New NVidia 301.24 Beta drivers released today

[Michael_McCord,_M.D.]

Perhaps these new drivers will fix the problem many of us were having with their latest WHQL driver regarding stopping the v7 client. Will try them now and get back here....

**EDIT** The new Beta Drivers appear to fix the previous issues of stopping the v7 client that the 296.XX series had...Go get 'em!

[JimF]

They work for me too on a GT 240 running under Win7 64-bit. I have completed about a dozen work units since yesterday, most of them with the monitor in power-down mode, with no errors. (Later I will try my GTX 560 Ti when the released drivers come out.)

[killabee]

This driver fixed all the problems I had with the GPU folding.

Running Win7 64bit pro and using GTX460 here, I had problems with:

1) GPU folding using classic windows theme (aero off) - the UI would lag to a point where I couldn't use it.
2) running with default power management, allowing my monitor to go off after the PC was idle for a while - current GPU folded WU would fail.

After upgrading to the latest NVidia 301.24 Beta driver yesterday both of the problems above were resolved.

[bruce]

See at least one alternate report (mine). viewtopic.php?f=80&t=21243&p=212409#p212409

[Jimboc]

Hi bruce,

Thanks for posting your results of using the new beta drivers. It is great to learn that you, JimF and killabee have now resolved the issue of WUs not completing when the power saving function of Windows shuts your monitor down.

It’s unfortunate that these drivers are now causing a crash for you. Please let us know if you find a resolution.

I am going to wait until these beta drivers are WHQL approved before upgrading from 296.10. I usually wouldn’t wait (I have no fear of beta drivers, I have used them successfully many times before) but since there is a crashing issue, I will wait.

Thanks again for sharing.
Jimboc

[DemonfangArun]

reporting in that i have an 8031wu crunching along normally on 301.24, and have had at least one before that complete normally on 301.24.

as stated above, monitor auto-off no longer causes issues.

[Michael_McCord,_M.D.]

My friend Bruce discovered an issue with these drivers and the 803X class of WU and I concur on at least one machine running these drivers with a GTX 570. Am checking on some other machines at my remote location today and will get back.

[JimboPalmer]

Works on my GTS450

[Shot]

Works on my GTS450

The same. Finally it has happened and I`m very glad now cuz all the errors disappeared

[jaynick65]

Perhaps these new drivers will fix the problem many of us were having with their latest WHQL driver regarding stopping the v7 client. Will try them now and get back here....

**EDIT** The new Beta Drivers appear to fix the previous issues of stopping the v7 client that the 296.XX series had...Go get 'em!

Thank you,Dr. McCord, for the heads up. I can confirm the beta drivers work on both my machines with GTX 550 Ti's.

[ArVee]

Anyone tried these with XP? During installation I got a warning against continuing, with an option to abort the install, which I did.

[Matt_Sharkey]

I tried out these beta drivers, and they did fix folding for the length that I used them. However I could not get BF3 to run for more than 5 minutes without crashing, so I rolled back to 286 and they both work fine. I'm sure the next official driver release will fix any issues with BF3, while retaining the fixes for folding.

[JimF]

See at least one alternate report (mine). viewtopic.php?f=80&t=21243&p=212409#p212409

bruce,

Are you running a GT 430? I found that my GT 430 would fail (with NANs) on the same work unit (Project: 7643 (Run 6, Clone 0, Gen 12)) on both the 301.24 and 290.53 drivers, at 3 or 4 percent complete. The GT 430 is not overclocked (700 MHz core), and runs at 61 C. But the 301.24 drivers have continued to work OK on my GT 240 (non-Fermi) for 3 weeks now, and on a GTX 560 Ti for over a week with no errors. It is curious about the GT 430 though, and may affect other cards as well. I don't recall seeing anything like that on my previous cards. It might just be that work unit, but it was the only one I tried on the GT 430, so I suspect it is the entire 7600 series not getting along with that card.

[7im]

It's a combo of a larger and chewy WU (7600) on a GPU (430) with fewer cuda cores. 560 has lots more cores, and the 240 isn't a Fermi card, so doesn't get 7600 WUs. Might not be the driver at all, tough to know for sure.

[bruce]

No, I don't currently run a 430GT but I just got one . . . now I need time to install it. I was going to stick it in a Linux machine but I can try it in Windows so it'll run FAH and perhaps confirm your report. Unfortunately it takes a lot of testing to separate driver issues from WU issues from Hardware issues and it could be any of them.