Major problems with latest Windows Driver (6.3)
 

I have a laptop with an nVidia 560 GTX video card and Win7 x64. I'm using both the external display on the nVidia card, and an additional external display with the DisplayLink card.

I've installed V6.3 of the driver, but it causes bad problems. It crashes the nVidia video card upon each reboot, and also when the external nVidia monitor on the HDMI is connected (it does so even if the displaylink adapter is not connected to the laptop). When I boot with all monitors connected, I get no cursor on the nVidia monitors, only on the DisplayLink, but then the PC crashes.

Windows reliability monitor reports a myriad of "Video Hardware Failure" problems, from which the computer eventually recovers (no BSOD), after about 60s during which there's no video from any adapter.

I went back to driver V6.2 and all the problems disappeared. The system works fine, I can boot with all monitors connected, I can disconnect and reconnect any external monitors, with no problem. Is it possible that changes made in 6.3 somehow broke compatibility for laptops with nVidia cards?

Thanks,

Where are these v6.4 drivers? I have numerous problems with 6.3, 6.2 and 6.1 and I am hoping the 6.4 drivers will fix them! So, I would like to try them out.

Thanks,

Osho

Sorry,

I was off by one version... dumb me. 6.3 is the latest, 6.2 is the one working for me.

Not sure if the forum can be renamed...

Bye

Yep - we are aware of problems with v6.3 that are new, introduces by the changes we made to support basic graphics themes. I hope to have an updates driver out to you guys by the end of the week for you to try.

Thanks

Wim

Thanks Wim.

Appreciate it. I will try the new version as soon as available and will let you know.

Ok, I've tested the new 7 beta driver: same problem as with 6.3.

Windows crashes on startup, reports a video hardware error. Driver eventually recovers after about one minute with all three monitors black and works reasonably normal after that. Every change in video configuration (i.e., disconnecting a reconnecting the external non display link monitor) causes a new Video hardware error, another minute or so of black screens, etc.

Can you post your system logs as described here:

http://kb.displaylink.com/269

Also, when you say Widnows crashes on start up, is that a Blue screen, or the graphics card driver restarts?

Thanks

Wim

Hi.

It's a "Video Hardware Error" as specified by Windows Reliability Monitor. It causes all displays to go black, but no BSOD. Then after about one minute (or two), the Video card driver(s) recover, I have my 3 displays working and all remains ok until I disconnect a monitor (even the one connected to the second port of the internal nVidia card) or I reboot the PC. Then exactly the same thing happens.

When the problem occurs, administrative events shows hundreds if not thousands of entries identical to this:

The description for Event ID 14 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event:

\Device\Video11
CMDre 00000000 00000080 00000000 00000005 0000000c

I will do more testing later on. I'm busy right now doing work with my laptop and can't spend too much time chasing crashes; sorry.

We have reproduced the NVIDIA crash on startup, and have a fix for this in our next release, v6.3 M1. It could also fix other issues that have been seen on NVIDIA.

The release should be available in early August. I was blocking the release until we had addressed some of these NVIDIA issues to help you guys on the forum, so now we can move ahead with final test before release.

Wim

It seems that the crash with nVidia cards has been fixed with driver V6.3M1. My PC works normally, as far as I can tell.