PROBLEM WITH NVIDIA GRAPHICS CARD

[Deatex]

I'm not the most technically minded with regard to PC's so I'll try to explain my problem the best I can.

I have a 16 month old Vaio VGN-AR61M that seems to have encountered some graphics problems.

The notebook is factory installed with an NVIDIA 8400M GT which is being stopped by Vista under error code 43 and it reboots. When the PC is restarted the display is obscured and large. When I look in the device manager the NVIDIA card is disabled and the pc is using VGASAVE as the driver.

I am able to go into the display settings and change the resolution to 1440x900 with 32bit colour so that I am able to read the screen better and use some of the PC's functionality (unable to use this driver for online gaming tho).

I can re-enable the NVIDIA driver if the PC is cold and it will run for a short while before it is disabled again.

I have tried to update the NVIDIA driver, but it says the one I have is the latest.

Does VGASAVE use my NVIDIA card? If so, does that my card is working but my driver isnt?
Or does it sound as tho my graphics card has failed?

I have read lots of threads that there have were manufaturing faults with the 8XXX range from NVIDIA causing their cards to prematurely fail due to heat.
Anyone else had a similar issue?

[Blencogo]

Hi Deatex and welcome.

Code 43 means that one of the drivers controlling the device notified the operating system that the device failed in some manner so Vista has closed it down and your Vaio is using the default VGA graphics.

This could mean a number of problems but I think I would try the fixable ones first.

What is the version of the driver you have installed?

[Deatex]

Hi, thanks for the reply

My current driver version is 7.15.11.5665, driver date 19/09/2007

[Blencogo]

Try this one dated August 2008 and see if it helps.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers/vista/176.37

If the driver fails to fix the issue you may need to try a system recovery back to factory defaults to eliminate any other software conflicts.

After that it will probably be the repairers.