
On Dec 28, 7:58 pm, "Larry Hermann" <lherm...(a)nospam.com> wrote:
> I received an XPS 9000 equipped with Windows 7 (64) and the nVidia GT 220
> video card on December 1st. From time to time the computer would freeze; the
> screen would go black, then recover and produce a message saying that the
> video card had registered an error but recovered. From past experience, I
> knew that Dell was often sloppy in updating drivers for their peripherals
> and went to the nVidia website to see if the drivers had been updated. It
> turns out that the drivers shipped by Dell with the the GT 220 are over six
> months old, predating the release of Windows 7, and there have been a whole
> series of updates since then, the latest a Microsoft certified driver
> released in November.
>
> After downloading and installing the new driver I was amazed at the
> difference in the performance. Not only did the freezing and video problems
> disappear, but the computer runs much faster; it had obviously been very
> crippled. I re-ran the Windows Experience utility that comes with Windows 7
> and found that the GT 220, which had scored 5.6 with the old driver, was now
> scoring 6.5 with the new one. Out of curiosity, I checked Dell's website
> forums and found numerous complaints about this issue with customers
> requesting service calls and having video cards exchanged. Apparently the
> technicians do not update the driver and the problems continue. Several of
> the customer postings talk about the installing the current nVidia driver
> and solving their problems,
>
> I would expect that someone at Dell would monitor their own forums. Problems
> with the video card have been occurring for at least six months and it is an
> ongoing issue,  yet Dell continues to ship systems with the obsolete driver.
> Where is Dell's engineering department and/or the XPS product manager? Don't
> they check out the systems they ship, especially when there have been
> numerous complaints? The computer itself is a joy, lightning fast and
> problem free, with a driver that is Windows 7 compliant.
>
> I put a message similar to this on their website but I will be very
> surprised if they take any action.
>
> Larry

Yes, Dell does apparently continue shipping their products when there
are known problems with some of the components in their products.
That has been my experience also. You might want to monitor the
temperature generated by your nVidia card. I am curious if nVidia ever
fixed the heating issues with their video cards. The other Larry
From: Tom Lake on 29 Dec 2009 11:13

"Larry Hermann" <lhermann(a)nospam.com> wrote in message
news:TP-dnd0OyPnx7aTWnZ2dnUVZ_jWdnZ2d(a)giganews.com...
> I received an XPS 9000 equipped with Windows 7 (64) and the nVidia GT 220 video card on
> December 1st. From time to time the computer would freeze; the screen would go black,
> then recover and produce a message saying that the video card had registered an error
> but recovered. From past experience, I knew that Dell was often sloppy in updating
> drivers for their peripherals and went to the nVidia website to see if the drivers had
> been updated. It turns out that the drivers shipped by Dell with the the GT 220 are over
> six months old, predating the release of Windows 7, and there have been a whole series
> of updates since then, the latest a Microsoft certified driver released in November.

I never rely on the drivers that come with a pre-built computer. I just bought
a 9000 with a GTS 240 in it. I couldn't run Bejeweled 2 and 3-D Vision was jerky.
I visited the Nvidia site, got the latest driver and am happy now. My 3-D Vision
and all games including Bejeweled 2 run fine.

Tom Lake

From: Ben Myers on 29 Dec 2009 11:59
lgreenwood(a)srt.com wrote:
> On Dec 28, 7:58 pm, "Larry Hermann" <lherm...(a)nospam.com> wrote:
>> I received an XPS 9000 equipped with Windows 7 (64) and the nVidia GT 220
>> video card on December 1st. From time to time the computer would freeze; the
>> screen would go black, then recover and produce a message saying that the
>> video card had registered an error but recovered. From past experience, I
>> knew that Dell was often sloppy in updating drivers for their peripherals
>> and went to the nVidia website to see if the drivers had been updated. It
>> turns out that the drivers shipped by Dell with the the GT 220 are over six
>> months old, predating the release of Windows 7, and there have been a whole
>> series of updates since then, the latest a Microsoft certified driver
>> released in November.
>>
>> After downloading and installing the new driver I was amazed at the
>> difference in the performance. Not only did the freezing and video problems
>> disappear, but the computer runs much faster; it had obviously been very
>> crippled. I re-ran the Windows Experience utility that comes with Windows 7
>> and found that the GT 220, which had scored 5.6 with the old driver, was now
>> scoring 6.5 with the new one. Out of curiosity, I checked Dell's website
>> forums and found numerous complaints about this issue with customers
>> requesting service calls and having video cards exchanged. Apparently the
>> technicians do not update the driver and the problems continue. Several of
>> the customer postings talk about the installing the current nVidia driver
>> and solving their problems,
>>
>> I would expect that someone at Dell would monitor their own forums. Problems
>> with the video card have been occurring for at least six months and it is an
>> ongoing issue, yet Dell continues to ship systems with the obsolete driver.
>> Where is Dell's engineering department and/or the XPS product manager? Don't
>> they check out the systems they ship, especially when there have been
>> numerous complaints? The computer itself is a joy, lightning fast and
>> problem free, with a driver that is Windows 7 compliant.
>>
>> I put a message similar to this on their website but I will be very
>> surprised if they take any action.
>>
>> Larry
>
> Yes, Dell does apparently continue shipping their products when there
> are known problems with some of the components in their products.
> That has been my experience also. You might want to monitor the
> temperature generated by your nVidia card. I am curious if nVidia ever
> fixed the heating issues with their video cards. The other Larry

Unfortunately, Dell and others integrate the Windows software install
into the whole factory assembly process. Installing the same software
every time, even if buggy, will continue until somebody intervenes with
an updated version... Ben Myers
 |  Next  |  Last
Pages: 1 2 3
Prev: Motherboard replacements for Inspiron 1420?
Next: Dell Latitude D610 ialmdev5.dll Blue Screen