Well then use the stock drivers.

also when i open my laptop the screen remains black and then i have to reshut the laptop and reopen it to turn on...

I just upgraded to the newest video drivers from LV2G and modified the INI just to prevent any BSOD's. Well everything worked fine for a little bit, but this morning I got on my 1710 to watch a video of something and the flickered a bit and then I a TON of vertical tears that were very blocky making things unreadable.

Well I uninstalled the drivers in safe mode, ran driver cleaner, and reinstalled the latest dell drivers from their site. And things seemed to work fine after that although I didn't have ample time to test things before I left for work.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this with these drivers?

Thx for sorting this out. Finally i can try som other drivers.
Just installed the M94.20 and they work great.

No problem. Once I get some free time, I'll look at those 160 drivers for all you bioshock guys.

thearod, your problem is a well known one (at least on LV2GO)
I came up with the fix for it.
Basically, when your system goes into 2D mode your vid card memory does not have enough bandwidth to support your resolution.
So, you need to increase your 2D memory speed to at least 121mhz.

pieter added a fix to his modded inf's that effectively changes the 2D memory speed to 3D low power speeds but that setting does not work for all cards (and so you need to change the inf setting and test).

I just flashed a new bios to my card with my 2D memory speeds changed to 121 mhz and disabled (uncommented) the bandwidth inf tweak (or you can use rivatuner if you want if your bios is unlocked).

Just go to LV2GO for more information.
Check the forums under news and 1920 distortion fix, WUXGA fix etc..

D.

The 100 MHz clock (200 MHz effective ddr) did seem a bit suspect. I couldnt run any lower than 200 Mhz (400 effective) on my ultra. Anyway, I was able to make some tweaks that allowed my ultra to use its low 3d clocks on videos. I'm assuming that's what you mean pieter did in his drivers as well.

Yes, I believe so.
The inf setting is "bandwidth factor"
In the modded inf I believe it is set to 5 which will make your card run 2D mode at 3D low power mode frequencies.

I find that I add extra battery life to my notebook though by changing my 2D clocks from 100core 110memory (which gives the vertical distortion due to the memory not being fast enough/having enough bandwidth) to 80core 121memory (120 gives the distortion still but 121 stops it... with my and many other cards).

Then I uncomment the bandwidth factor setting so that my card goes to the 2D frequencies I have flashed.
The lower core clock does not hurt my card and I find that it adds ~10 minutes extra to my battery life (Now I run an average of 2-2.5 hours on battery depending on HD load and LCD brightness)

THe new modded inf's at LV2GO have a lot of new things added and old things removed (uncommented).
A lot of this was done in the last 2 weeks and started with you finding that removing the coolbits reg would fix the 7950gtx bluescreen issue.
After that, we played with enabling the powermizer settings (got that going even in Vista) and that is when I noticed the vertical distortion issue at 2D clocks.
Then I figured out the memory issue, reported it to pieter and then shortly after that he added the bandwidth factor inf setting for those who don't want to flash their cards.

Anyway.... long post... short answer.... yes, I believe it is the same inf tweak that you used zzpulp

D.

Cool. Just be careful when reducing the core frequencies. It didn't affect my battery life too much but I did some testing with my 6800U and decided 100 core was as low as I wanted to go. Anything (significantly) lower and you could force your card to throttle to the next highest performance level when doing intensive 2d operations such as quickly dragging and dropping a window with a graphical display.

Nice work though.

Yes it's been a very productive 2 weeks, got quite a few things sorted.
The Atheros tweaking and taking a wee break from nV has given me a new lease of life and Forceware tweaking.

Bandwidth factor will have a different effect on different systems.
It's tied to the Memory clock and will change the Memory Clock (no other clock) to 3D low power setting if a certain amount of bandwidth gets exceeded for the given 2D memory clocks.
So for a go7900GS where the VBIOS with 100/100Mhz (c/m) the value of 5 will set raise the 2D clock to 300Mhz (3Dlow power setting) BUT leave the Core @ 100 Mhz.
With this setting the 300Mhz clock starts @ 1680x1050
Setting it to 6 lowers the point where begins, no use as it only uses more power than is need if a lower resolution is used.
And setting it to 4 doesn't set Memory clock to 300Mhz it before 1920x1080 (where the distortion begins)
If you set the Memory clock in Rivatune to 121Mhz (or 120Mhz in nTune) then the Bandwidth factor setting is no longer needed as the Memory bandwidth is high enough to handle 1920x1080 and 1920x1200.

A lesson in Bandwidth 101 (which coincidentally in Decimal = 5, this is scary )

Yeah, things used to get ugly at 200 MHz on the ultra. I will have to play with this setting a little though.

debaucher & Pieter,

thanks for all the good info and hard work guys. Let me get this right, to try and fix the distortion issue... Today I am going to unlock my bios and then install riva tuner. In rivatuner I am going to set my 2d clock to 80-100 core & 121 memory. And then I should be good no matter what drivers I use... right? OR... Do I have to use the LV2G drivers with the "bandwidth factor" tweak?

The Bandwidthfactor tweak is build into the latest INFs already
So you DON"T have to flash the BIOS as this will just increase the Mem clock.
The BIOS flash in the end is the better over all option as you can then set the 2D clock to the minimum required to stop the distortion, and have maximum power savings.

The Bandwidth fix just inreases the mem clock to 3D low power setting, not ideal when on battery but better than not having WUXGA

Really you should try to do this below the drivers, that is if you are comfortable. Modify your 2d clocks on an unlocked bios and then flash it.

hmmmmmmmm, I'm not sure how comfortable I am with NiBiTor. Soooo they way I said I was going to try to fix it should work... right?