Inspiron 1525 w/ GM965 does NOT like new Intel drivers -- thorough description

[sargeras9]

UPDATE (12/22/08):
- 7.15.10.1537 is last working version, 7.15.10.1545 and later have the problem
- Problem only affects notebook monitor, not external displays (via VGA connection)
- adjusting brightness and gamma to certain levels fixes problem, but results in extremely bright screen (so, doesn't really fix problem)
- pictures taken from camera attached to this post, where newx.jpg and oldx.jpg correspond to the screen with the newer driver versions and 7.15.10.1537, respectively.
/UPDATE

Hello, first some specs:

Dell Inspiron 1525
Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 2.0GHz
3GB RAM
Vista Home Premium 32-bit
Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family

Alright, now onto the interesting stuff!

So, I bought this laptop, and the display driver version that comes from Dell is 7.14.10.1409 - from Jan 2008. Well, that couldn't do, as Intel has been very good with updating this chipset, giving it vast performance enhancements and better support for games. So, I went to Intel's site to get the latest driver - at the time, it was 7.15.10.1537. So I installed it - it gave the whole "this isn't supported, get the driver from the manufacturer" routine, but after uninstalling the old driver and trying again, it worked like a charm. Without any surprises, my games had a HUGE performance boost (despite the fact that the Vista experience rating dropped from 3.4 to 3.1....pff), so I was a happy man.

Now things get ugly.

So, today I decided it's been a while so I should check if there have been more recent drivers - turns out Intel pushed out 2 newer versions, first 7.15.10.1545 in August, and the more recent 7.15.10.1554 a couple weeks ago. Having read the changelog, I found some nice support features, especially for OpenGL 2.0, so I was happy about getting some new drivers. So I download and install the more recent one with the .exe first. I immediately knew something was wrong - the colors on screen looked like they were melting and were supersaturated, like someone had just spent an hour eating skittles then threw up on the screen. Naturally, it was hard to see or do much in this condition, but I managed to go through some display options, thinking maybe some tweaking was necessary.

I tried everything.
Resolutions, color complexity, messing around with contrast, saturation, etc, you name it. Just for kicks, I took a screenshot and sent it to one of my friends, and he said it looked fine, nothing was wrong. Clearly, this driver was screwed up pretty badly... Well, I installed 7.15.10.1537 again, and everything returned to normal - no problems. Now I thought, well, if the most recent version is messed up, I'll try the other one - 7.15.10.1545. Installed it, same exact thing happened.

I've been going back and forth, trying all methods of install (.zip extraction, executable, update through device manager, etc) and same results. I've nearly spent all day going through Intel's site and just seeing what I can find on Google, but to no avail (Intel's support hasn't been any help, either).

I come here to you now, exhausted, asking for any suggestions anyone may have to fix the problem - it could very well be that the last two drivers are bad, but I seriously doubt it - I've seen other threads where people are using it just fine.

I've ruled basically everything I can think of - including all "dumb" stuff like corrupt files, right version for OS, etc. Will these two simply not work on my machine? I hope the trend doesn't continue with new releases... maybe I can just skip these two and wait for next month's?

tl;dr
Dell came with 7.14.10.1409
I installed 7.15.10.1537 from Intel, works amazing
Tried 7.15.10.1545 and 7.15.10.1554, colors completely screwed up on screen

Thanks in advance, guys. I appreciate anything you can think up on this.

[sargeras9]

"Thank you for contacting Intel Technical Support.

We have been working on you issue however we are not able to replicate your issue. At this point what we would like to recommend is contact Dell* directly and check for new updates to the drivers that they posted since those drivers has could be modified according to the needs require for the laptop.

Also we would like to let you know that Intel provides generic versions of the software and drivers however your computer manufacturer may have altered the features, incorporated customizations, or made other changes.


Sincerely,

David O.
Intel Technical Support"

....Well guys, I guess that's it. :(

I'm gonna contact Dell, but from my past experiences with them, I can pretty much tell you they're simply going to point me to their site for the latest driver.

If the rest of you want to try contacting Dell/Intel about this, maybe it'll raise awareness a little bit... possibly convice Dell to update their custom driver? Other than that, I guess all we can do is try out new driver versions as they come out, and hopefully somewhere along the line whatever introduced this issue will disappear... I suppose we should just be glad .1537 somehow worked alright, it's much much much better than the year old one Dell has posted.

Good luck to the rest of you Inspiron 1525 users - we should keep this thread bookmarked and post any new developments we may get in the future. At the very least, this will show up as a search result and help others who, like us, couldn't find anything on this issue. :)

[7oby]

Quoting - sargeras9

since those drivers has could be modified according to the needs require for the laptop.

As I have investigated already here in this thread: There is no such thing as a customized Dell driver. Dell uses the same generic intel drivers - just an older version of it. Sadly this fact has been ignored by Intel Techs. But I'm not surprised that Intel couldn't reproduce the problem. You need a Dell Inspiron 1525 for that and not an other notebook.

Okay, if you guys tell Dell support about the problem, you have to get to 2nd level support. Only if you reach that level, Dell may help. 2nd level support has the option to contact a person at Intel to investigate further. Then there's the point where Intel and Dell techs work hand in hand to resolve that issue. This is required since Dell knows what they have put together (e.g. the VBIOS version is very important!) and Intel knows how the driver works and what it requires.

You guys all have the latest BIOS installed and your VBIOS is 1566, isn't it (nobody of you replied to my posting above!)?

[sargeras9]

Quoting - 7oby

As I have investigated already here in this thread: There is no such thing as a customized Dell driver. Dell uses the same generic intel drivers - just an older version of it. Sadly this fact has been ignored by Intel Techs. But I'm not surprised that Intel couldn't reproduce the problem. You need a Dell Inspiron 1525 for that and not an other notebook.

Okay, if you guys tell Dell support about the problem, you have to get to 2nd level support. Only if you reach that level, Dell may help. 2nd level support has the option to contact a person at Intel to investigate further. Then there's the point where Intel and Dell techs work hand in hand to resolve that issue. This is required since Dell knows what they have put together (e.g. the VBIOS version is very important!) and Intel knows how the driver works and what it requires.

You guys all have the latest BIOS installed and your VBIOS is 1566, isn't it (nobody of you replied to my posting above!)?

Sorry I didn't reply before - yes, the VBIOS version is 1566.

[sargeras9]

Well guys, to put it simply, my endeavors to contact Dell have been fruitless. I've been trying to explain to whoever I contact that this is a problem beyond "bring it geek squad since you bought it at best buy", but it just goes over their heads. I've called, emailed, live chatted, but the results are always the same. If anyone else wants to give it a shot, or has suggestions as to how to get this issue escalated in Dell's chain, let me know.

[sargeras9]

I come bearing gifts! As you all may or may not know, Intel recently released the next version of the driver, 15.11.3.1576 (7.15.10.1576)...... no, it didn't fix the problem unfortunately. However, as I watched the strange mix of colors that has become all too familiar, I remembered to take pictures this time (for those who may not remember, the problem does not show up in screenshots)! Here are the links - sorry if the image quality isn't that great, my camera is several years old.

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/9863/dscn3852qt3.jpg - New driver
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/9508/dscn3860ps0.jpg - old driver

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/8156/dscn3854rl5.jpg - New driver
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/2672/dscn3858cq9.jpg - old driver

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/9756/dscn3855iz3.jpg - new driver
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/3396/dscn3859vh5.jpg - old driver

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/1450/dscn3857zm2.jpg - new driver

Well that's it, I couldn't take too many because i couldn't find a memory card (I could only store like 5 pics on the cams internal memory at once - these alone required more than one upload & deletion), but hopefully these illustrate the problem clearly enough.

As a side note, I did notice that each driver release is accompanied by the Intel High Definition Audio HDMI driver. It's probably a stretch to say this is what's causing the problem, but take a look at this:

Video driver............Audio Driver
15.11.3.1576.........6.10.0.2064
15.11.2.1554.........6.10.0.2064
15.11.1.1545.........6.10.0.2064
15.11.0.1537.........6.10.0.2060
15.7.3.1409...........6.10.0.2035

Anyone else find it interesting that the three drivers that don't work happen to have the same audio driver version, different from earlier releases of the video driver? I've been trying to test out if the audio driver is the real trouble maker here, but I'm having trouble installing the video driver alone, as they both come in a "bundle" (even if I update with .zip library through device manager).

I guess that sums up everything I've done tonight - any thoughts?

[7oby]

As a general note, I want to make more clear which is the first driver failing:

Quoting - sargeras9

15.11.1.1545.........6.10.0.2064 (fails)
15.11.0.1537.........6.10.0.2060 (works)

If you download the .zip version of the driver and read installation_readme.txt and follow the instructions in section "Manual Installation Instructions" you will see how to update graphics and audio drivers independently. It is possible to update the gfx driver without updating the audio driver.

Although offtopic, I discovered on my Dell M1330 which uses the same SiI174 chip as the Inspiron 1525 has for multiplexing TDMS video and S/PDIF audio into HDMI that if I use the "Intel HD Audio HDMI" driver, I'm loosing the facility to output sound over HDMI. More specifically I loose the HDMI audio device in the middle of this picture:

So what I'm using is the Microsoft "High Definition Audio-Device" (HdAudio.sys), which you can switch to by displaying all compatible Audio drivers for your HDMI device in the device manager.

[7oby]

One more thing comes to my mind. Maybe due to some weird registry settings just the color fine tuning settings got messed up. Did you play with these to see whether it fixes your problem:

You can adjust every single color channel with this settings panel. It's igfxcfg.exe which can be launched from the symbol bar on the right lower side of you desktop screen.

Last but not least: Does it happen only to you internel LVDS display or also to external displays connected on the VGA/HDMI connector? The reason is that some specific features such as "Framebuffer compression" is only available to the internal display and not an external one. This helps to narrow the source of the problem.

[Aaron_B_Intel]

I think 7oby is on the right track... looking at the pictures makes me think it's a colorspace issue. Have you tried it with Aero off? Checked the bit depth of the resolution (8 bit vs 24 bit)?

[sargeras9]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I just got home and had a chance to fool around with this some more. Got some interesting results....

Okay, firstly, I guess we can rule out the audio driver, as installing the video driver alone didn't fix the problem.

Next, turning Aero on/off didn't do anything at all.

Now the color settings - I've tried messing around with it before, but I finally got a certain setting to sort of fix the problem:

If I bring up the Gamma to 3.4 and Brightness to 100, the screen returns to normal (well, it's still hard to see because everything is so damn bright). Alternatively, bringing the Gamma to 5.0 and the Brightness to 63 works as well (still very bright though). Changing any of the other settings doesn't do anything.

I don't know what to make of that, but moving on to the next thing - external monitor. I finally got my hands on a monitor i could use - a 1280 x 1024 LCD monitor using a VGA connection. Surprise surprise, it works like a charm. No need to mess around with any settings, the display looks great at the default.

So now we know bringing up the Gamma and Brightness fixes the colors (although it's not really useable, it's like looking into the sun), and that the issue only occurs on the built-in LCD.

So... where do we go from here?

[anandaaja]

Quoting - sargeras9

Hello, first some specs:

Dell Inspiron 1525
Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 2.0GHz
3GB RAM
Vista Home Premium 32-bit
Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family

Alright, now onto the interesting stuff!

So, I bought this laptop, and the display driver version that comes from Dell is 7.14.10.1409 - from Jan 2008. Well, that couldn't do, as Intel has been very good with updating this chipset, giving it vast performance enhancements and better support for games. So, I went to Intel's site to get the latest driver - at the time, it was 7.15.10.1537. So I installed it - it gave the whole "this isn't supported, get the driver from the manufacturer" routine, but after uninstalling the old driver and trying again, it worked like a charm. Without any surprises, my games had a HUGE performance boost (despite the fact that the Vista experience rating dropped from 3.4 to 3.1....pff), so I was a happy man.

Now things get ugly.

So, today I decided it's been a while so I should check if there have been more recent drivers - turns out Intel pushed out 2 newer versions, first 7.15.10.1545 in August, and the more recent 7.15.10.1554 a couple weeks ago. Having read the changelog, I found some nice support features, especially for OpenGL 2.0, so I was happy about getting some new drivers. So I download and install the more recent one with the .exe first. I immediately knew something was wrong - the colors on screen looked like they were melting and were supersaturated, like someone had just spent an hour eating skittles then threw up on the screen. Naturally, it was hard to see or do much in this condition, but I managed to go through some display options, thinking maybe some tweaking was necessary.

I tried everything.
Resolutions, color complexity, messing around with contrast, saturation, etc, you name it. Just for kicks, I took a screenshot and sent it to one of my friends, and he said it looked fine, nothing was wrong. Clearly, this driver was screwed up pretty badly... Well, I installed 7.15.10.1537 again, and everything returned to normal - no problems. Now I thought, well, if the most recent version is messed up, I'll try the other one - 7.15.10.1545. Installed it, same exact thing happened.

I've been going back and forth, trying all methods of install (.zip extraction, executable, update through device manager, etc) and same results. I've nearly spent all day going through Intel's site and just seeing what I can find on Google, but to no avail (Intel's support hasn't been any help, either).

I come here to you now, exhausted, asking for any suggestions anyone may have to fix the problem - it could very well be that the last two drivers are bad, but I seriously doubt it - I've seen other threads where people are using it just fine.

I've ruled basically everything I can think of - including all "dumb" stuff like corrupt files, right version for OS, etc. Will these two simply not work on my machine? I hope the trend doesn't continue with new releases... maybe I can just skip these two and wait for next month's?

tl;dr
Dell came with 7.14.10.1409
I installed 7.15.10.1537 from Intel, works amazing
Tried 7.15.10.1545 and 7.15.10.1554, colors completely screwed up on screen

Thanks in advance, guys. I appreciate anything you can think up on this.

Hi,

I had the same issue in graphics index after the upgrade. I did the upgrade for enabling Aero. It was disabled for unknown reasons. Aero did not get enabled after upgrade and the Graphics index dipped by .4 points (3.1). I went through the forms, did registry editings.

At last found that the Aero was disabled due to improper disconnect of Remote Desktop (Net Meeting)

Launched another Remote Desktop and closed it properly. Aero started working fine and the Graphics score was back to normal at 3.5

Hence check the Aero theme and availability. After conformation of Aero function, upgrade the score. Everything will be fine.

Tips to check the Aero function. Press Windows Key + Tab key. It has to perform 3D flip. Keeping the mouse pointer in menimized window should give the thumbnail image of the window.

(I did a forced driver install as the Graphics card was not accepting the new driver package from the .exe. I extracted the files and used Have Disk option)

Best of luck.

Regards,

Anand

OS Name Microsoft Windows Vista Enterprise

Version 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 Build 6001

System Model HP Compaq 6510b (GM108UC#ACJ)

System Type X86-based PC

Processor Intel Core2 Duo CPU T7250 @ 2.00GHz, 2000 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB

Total Physical Memory 1.99 GB

Available Physical Memory 929 MB

Name Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family

PNP Device ID PCIVEN_8086&DEV_2A02&SUBSYS_30C0103C&REV_0C3&21436425&0&10

Adapter Type Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family, Intel Corporation compatible

Adapter Description Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family

Adapter RAM 448.00 MB (469,762,048 bytes)

Installed Drivers igdumdx32.dll,igd10umd32.dll

Driver Version 7.15.10.1576

[sargeras9]

Quoting - anandaaja

Quoting - sargeras9

Hello, first some specs:

Dell Inspiron 1525
Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 2.0GHz
3GB RAM
Vista Home Premium 32-bit
Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family

Alright, now onto the interesting stuff!

So, I bought this laptop, and the display driver version that comes from Dell is 7.14.10.1409 - from Jan 2008. Well, that couldn't do, as Intel has been very good with updating this chipset, giving it vast performance enhancements and better support for games. So, I went to Intel's site to get the latest driver - at the time, it was 7.15.10.1537. So I installed it - it gave the whole "this isn't supported, get the driver from the manufacturer" routine, but after uninstalling the old driver and trying again, it worked like a charm. Without any surprises, my games had a HUGE performance boost (despite the fact that the Vista experience rating dropped from 3.4 to 3.1....pff), so I was a happy man.

Now things get ugly.

So, today I decided it's been a while so I should check if there have been more recent drivers - turns out Intel pushed out 2 newer versions, first 7.15.10.1545 in August, and the more recent 7.15.10.1554 a couple weeks ago. Having read the changelog, I found some nice support features, especially for OpenGL 2.0, so I was happy about getting some new drivers. So I download and install the more recent one with the .exe first. I immediately knew something was wrong - the colors on screen looked like they were melting and were supersaturated, like someone had just spent an hour eating skittles then threw up on the screen. Naturally, it was hard to see or do much in this condition, but I managed to go through some display options, thinking maybe some tweaking was necessary.

I tried everything.
Resolutions, color complexity, messing around with contrast, saturation, etc, you name it. Just for kicks, I took a screenshot and sent it to one of my friends, and he said it looked fine, nothing was wrong. Clearly, this driver was screwed up pretty badly... Well, I installed 7.15.10.1537 again, and everything returned to normal - no problems. Now I thought, well, if the most recent version is messed up, I'll try the other one - 7.15.10.1545. Installed it, same exact thing happened.

I've been going back and forth, trying all methods of install (.zip extraction, executable, update through device manager, etc) and same results. I've nearly spent all day going through Intel's site and just seeing what I can find on Google, but to no avail (Intel's support hasn't been any help, either).

I come here to you now, exhausted, asking for any suggestions anyone may have to fix the problem - it could very well be that the last two drivers are bad, but I seriously doubt it - I've seen other threads where people are using it just fine.

I've ruled basically everything I can think of - including all "dumb" stuff like corrupt files, right version for OS, etc. Will these two simply not work on my machine? I hope the trend doesn't continue with new releases... maybe I can just skip these two and wait for next month's?

tl;dr
Dell came with 7.14.10.1409
I installed 7.15.10.1537 from Intel, works amazing
Tried 7.15.10.1545 and 7.15.10.1554, colors completely screwed up on screen

Thanks in advance, guys. I appreciate anything you can think up on this.

Hi,

I had the same issue in graphics index after the upgrade. I did the upgrade for enabling Aero. It was disabled for unknown reasons. Aero did not get enabled after upgrade and the Graphics index dipped by .4 points (3.1). I went through the forms, did registry editings.

At last found that the Aero was disabled due to improper disconnect of Remote Desktop (Net Meeting)

Launched another Remote Desktop and closed it properly. Aero started working fine and the Graphics score was back to normal at 3.5

Hence check the Aero theme and availability. After conformation of Aero function, upgrade the score. Everything will be fine.

Tips to check the Aero function. Press Windows Key + Tab key. It has to perform 3D flip. Keeping the mouse pointer in menimized window should give the thumbnail image of the window.

(I did a forced driver install as the Graphics card was not accepting the new driver package from the .exe. I extracted the files and used Have Disk option)

Best of luck.

Regards,

Anand

OS Name Microsoft Windows Vista Enterprise

Version 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 Build 6001

System Model HP Compaq 6510b (GM108UC#ACJ)

System Type X86-based PC

Processor Intel Core2 Duo CPU T7250 @ 2.00GHz, 2000 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB

Total Physical Memory 1.99 GB

Available Physical Memory 929 MB

Name Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family

PNP Device ID PCIVEN_8086&DEV_2A02&SUBSYS_30C0103C&REV_0C3&21436425&0&10

Adapter Type Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family, Intel Corporation compatible

Adapter Description Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family

Adapter RAM 448.00 MB (469,762,048 bytes)

Installed Drivers igdumdx32.dll,igd10umd32.dll

Driver Version 7.15.10.1576

um.....sorry, that really has nothing at all to do with the problem. Thanks anyway, though...

[moneyman232]

Does anyone still have the working drivers? If so could you upload it to a file hosting site as they're no longer availible on intel's website....thanks in advance

[sargeras9]

I've attached the .exe installer to this post. Note that it comes packaged with the Intel High Definition Audio HDMI driver version 6.10.0.2060 as well as the video driver, so both will be installed.

[sargeras9]

Well, it's that time of month again!

Package 15.11.4.1591 was released recently, and includes video driver 7.15.10.1591 and audio HDMI driver 6.10.0.2067 (not that the audio driver interests us in this thread).

Now, one more thing of note: Dell released BIOS version A16 recently as well (previous version was A13). They didn't have a changelog, so I let my imagination run loose and hoped it included fixes for whatever was causing the Intel driver problems.

Long story short, the problem's still not fixed. My eyes were greeted with the familiar mess of colors on my laptop screen...

Now, no one has responded to my previous post (#29) with any further suggestions yet, so does anyone have any ideas on where to go from here? 7oby, if you're still around, I would appreciate any of your suggestions. Or maybe one of you guys from Intel can elevate this to the engineering department again? Quite frankly, I've gotten a little tired from having to submit this over and over again, taking a week or two each time to get elevated to the same place over and over. Not to mention I still can't get past 1st tier support at Dell, as they simply tell me to see a Geek Squad agent. <_<

As always, thanks for taking the time to look into this problem with me. We will find a solution to this one day!

[delacy__david]

from the pictures it looks like your settings for the desktop color depth are set to 4 Bits per pixel

go into the intel ui and reset the gamma and all of that back to default. then close the color page and click on the displays tab. set your resolution to 1024x768 with 32 Bits per pixel color depth and 60 Hz refresh rate and see if that works

[sargeras9]

Quoting - beerandcandy

from the pictures it looks like your settings for the desktop color depth are set to 4 Bits per pixel

go into the intel ui and reset the gamma and all of that back to default. then close the color page and click on the displays tab. set your resolution to 1024x768 with 32 Bits per pixel color depth and 60 Hz refresh rate and see if that works

Sorry, that didn't work (those were all set by default, except the resolution is 1280x800, though changing it still didn't do anything).

More ideas? I still check this forum daily, believe or not, so I can try anyone's suggestions and respond quickly.

[delacy__david]

if you look on the os property page at the color depth and resolution and not on the intel page does the os page show the monitor as plug and play monitor? or does it show the model or say generic/default or what?

[sargeras9]

Quoting - beerandcandy

if you look on the os property page at the color depth and resolution and not on the intel page does the os page show the monitor as plug and play monitor? or does it show the model or say generic/default or what?

It's set to "Generic PnP Monitor on Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family". I'm using it at 1280x800 (the max).

There's another option for "(Default Monitor) on Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family" but that one only has 800x600 as a resolution option.

[7oby]

Quoting - sargeras9

I still check this forum daily

You don't need to, you can subscribe to this thread. But as the thread creator I would expect that you are subscribed automatically.

The bug exists only on internal display, but not external ones. Only present in driver >= v15.11.1.1545. BTW: Did you try v15.12.0.1599 already?

There are some settings regarding power management only available for internal displays, but not external ones. igfxcfg.exe / display settings / energy settings (button only available for internal display) / custom settings / change settings:

You could try playing with those, whether it makes a difference as did internal/external display.

[sargeras9]

Hi again, 7oby. The version you linked to says its for a desktop board... I just have this page bookmarked and check it every so often for an update, as it is supposed to be my specific chipset's page (assuming I haven't made a stupid mistake).

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try messing with some settings and post any findings here.

[7oby]

I know the link referes to the Desktop Board section. Sometimes intel releases driver revisions first for the Desktop Boards. There are people who have this driver installed on GM965 platforms. If >=v15.11.1 doesn't work for you, v15.12 is worth a try.