Display Crash & Driver recovery

I just got a new Dell XPS1530.. 8600 card 3 mg ram and i have spent huge amounts of time with the Dell support line.. My display flickers and goes to black.. then a recover message.. I have tried everything.. roll back to factory settings, uninstalled sl and reintalled.. changes the vista setting to turn off bells and whistles (Vista 32bit).. Dell says it's nvidia.. Nvidia says its sl .. none of the drivers i have tried have been able to find the hardware...169.25..163.75..to mention a few.. I also downloaded the Vista service pack.. I get at the most 20 min. b4 I crash...and recover. I am not a huge techy so i need help asap.. my time to return this computer is running out...Graphics card checks out in diagnostcs and this only happens with sl...please help me figure this out.

I'm not a techy either, but perhaps it's vista? I've heard a lot of people say vista isn't compatible with SL, but I know a few people have mentioned that they have gotten it to work. Hopefully you can get answers here. Sorry I couldn't help more, but this would be my first guess.

I have had zero problems running on Vista. I have had the exact same problem you are having, Cienna, and fixed it with a driver update.

But you say that updating the drivers is not working for you. And you have obviously been through several driver versions. My guess would be conflictinig DLL's abetween the different drivers you have installed. Reformat and reload is usually a sure fix but before we go down that road ...

From Control panel / Add remove programs (or however you have your set up to get there) look for any video driver installs listed and remove them.

Look on your c: folders for where the nVidia drivers were extracted when you installed them. I am on a shared kiosk machine at work or I would give you the path but I don't remember right off where they are.

When doing all this you may have to reboot. Do it later if you can, if not just reboot but don't let the hardware wizard install. Just cancel out for now.

Finally, install the newest nVida drivers. BUT!!! Don't reboot once it is complete.

Go into hardware management (Right-click My Computer / Properties / Hardware tab / Device management button IIRC) look for display adapters. Right click your card and UNINSTALL.

Now you can reboot.

The hardware wizard should now correctly load the last driver you installed.

I know this is a lot for the casual user especially since I can't remember exactly how to get to some of the places or I would give you a click by click version ... I hope it helps.

It's Graphic Card Driver issues, not Vista.

Nvidia says:

"Download Accelerator" utilities should be disabled when downloading any drivers.
Do not run virus protection software in the background while installing the drivers. This prevents the driver from configuring itself properly."


Vista has a feature which allows recovery when there is a graphics error which could otherwise cause a Blue screen. It is called a "TDR"=Timeout detection and recovery"

A very possible solution is to reinstall the latest driver, ONLY after first uninstalling the one you have AND you can try a driver clean up tool to make sure no pieces of an old driver is lying about.


Also best to change setting to Windows Update, setting it to give you the choice, as to which updates to install and make sure you HIDE any older Nvidia graphics card drivers, that may appear in the list. This was a big problem for some people, even after installing drivers, they would then get an silent update of an old driver because the new one wasn't recognized by Windows Update.

There is also a possibility that one of your ram chips is faulty so run the complete memory diagnostic in windows just to be sure.

well I finally found THE MAN at Dell... after countless hours of tech support and deciding I would have to send this laptop back... I stumbled on someone who not only fixed the problem but tweaked my computer to make it run better...woooooot.. he read the reams of logs and actually went to the trouble of researching a fix.. it was a driver issue (knew that) and updating the driver only made it worse.. seems prob is 8600M GT does not have a driver on the Nvidia site..odd? Had to go to third party and get it... once done.. I am back inworld and stable.. the driver number is 171.16. THANK YOU KELLY!!! for all you do.. you saved your company a return and earned my respect.... )))