Sager NP8662 driver issues

[Tyranie909]

I just finished upgrading my Sager NP8662 to Windows 7 ultimate. Everything works fine except when I use the computer to browse the web. The display driver will stop working and have to recover. This happens on both IE and firefox. I have downloaded the newest nvida 260m driver and tried it, but same issue. I also downloaded the driver from Sager webpage as well and got the same result.

The weird part is that I can play games on it all day without an issue. So clearly its not overheating or the 3d aspect of it. Only thing I can think of is that Java or flash is causing problems (and yes I updated those as well).

Lastly I reinstalled windows again just to make sure it was not from a flakey install. Still same issue. Would love some help. Ty

[Tyranie909]

Well in case anyone else has this issue, RMA the laptop. Its not a driver issue but the video card dying. Less than a year old and dead already :(

[Maverick494]

a 260M machine that is less than a year old, you must've bought it like right before they discontinued it last Novemberish. Sorry to hear that, but sadly that seems to be a trend with the Nvidia cards in the GTS/GTX series not lasting well.

Maybe you could consider upgrading the GPU?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Nvidia-GTX-280m-1GB-DDR3-MXM-2-HE-Laptop-Graphics-Card-/320578112341?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards#ht_500wt_1154

with the best offer option maybe they'll take 275-300?

Granted you could RMA your laptop and see if they put a GTX280M in it because they don't have an 260M's any more or buy the upgrade and sell your GTX260M to cover some of the upgrade cost once you get it back from RMA...

[Tyranie909]

Cough now its a few days over 1 year warranty lol. Sometimes you can't win. Sounds like I will just have to buy a new card. Besides ebay, any good places to get one from. Also any idea on the limitation of what I can replace it with. Really not looking to spend a ton on it as its not my main computer, just gaming rig to limp by when on the road.

[Maverick494]

GTX280M is the limit, you can also look at MXM-upgrade.com but they are more expensive.

[Tyranie909]

When it comes to upgrading anything other than HD or ram on a laptop i am clueless. Can an ATI card go in here? Not very impressed with nvidia after this.

[Maverick494]

When it comes to upgrading anything other than HD or ram on a laptop i am clueless. Can an ATI card go in here? Not very impressed with nvidia after this.

You could probably get a MXM 2.1 version of the 4870.

[mrmatt]

I had this happen once when using youtube. Video drivers crash sometimes. Make sure your power scheme is correct and none of the advanced options are messed up. Thats what my problem was that time.

[Tyranie909]

What advanced option in powersettings would cause this kind of problem? Mine will game fine for while, but browsing a simple webpage will cause the display driver reset. All of this happened after win7 fresh install

[Tyranie909]

Sounds like about $400 is the cheapest i can get out of this mess. Really let down on the quality. Had a Gateway FX for 3 years and no problems (and it was taken everywhere). Used this one for less than a year with it only sitting on a desk and it goes bad.

Wonder if its worth it to pay all that to replace the card or just replace the laptop at this point.

[Maverick494]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-HD-4650-HD4650-M96-1GB-1024MB-MXM-II-Vedio-VGA-Card-/250683954713?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards#ht_4032wt_957

[Maverick494]

What advanced option in powersettings would cause this kind of problem? Mine will game fine for while, but browsing a simple webpage will cause the display driver reset. All of this happened after win7 fresh install

Usually when a desktop card starts doing that I find that its a power issue more often than a card issue. You might try bumping the card voltage up one notch.

[Tyranie909]

Thanks for the help. Its really weird because I can unistall the nvidia driver and everything seems to work fine (with whatever win7 auto downloands. You just can't game like that). Messed with power settings and still same issue.

[powerpack]

What happens when you reinstall old OS? Same problem or no?

[mrmatt]

Well, since flash is more CPU intensive if your CPU is throttled to save battery then I believe that interferes with flash performance and the GPU driver crashes for some reason. I raised the max CPU level and it worked perfect. Thats all I know. And this fits with the power theory Mav has.

[Maverick494]

Thanks for the help. Its really weird because I can unistall the nvidia driver and everything seems to work fine (with whatever win7 auto downloands. You just can't game like that). Messed with power settings and still same issue.

if you can uninstall the Nvidia driver and it works, its probably not hardware.

[Tyranie909]

if you can uninstall the Nvidia driver and it works, its probably not hardware.

Not much else it can be. Every driver does it. I put the power settings on high performance and made sure it was all maxed out. Still same problem. I am with you the Maverick. I just can't figure out what the issue could be with the driver at this point. I even did a fresh install of win7 last night and same issue happens when you put the driver on there. My only thought is that when no driver is installed it is offloading everything on the CPU.