**M980NU (X1/Commanche SLI/NP9850) Owners Thread**

From the sounds of it any possible fixes are not included in these drivers.

 

I can't find this version for the notebook.

 

They havent released one, you'd need to use a modded inf.

 

Yeah, I'm not seeing the update to the audio unless it's hidden inside there somewhere. Either way I've not tried these yet as I try to stick with WHQL cert drivers for my blu-ray. From what I've read though the framerate benefits in gaming is substantial for some people. I'd love that as well. Hopefully we'll see the notebook version soon.

 

Win 7 question.

I have Win 7 installed, but I would like to install a clean copy just using my upgrade disk on my 3rd HDD.

Now I would think it wouldn't be an issue installing and activating it. Am I right?

 

One more update on the audio stutter from the nvidia forums:

"The fix does not disable Powermizer. The driver was in a DPC state for too long and this was corrected. It should not have an adverse affect on performance. Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will be releasing a new driver which unfortunately does not include this fix as it did not make it in time (the fix was added shortly after this driver was built). The fix will be in drivers following this. Once I get the exact driver versions, I will update this thread."

Also noted, there is no performance drop due to the fix; just in case anyone was wondering. =) Alas...we must wait for the next update!

 

That is fantastic news! Can you link me to that thread again I lost the link.

Damn, I am now playing Fallout 3 and Call of Duty 4, and I'm experiencing major MAJOR audio stutter in these games!! It's so annoying! I remember someone in this thread posting a way to reduce the audio stutter. Do you guys recommend applying the manual fix, or waiting until the fixed driver? I don't want to wait too long cuz dang, it's kinda ruining my enjoyment of the games. Where's the link to the manual fix anyway?

 

*points to signature*

If you're having major issues try it, we dont know when our driver will be here and as you say its ruining your enjoyment NOW.

 

Is this driver compatible with our Notebook mobile gpu? If not, have they mentioned when the mobile version is coming?

 

No its not, and no they haven't.

 

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=157614&pid=1009990&mode=threaded&start=100#entry1009990

Pretty excited myself...now to remain patient until next patch...argh!

 

Thanks a bunch guys much appreciated

 

nvidia has released a dpc drriver fix for the m17x. Check out the alienware forums and see what's up and if iit works for you.

 

It doesn't, at least not 100%.
It is much better than stock drivers previously though, (roughly the same level as the powermizer tweak on my machine), and mileage may vary. Neil from Kobalt explicitly advised to actually avoid this release for now, for the simple fact Clevo have not released thier own version of the update yet, meaning they may believe further work and validation needs to be done.
If anyone with the GTX280m SLI pops onto the Kobalt forums, I've stuck my modified inf on there if anyone wants to be lazy (one of my last posts in the big long thread) and try the Dell drivers

 

If you guys are getting sick of my updates let me know. Here's some more from that same nvidia thread relating to the beta drivers dell pushed up with the "fix" for the audio stutter. It's from post #102 if you're looking for it specifically:

"Ok people, here's the deal... I was sick of waiting for Nvidia and downloaded the new beta drivers from Dell/Alienware from this link:

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/...p;fileid=384412

I managed to modify the .inf file and successfully installed the beta driver on my clevo. I've done some testing and here are my results:

Before installing the beta drivers, I used to get 64k spikes when the GPU downclocked, this is no longer the case. Now I'm getting 18k spikes when the GPU switches from level 1 (200 MHz) to level 4 (550 MHz). I ALWAYS get a single 18k spike on the 1 to 4 transition. The spike causes a slight audio stutter.

I tested the other upclock transitions (3 to 4, 2 to 4) and those are clean. All downclocks are also clean (4 to 3, 3 to 2, 2 to 1).

I also did the same tests on battery power. The 4th clock state is not available on battery power (not sure if it is the powermizer default or a setting in my power plan). The downclocks are clean (3 to 2, 2 to 1), but I'm getting a 18k spike on the 1 to 3 transition. The 2 to 3 transition is clean.

I would encourage other people to test with a single GPU (SLI disabled) to see if you can reproduce this with your own GPU. What I've done is I keep an eye on the clock rate in GPU-Z and I open a wmv file in windows media player when I want to stress the card (it makes it throttle to the max clock rate automatically). Then I close the file, let the card downclock to the desired level and fire up the video file again to test the upclock transition.

ManuelG, could you please pass that information along to the engineers working on these fixed drivers? Thanks.

EDIT: I'm not sure if this is caused by the beta drivers, but i've noticed that the 1-2 and 2-3 transitions never happen. When the GPU upclocks it always goes straight to the max clock rate. Is that the normal behaviour of powermizer? I would have to rollback to the old drivers and check if it was the case before. "

 

hey, that's my post do you guys get these 1-4 upclock transition spikes with the new drivers? people in the alienware forum keep ignoring my claims that the new drivers do not solve the DPC latency 100% but i think it is a very important issue

also do you really think Clevo will release their own drivers for this? is there any evidence they're working on it? unfortunately with the release of the arrendale platform and the new i3, i5 and i7 cpus our systems are getting relayed to the backseat in terms of support, i'm not confident we can expect much effort from the manufacturor/resellers to solve this problem

 

i can confirm 100% that Clevo are working on a driver for this

The latest news is that clevo have corrected the issue within the Nvidia package however there was an adverse effect on another part of the driver. Nvidia are currently debugging this and when that is complete it should solve the issue

Unfortunatley i have no timeline but i would expect weeks rather then months

 

Hi PMAN,
Thanks for that imfo.I must be one of the lucky ones as i have no trace of Audio Stuttering.
On another point,i spoke to you back last year re CRYO LTX coolers.You said you have had a 10 degree drop when using it.I have just purchased one and ran OCCT with two GPU enable and i get an absolute ZERO change in temperature.After an hour of OCCT my temps on GPU are 75/ 83 C.This is with or without cooler on.Are you able to run your cooler with OCCT and see what you get.All three fan are running ok.
Thanks
Les

 

someone else asked me this some time ago and with the cooler i got to 71 degrees and that was it

 

Hey guys, I finally decided to try and use the Webcam. The device is seen as active, the Bison program shows it etc; but all I get is a black screen. Any ideas?

 

wow those are great news!!! where do you get your information from?

 

I've had mixed luck with my bison cams in all 3 clevos. First one worked great all the time, second one never worked...ever, and the third one seems to work fine. Only suggestion I have though for the black screen is clean off all the old drivers and reinstall them again. I'd go with the drivers from whoever you bought your machine from too as though there are a number of variants out there my experience with them has shown that they are kind of "picky".

Wish I could help more - hopefully someone else knows more than I do about the bison cams.

 

I am not going to name names as they have asked me not to, but suffice to say that i have seen a prelim driver that does fix the stuttering but it is not ready for release yet.

But they are working on it, once they worked out the kinks in it, Clevo will make it available for all to see

 

the same thing happened to me. black screen but everything seems to do fine. the driver was good, the device was recognized but guess what. my webcam was dead. sager replaced and now i have it working. i think that the bison cam in your laptop is dead

 

This man speaks the truth.

I have also seen one version of preliminary drivers, and well, as Pete says they were certainly not ready for release. Pete has a lot of contacts though, so who knows where he gets his voodoo magic.

Like Pete I'm also shipping out of the M980NU crowd, and moving to pastures new, but if anything comes along anyone thinks I might be able to help with, just let me know

 

Say it's not so.

 

Sorry it is so, Im all ordered (spec in sig, gonna be awesome ) and sold up, but I've seen the drivers, I know they're working on it, they just need to work out some bugs

Those 196.86 drivers from Dell are one hell of a lot better than the older drivers, and Clevos ones should be tweaked further for the machine
My modified INF which allows them to install without much hassle is on the kobalt site if you want to try it.

For me, as I do more multicore work and encoding than I used to, as I got a decent sale, the upgrade was worth it for me. That said you know Im going to clock it, just a little, just to see what it can do

My x9100 is stable at 3.41Ghz all day long for example...not that I've ever tested...

 

Same chassis as the M980NU I see.

 

Same external chassis, well almost, completely different interior components, it's going to feel a lot like nothings changed, yet at the same time be very different

MCP79 SLI vs PM55 (I've had a preference for Intel Chipsets compared to Nvidia since the end of Nforce 4)
C2D vs I7 m
CCFL vs LED (theoretically will give slightly more even backlighting)
GTX280 vs 285 (meh tiny performance boost 5% perhaps a little more if Im lucky)
5300 vs 6300 wireless

Official overclocking (limited) and HDMI input too

It's almost like the M980NUs turbo-charged little brother, and with changes to some of my personal habits, things like the change to quad makes a lot of sense. I do things like re-encode a lot more than I used to, for example I've got a rather large HDDVD collection Im slowly going through an encoding to computer format for the inevitable day my HDDVD players die, as well as do things like the occasional multitrack audio work.
I got a good deal on the M980NU so it worked out well/reasonable (dependant on your POV) for me, although admittedly the SSD was more from curiosity than need!

That said, as I already mentioned, if anything comes up I can help with, just let me know

 

Hello people,

I have a slight problem which is starting to drive me a little crazy. Decided to add a wireless card (intel 5100) to my m980nu. Simple process to install windows 7 picked it up straight away installed drivers but thats where this tale go a little pear shaped.

Bottom right hand corner go to connect you see the bar with a red x in it. Click on it and it says not connected and no connections are available. Only thing i can click on is the troubleshoot (in blue underlined) which is about a much help as a pack of tissues in a flood.

In device manager windows says this device is working properly.

So, changed the drivers, no joy.

Different wireless card, same problem.

So i thought i may have connected the wrong wires inside thinking if windows see's it says all is good then it may be a reception problem. Lift up the keyboard etc..3 wires there, one with a red plastic end one with black last one with a clear one. Now two of these have wm1 and wm2 on them, which i assume means wireless module 1 and 2.

Still on original bios if that helps anyone.

What am I missing???? connected wrong wires?? Sorry if this post seems a little garbled but busy day at work, but hey, clevo comes first Shell Corporate Suits second.

 

try Fn+F11

 

Any update on the new drivers?

 

Theres been more Beta drivers but nothing final yet, I think Clevo intend to make sure there new driver works even if they have to do a lot of Beta testing before its final.

 

My power brick died for my M980 Which really sucks, because this thing isn't made to last long on battery!

 

Man, that's not good.

 

Didn't check the notes yet, but these new drivers just dropped for notebooks: http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_winvista_win7_x64_197.16_whql.html

Could it be? Worst case I'm excited for new drivers! Installing...

 

BAH, not the audio stutter fix (it didn't make this release...). At least they are new drivers. Harumph.

 

I think its .22 that are meant to be the earliest revision with it in, and it should be in notebook specific drivers after that. What that does mean though is it isn't in the 197.25s because they're desktop drivers.

 

It appears that you are, indeed, correct. Actually, I'm pretty sure I read that same thing a while back and simply forgot about it. I'm hoping their next notebook update doesn't take too long to show up - it seems like this is the longest standing driver issue I've had to deal with in the last few years. It's moved beyond annoying to rather ridiculous.

 

Hi guys, in regards to stuttering might be worth trying the Dell 197.01's. They will most likely need inf modding to work, but they have been released as a follow on to the 196.86 DPC issue aimed betas.

Now the release notes mention that powermizer doesn't work, but YMMV. Its certainly no worse than disabling it manually anyway!

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&fileid=389293

Might help a few people until a proper verified Clevo driver appears (rather than the betas I've seen so far).

 

Well, the tax man decided this year to crush me (my fault... set up my witholdings wrong) so I am afraid my time as a 980 owner may be coming to an end of I can get a decent price for it I got the power brick back at least!

 

Where the he'll is our driver update?

 

Sager put out one, it sort of fixes the issue, but it puts you back on the 189 series of drivers so you miss out on lots of new updates. Frankly the whole desktop/laptop drivers being separate thing is probably the biggest reason we still have crap fixes out there. I'm actually looking forward to the consolidation drivers which have been promised. Hopefully a real fix will show up in those.

 

Aye, because my M980NU is now officially gone (and my X8100 is getting its mobo/chassis replaced when the UK Clevo service center gets round to getting the replacement chassis to Kobalt) I have less access to this info than I used to. That said I've tried the release which Sager have now put on thier site before they had it up, and its actually not a bad driver, being pre-190, some games/stutter issues are less prevalent than with the later drivers, although some games prefer new drivers, in which case you'd need to try the Del release (197.31).

Unfortunately the lack of noise/limited reports/small percentage of units with the issue, with users contact thier vendors over this issue in general doesn't help, and it sounds like the UK service center at least is refusing returns of the M98 chassis because as far as they're concerned, it will be fixed in software *soon*.

Obviously user and corporate soon can be wildly different things. That said, we shall hopefully see the fixes rolled into the general drivers soon, something obviously happened there because the fix was MEANT to be in place in the mobile drivers beyond a certain revision, which has not borne fruit as yet.

 

Abbout the driver issue...

Board Message

"We will be posting beta notebook drivers next week. Please try them out once they become available and let me know if they resolve your DPC latency issue. "

So there might be hope...

// Myggiz

 

Holy crap. They actually posted again. =) Sweet. Well, I for one will be trying them out even though it'll disable my blu-ray. I'm getting sick of the audio bug screwing up my games. It's better with the sager update, but still happens at the worst of times.

 

Yeah so this machine is going to be discontinued soon, mid June, but then i wonder why they are giving the option of 5870 in this machine? Probably a final refresh, an 18'4 can never truly sell though.

 

This machine has pretty much already been discontinued, the X8100 replaced it, and that itself MAY be getting replaced by the X7200 (although that seems as much a replacement for the D900F as anything because it sounds like it's going to use desktop CPUs)

 

Isn't the x8100 this notebook anyway? The x8100 does have a lot of potential though and be nice to have a choice between both type of sli or cross-fire, i seem too not find the x8100 or the D900F anywhere in the clevo's website.

 

The x8100 is the update of the m980nu, m98 had core2 processors and an nvidia chipset, x8100 has core i5/i7 processors and an intel chipset.