BSOD on DELL XPSm1710 with Nvidia 7950 GTX

[fx007]

Hi Folks/Tech Support,

Having a major problem now. Have been using DL product with my laptop for 2+ yrs on versions of DL drivers 6.2 and previous to 6.2. No major problems, a few issues but was able to work with 4 Kensington USB-to-DVI adapters and a 5th monitor in my DVI out port of the laptop. So in total I usually have 5 monitors connected.

Made the mistake of trying to get more efficient with this great product and upgrade the drivers to 6.3 and 7.0.

Immediately after downloading/installing the driver and plugin in the first Kensington card the screens flash a few times then BSOD. BSOD continues every time I restart. Fortunately i was able to get back to previous restore point.

Now every time I plug in a card it tries to updates to the 6.3 version and I have to cancel the the update. Even disconnecting from the Internet it seems to have downloaded the update and will upgrade from local (somewhere in the hard drive).

I do not what to upgrade to 6.3 or 7.0 until DisplayLink can fix this problem of the BSOD. My questions are:

1. How do I prevent this upgrade happening so i can continue my work as a trader ?
2. When will u fix this BSOD problem with my configuration ?

Since I have ur attention I did have some minor issues which I was hoping would be solved with the 6.3 and 7.0 versions, the reason for my attempt to upgrade. They are:

1. Minor restarts of the core software once/twice a week

2. Every time I first boot my computer (with the USB-to-DVI adapters) for the day the DL drivers seem to hang the machine and utilize significant amount of CPU resources, and GPU fans turns up to maximum, u can hear it. I ALWAYS have to restart and then all is OK, no excess resource utilization.

3. When I have the adapters plugged in the GPU generates significant amount of heat so I have to use and external fan to help with the cooling.

Looking forward to ur quick response so I can continue working....I am tweedling my thumbs now waiting on ur guidance.

See attachment

Regards

[Wim]

Thanks for the log files. These show that the BSOD is in the NVIDIA driver. Looking at your system specs, the NVIDIA driver is old:

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX (NVIDIA)
Graphics Driver: 7.15.11.7967 Dated 2009/03/06

Infact this is released before Windows 7 was released and is probably their Vista graphics driver that works "well enough" on Windows 7 for normal use.

We use the GPU on Windows 7 in a different way that NVIDIA probably tested, so it can expose bugs in the NVIDIA driver. Normally I would suggest updating the NVIDIA driver to the latest version, but it doesn't look like they have a more recent driver.

Unfortunately I don't think there will be anything we can do to work around the BSOD issues on the GPU, that doesn't have a recent Windows 7 driver. In v6.3 we fixed basic graphics theme comparability, and I suspect this increase of GPU changes and interaction exposed another bug in the NVIDIA driver that is causing the blue screen.

Wim

[fx007]

Originally Posted by Wim

Thanks for the log files. These show that the BSOD is in the NVIDIA driver. Looking at your system specs, the NVIDIA driver is old:

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX (NVIDIA)
Graphics Driver: 7.15.11.7967 Dated 2009/03/06

Infact this is released before Windows 7 was released and is probably their Vista graphics driver that works "well enough" on Windows 7 for normal use.

We use the GPU on Windows 7 in a different way that NVIDIA probably tested, so it can expose bugs in the NVIDIA driver. Normally I would suggest updating the NVIDIA driver to the latest version, but it doesn't look like they have a more recent driver.

Unfortunately I don't think there will be anything we can do to work around the BSOD issues on the GPU, that doesn't have a recent Windows 7 driver. In v6.3 we fixed basic graphics theme comparability, and I suspect this increase of GPU changes and interaction exposed another bug in the NVIDIA driver that is causing the blue screen.

Wim

Hi Wim,

Thks for the response, appreciate it, but I have some observations which I made based on my previous profession as a Application Developer and Systems Developer which included driver development for hardware products for financial institutions. The observations are as follows:

1. Nvidia driver developed for Vista which is the same architecture as Win 7 and Win 8 so the driver works perfect in these operating systems. vista = Win 7 = Win 8

2. Nvidia driver for GPU is mature, is has been around the block and back and so is very stable and the overall length of time it has been on the market helps.

3. Problem only happens after installation of DL 6.3 so the problem has to be in DL product. maybe in the boot / initialization functions.

4. Nature of problem is simple the error handling of a function call in the code is not being captured and handled appropriately.

5. As you know the constant flashing or every once and a while flash is the symptoms of your developers in the code catching an error and just doing a reset/reboot of the drivers, however it seems in my particular error they have not caught it or maybe because it happens at boot they are unable to catch using that method.

6. It will take a few hours to investigate and understand the nature of this problem as it resides in the DL driver code.

7. I am willing to help and provide assistance with testing for ur developers to help in debugging this problem as I would like to utilize the the latest code.

8. I have reinstalled Windows 7 and am operating with the 6.2 version

9. The end objective of this effort will be a improved DL driver which I am sure we both want and total benefit to the DL customer base, becuase it is a great product.

Look forward to you feedback, Thanks

AM

[fx007]

Bump this coz I need a response pls.

[Wim]

We will look at this, as it does seem like a regression from v6.2. However there may be no fix for this, due to the changes needed to make basic graphics themes work properly on DisplayLink screens.

Wim

[fx007]

Thk you very much, will monitor this location for updates.

[fx007]

Originally Posted by Wim

We will look at this, as it does seem like a regression from v6.2. However there may be no fix for this, due to the changes needed to make basic graphics themes work properly on DisplayLink screens.

Wim

Hi Wim

Bump up and checking.

Any info on this problem. I see a M3 release but did not see any reference to this problem in the release notes.

FX