Gaming issue and problem with external hard drive

Chris Arnold · 01-16-2013, 09:33 PM

Hi, thanks in advance for any help with the following 2 issues

1. My Seagate 2TB external hard drive is recognized when plugged directly into my laptops USB 3.0 ports and when it's plugged into the USB 2.0 port on my Targus USB 3.0 Superspeed DisplayLink Docking Station. I believe that it's a DisplayLink 3900 series.

2. XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a game that worked on my external monitor through the docking station at the correct resolution yesterday, will not work correctly on it today. It works when the resolution is set to 1920x1080, or when it's set to 1920x1200 but running in windowed mode only, not full screen. The game runs perfectly on the laptop's internal monitor, and it works on the external monitor at correct resolution when the monitor is plugged directly into the laptop. The game either freezes up when I try to correct the games resolution to 1920x1200 when I'm in full screen mode, or it freezes up when it's already set to that resolution in windowed mode and I select full-screen mode. If the settings are set correctly when I start the game, it freezes up immediately when the game starts. It almost locks up the computer, and I have to shut the game down via task manager.

Since yesterday, I've run a windows update, and I specifically remember seeing a displaylink drivers update. I do not know what drivers I had before.

Laptop: Alienware M17X R4, Nvidia GTX680M Graphics card, dedicated graphics card internal to the i7 chps is disabled in the BIOS, Win 7 Ultimate OS

External Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster T240 (1920x1200)

Drivers:
Targus USB3.0 DV Docking Station: 7.0.41409.0
DisplayLink Display Adapter (4306): 7.0.41409.0
Targus USB Audio: 7.0.41612.0
Nvidia GTX 680M: 9.18.13.1090

I am all ears on how I can fix these two issues.

Wim · 01-17-2013, 12:33 PM

Have you tried updating to 7.1? I'm pretty sure this had a fix for full screen gaming on Windows 7.

The Seagate disk issue is outside the DisplayLink technology, as we're just one chip in the dock to provide the Video, audio and Ethernet. The USB hubs are from other manufacturers.

Wim

Chris Arnold · 01-17-2013, 05:08 PM

Help me out here... How to I check and/or ensure that I am fully updated? I believe I have the most up-to-date drivers, though.

Chris Arnold · 01-17-2013, 10:31 PM

Disregard all... This is the same as the other thread about the displaylink vs. NVIDIA drivers issue. rolling back my nvidia drivers lets me use the game again, but still not through the docking station onto my external monitor. I'll try to figure out how to ensure I have the latest 7.1 DisplayLink drivers. I'm pretty sure that my Windows Update took care of that already, but I'm sure I figure out how to check and update if necessary.

Chris Arnold · 01-17-2013, 10:48 PM

Ok... yeah, I definitely figured it out and tried loaded 7.1M0, and it said I was already up-to-date, which is confusing because of the driver number listed in the device manager. However, I followed instructions in the manual to remove the DisplayLink software and then I reinstalled 7.1M0 successfully. I'm using the old 306.23 Nvidia driver because 310.90 was causing problems. Now, XCOM works as I stated before: no issues on either monitor when display link isn't used, but not on the external monitor when connected to my DisplayLink Targus docking station. The point to all of this is that I would like to go back to the previous driver, because that was working for me. Can you please provide a link to it?

Thanks,

Chris

Chris Arnold · 01-17-2013, 11:35 PM

God that was painful! Alright, after struggling through for the last 3 days, I'm happy to say everything is working without glitches again. I really have no clue which driver I actually have, but according to the device manager it's 6.3.38103.0, and according to the uninstall programs list it's "product version: 6.3.38355.0"

Anyway, I could not get 7.1M0, 7.0, or 6.3 or whatever the final 6 version was from displaylink's site to work with my game, XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Ultimately, I ended up reloading the driver's directly from the disk that came with the hardware.

Currently, I'm running Nvidia driver 306.23, but it seems from other threads I've read 306.97 will also work. What I'm sure won't work, at least with DisplayLink installed, are the latest drivers: 310.90, and 310.70. When DisplayLink and the most current Nvidia driver's are installed on the same system, expect issues with internet explorer giving an error message after being closed, Google Chrome randomly hangs when a new internet address is entered until it's closed and restarted, desktop windows manager (DWM.exe) stops working over and over again unless it or aero overall is disabled. Lastly, when running dxdiag from the run window, it would immediately crash on the first attempt and alert to a problem with "Direct3D" on the second attempt.

With new DisplayLink drivers but old Nvidia drivers XCOM but likely other games too tend to freeze in full screen mode on a displaylink docking station. With the most current Nvidia drivers and any DisplayLink drivers, I couldn't get the game to work on any screen with or without the docking station.

That was all a bit of a nightmare for a less than proficient computer guy like me. Customer support all around (Nvidia, DisplayLink, and 2k games) didn't seem to have much of an idea as to what was going on with DisplayLink, and really only the 2nd 2k games tech that I spoke to was able to determine that it must have to do with the video card or the video driver itself. Once I reverted to the old driver, I could play the game again, but not through the docking station on my external monitor. Finally, reverting to the DisplayLink driver that came on the disk solved the external monitor problem. Sorry if some of that was repetitive/redundant, but I just spent 5-6 hours for 2 days in a row trying to fix this problem. So, hopefully it ends up saving someone some time diagnosing their own system's problem.

Thankfully, now that I'm done, I can get some rest. It's 01:30 am here in Germany. But hey, no hard feelings. At least I learned a ton!

Chris Arnold · 03-15-2013, 06:36 PM

I might as well document my continuing struggle with displaylink here where it might help others.

As an update to the previous thread, the displaylink driver I used in conjuction with the Nvidia driver that seemed to make everything work was displaylink version R6.3M0, and Nvidia driver 306.23, as mentioned earlier.

I just bought Crysis 3, and Nvidia's latest non-experimental driver was necessary to get it working optimally on my system. That's Nvidia driver 314.07, and of course to avoid the problems I noted earlier, I updated to the 7.1M1 Displaylink driver. However, I am again having the following 2 problems, so far:

1. XCOM doesn't work again unless I disconnect the Targus USB 3.0 docking station and plug the external monitor in directly.

2. Google chrome does not work at all. It tries to load pages but remains at a white screen or gives me the "aw, snap" error message.

There are 2 work-arounds I've found that are effective. The one that works the best is changing the target path of the google chrome exe file to:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --no-sandbox

Be sure to include the quotations, as the above is a direct copy/paste from the target path line in properties. Also, I don't really know what other things this affects, but others are saying that running chrome in this mode will compromise security.

The other method that won't compromise security is typing this into the chrome toolbar: chrome://flags/ Then, under "GPU compositing on all pages" select "disabled" The problem with this method is that flash no longer works, i.e. youtube.

dxdiag seems to be functioning again, and that's all I've noticed so far.

01-16-2013, 09:33 PM	#1
Chris Arnold Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 10	Gaming issue and problem with external hard drive Hi, thanks in advance for any help with the following 2 issues 1. My Seagate 2TB external hard drive is recognized when plugged directly into my laptops USB 3.0 ports and when it's plugged into the USB 2.0 port on my Targus USB 3.0 Superspeed DisplayLink Docking Station. I believe that it's a DisplayLink 3900 series. 2. XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a game that worked on my external monitor through the docking station at the correct resolution yesterday, will not work correctly on it today. It works when the resolution is set to 1920x1080, or when it's set to 1920x1200 but running in windowed mode only, not full screen. The game runs perfectly on the laptop's internal monitor, and it works on the external monitor at correct resolution when the monitor is plugged directly into the laptop. The game either freezes up when I try to correct the games resolution to 1920x1200 when I'm in full screen mode, or it freezes up when it's already set to that resolution in windowed mode and I select full-screen mode. If the settings are set correctly when I start the game, it freezes up immediately when the game starts. It almost locks up the computer, and I have to shut the game down via task manager. Since yesterday, I've run a windows update, and I specifically remember seeing a displaylink drivers update. I do not know what drivers I had before. Laptop: Alienware M17X R4, Nvidia GTX680M Graphics card, dedicated graphics card internal to the i7 chps is disabled in the BIOS, Win 7 Ultimate OS External Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster T240 (1920x1200) Drivers: Targus USB3.0 DV Docking Station: 7.0.41409.0 DisplayLink Display Adapter (4306): 7.0.41409.0 Targus USB Audio: 7.0.41612.0 Nvidia GTX 680M: 9.18.13.1090 I am all ears on how I can fix these two issues. Last edited by Chris Arnold; 01-16-2013 at 09:41 PM.

01-17-2013, 11:35 PM	#6
Chris Arnold Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 10	God that was painful! Alright, after struggling through for the last 3 days, I'm happy to say everything is working without glitches again. I really have no clue which driver I actually have, but according to the device manager it's 6.3.38103.0, and according to the uninstall programs list it's "product version: 6.3.38355.0" Anyway, I could not get 7.1M0, 7.0, or 6.3 or whatever the final 6 version was from displaylink's site to work with my game, XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Ultimately, I ended up reloading the driver's directly from the disk that came with the hardware. Currently, I'm running Nvidia driver 306.23, but it seems from other threads I've read 306.97 will also work. What I'm sure won't work, at least with DisplayLink installed, are the latest drivers: 310.90, and 310.70. When DisplayLink and the most current Nvidia driver's are installed on the same system, expect issues with internet explorer giving an error message after being closed, Google Chrome randomly hangs when a new internet address is entered until it's closed and restarted, desktop windows manager (DWM.exe) stops working over and over again unless it or aero overall is disabled. Lastly, when running dxdiag from the run window, it would immediately crash on the first attempt and alert to a problem with "Direct3D" on the second attempt. With new DisplayLink drivers but old Nvidia drivers XCOM but likely other games too tend to freeze in full screen mode on a displaylink docking station. With the most current Nvidia drivers and any DisplayLink drivers, I couldn't get the game to work on any screen with or without the docking station. That was all a bit of a nightmare for a less than proficient computer guy like me. Customer support all around (Nvidia, DisplayLink, and 2k games) didn't seem to have much of an idea as to what was going on with DisplayLink, and really only the 2nd 2k games tech that I spoke to was able to determine that it must have to do with the video card or the video driver itself. Once I reverted to the old driver, I could play the game again, but not through the docking station on my external monitor. Finally, reverting to the DisplayLink driver that came on the disk solved the external monitor problem. Sorry if some of that was repetitive/redundant, but I just spent 5-6 hours for 2 days in a row trying to fix this problem. So, hopefully it ends up saving someone some time diagnosing their own system's problem. Thankfully, now that I'm done, I can get some rest. It's 01:30 am here in Germany. But hey, no hard feelings. At least I learned a ton! Last edited by Chris Arnold; 01-17-2013 at 11:40 PM.

01-17-2013, 12:33 PM	#2
Wim Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 1,561	Have you tried updating to 7.1? I'm pretty sure this had a fix for full screen gaming on Windows 7. The Seagate disk issue is outside the DisplayLink technology, as we're just one chip in the dock to provide the Video, audio and Ethernet. The USB hubs are from other manufacturers. Wim

01-17-2013, 05:08 PM	#3
Chris Arnold Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 10	Help me out here... How to I check and/or ensure that I am fully updated? I believe I have the most up-to-date drivers, though.

01-17-2013, 10:31 PM	#4
Chris Arnold Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 10	Disregard all... This is the same as the other thread about the displaylink vs. NVIDIA drivers issue. rolling back my nvidia drivers lets me use the game again, but still not through the docking station onto my external monitor. I'll try to figure out how to ensure I have the latest 7.1 DisplayLink drivers. I'm pretty sure that my Windows Update took care of that already, but I'm sure I figure out how to check and update if necessary.

01-17-2013, 10:48 PM	#5
Chris Arnold Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 10	Ok... yeah, I definitely figured it out and tried loaded 7.1M0, and it said I was already up-to-date, which is confusing because of the driver number listed in the device manager. However, I followed instructions in the manual to remove the DisplayLink software and then I reinstalled 7.1M0 successfully. I'm using the old 306.23 Nvidia driver because 310.90 was causing problems. Now, XCOM works as I stated before: no issues on either monitor when display link isn't used, but not on the external monitor when connected to my DisplayLink Targus docking station. The point to all of this is that I would like to go back to the previous driver, because that was working for me. Can you please provide a link to it? Thanks, Chris

03-15-2013, 06:36 PM	#7
Chris Arnold Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 10	I might as well document my continuing struggle with displaylink here where it might help others. As an update to the previous thread, the displaylink driver I used in conjuction with the Nvidia driver that seemed to make everything work was displaylink version R6.3M0, and Nvidia driver 306.23, as mentioned earlier. I just bought Crysis 3, and Nvidia's latest non-experimental driver was necessary to get it working optimally on my system. That's Nvidia driver 314.07, and of course to avoid the problems I noted earlier, I updated to the 7.1M1 Displaylink driver. However, I am again having the following 2 problems, so far: 1. XCOM doesn't work again unless I disconnect the Targus USB 3.0 docking station and plug the external monitor in directly. 2. Google chrome does not work at all. It tries to load pages but remains at a white screen or gives me the "aw, snap" error message. There are 2 work-arounds I've found that are effective. The one that works the best is changing the target path of the google chrome exe file to: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --no-sandbox Be sure to include the quotations, as the above is a direct copy/paste from the target path line in properties. Also, I don't really know what other things this affects, but others are saying that running chrome in this mode will compromise security. The other method that won't compromise security is typing this into the chrome toolbar: chrome://flags/ Then, under "GPU compositing on all pages" select "disabled" The problem with this method is that flash no longer works, i.e. youtube. dxdiag seems to be functioning again, and that's all I've noticed so far.