Photoshop 3D Tools Widget Icon Misbehaving...Help!

On my laptop's Photoshop CS4 Extended, the 3D Tools Widget icon does what it should: click on it and the 3D Axis widget opens.

However, perversely, on my desktop, when I click on the icon:

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x159/nightskycreations/3DAxisWidget.jpg

it shrinks to this itsy little spot:

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x159/nightskycreations/3DAxisWidgetMinusculeIcon.jpg

I can only toggle between those two icons. The 3D Axis widget never appears. Open GL is activated and I have 3D Axis checked.

Sigh. Anyone have an idea? I haven't found anything helpful on the Adobe website, except generic advice to adjust Preferences to the default. Which I'm hesitant to do; afraid it will barf up something else. Though I will try that as a last resort.

Thanks in advance.

My guess is it's a video problem. What video card is in your desktop, and how new are its drivers?

The graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS, Driver Date 2/18/2009, Driver Version 7.15.11.8208. The NVIDIA web site for the 8 series shows an update link for a different model (GT instead of GTS), but no link for GTS. The Device Manager search for updates has gone into limbo, the search bar endlessly scrolling.

On the NVIDIA website, the GT link shows the driver GeForce Release 181, version 181.22, release date January 22, 2009. Hmmm. Really a different looking version number from my current 7.15.11.8208 for the GTS.

I'll google a bit more. Maybe that GT 181.22 replaces the former numbering sequence...

Ack. Suddenly the Update Driver Software window is installing driver software. I expected the search to indicate what it found and ask if I wanted it installed. But it's installing. I'll see what happens.

I rebooted, just in case, and now the driver date is 1/10/2008, Driver version 7.15.11.6960. An older version than what I had before, 7.15.11.8208; that is really odd. Loaded up Photoshop, and still have the same problem with the widget. Think I'll roll back the driver to the previous (yet newer) version.

Returning to the default Photoshop preferences might be in my future.

By nVidia's numbering, you're using driver version 182.08. That's ancient. The most current version is 191.07, no less than nine major releases newer. You should definitely update.

So you know don't try to view the driver version through Device Manager. Microsoft has no clue how nVidia does things. And whatever you do, don't ever, ever, EVER, let Windows Update try to install an nVidia driver. That's almost always a recipe for disaster.

To view your driver version number properly, go into your nVidia Control Panel (Start -> Control Panel -> nVidia Control Panel), and click the System Information button at the lower left. On the Display tab, you'll see your video card listed, and you'll see the driver version right next to it, under Details.

As for getting the new one, I'm not sure what you're looking at that doesn't list your card, but if you straight to nvidia.com, click on Download Drivers, and then click on GeForce 8 Series, you'll find that 191.07 is the latest one for the whole series, the 8800GTS included.

To update properly, it's best first to use DriverCleaner to remove all traces of your existing driver. Windows is not always successful at removing drivers on its own. Here's the best procedure to follow:

1. Download the installer for the new driver from nvidia.com, but don't try to install it yet.

2. If you don't already own DriverCleaner, go to drivercleaner.net, and purchase it. It's well worth the $10. I often say it's worth at least 10 times that. It's the only way I know of to ensure a 100% removal of existing drivers, other than cleaning out every file and registry entry by hand, after Windows botches the job. DriverCleaner does it perfectly every time. Don't run it yet, though. Just download and install it for now.

3. Restart your computer in Safe Mode. Tap F8 as you computer is booting up, to bring up the boot menu, and pick Safe Mode from the list.

4. Now run DriverCleaner. Follow the onscreen prompts to completely remove your existing nVidia drivers.

5. Reboot normally.

6. Now run the driver installer you downloaded in step 1.

Follow this same procedure every time you update or otherwise change driver versions, to ensure your drivers are always in proper order. If you'd rather take your chances, and just install a new driver over and old one without going through all this song and dance, you can. But errors will happen from time to time, which could easily lead to the same kinds of malfunctions you've been seeing, or much, much worse. Doing it right may not seem elegant, but it's only 10 minutes or so, and it can save you hours of aggravation later.


If after updating your drivers, Photoshop still isn't behaving itself, I'd suggest you uninstall and reinstall Photoshop. If it's still not cooperating after that, then I'm stumped.

I'm 90% sure the driver update will do the trick, though. So start with that.



Oh, and while you're doing all this maintenance, I'd highly recommend taking the time to defrag your hard drives. SL and Photoshop are both particularly brutal on drive health. I keep an auto-defragger (Diskeeper) running in background at all times, and I perform manual defrags once a week.

I'd also suggest putting your Photoshop scratchdisk, SL cache, and all other temporary folders on a different physical drive from your OS, program files, and data, if they're not already. This will greatly minimize their impact on the health of your primary drives. I actually have three sets of drives, in my machine. I've got two disks on a RAID stripe for my system drive, two more on a RAID mirror for my data drive, and a standalone drive for my scratchdisks, caches, temp folders. This way, programs can abuse that standalone drive all they like, without ever damaging the system or my precious data.

If you've got the physical room in your machine, a standalone scratchdisk is worth its weight in gold.

Thanks for the excellent advice, Chosen. I'll get started on it now.

I checked the HP website for driver versions, and HP recommends the version that was installed (I know, what's that about) for my system, O/S, and graphics card. I can certainly always get back to that if there's a bizarre reason why my HP can't use the latest Nvidia driver.

Off to get that drivercleaner software.

8o)

Yeah, you can always go back if there's a problem. Set a system restore point before you do anything else, and it will be super easy.

In any case, I wouldn't put too much stock in what the HP website has to say. HP's a good company, but at the end of the day, they're just an assembler, like any other. Assemblers don't tend to stay on top of things like this. Their sites tend to recommend what was current when the system was built, or maybe a few months later. It makes sense, if you think about it, since from a profit standpoint, their time is better spent on what they're currently selling than what they already sold in the past.

My ASUS laptop, for example, came with this seemingly great little update utility that is supposed to grab all the latest drivers for all the hardware in the machine. Trouble is, it funnels through an ASUS server to get its information. So unless someone at ASUS decides to update the data on that server, the utility will forever report "There is no need to update," just as it always has, since the day I got the machine.

I look at the actual device designers' websites directly to decide when to update (nvidia.com, realtek.com, etc.).

My stars, but there are a LOT of files associated with the NVidia driver! Driver Cleaner tidied up, then I installed the latest. I think I've evolved to a higher plane of computer existence.

Same problem, though; axis widget inop. However, I felt virtuous since carrying out all those housekeeping chores, defrag, etc.

So, before reinstalling PS, I reset the PS Preferences to default.

Voila!

The widget is there in all its splendor, working as fine as it does on my laptop.

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. However, in my case, it just makes me want a Guinness!

Thanks, Chosen, for your time and advice. We can add this solution to the stockpile now, always a plus in my mind.

Now I got this other problem with the laptop PS crashing when I run Adobe Bridge...

For another post, I think!

Cheers..