This is not Houdini specific question (though obviously related specially to H12), but as I know there are many knowledgeable people walking around so here it is:

I have a QuadroFx 3600M on my HP8710w laptop. The problem is that any driver newer than 173 series or so, sooner or later freezes my computer to death. For example edition like 270.4106 has the same behavior on both Windows7 and Linux_x64. The newest 285.0509 for example doesn't allow my even to open any window before a hard restart is needed.

Drivers like this one: 173.1431 is perfectly stable on both my systems under any OpenGL software.

You think it's a normal behavior? Is 3600M not supposed to work with newer drivers? I smell something fishy, seems like a hardware problem or maybe bios… hmm… can I upgrade a video card bios in laptop? :roll: (what if I fail…?)

Thanks in advance for any comments!
skk.

It should work. Latest drivers support all Quadro FX cards that can handle Directx 10 and from what I can find on 3600M it should handle it fine.

Don't have any suggestions for what to do unfortunately.

Erik_JE
It should work. Latest drivers support all Quadro FX cards that can handle Directx 10 and from what I can find on 3600M it should handle it fine.

Don't have any suggestions for what to do unfortunately.

Thanks Erik_JE.

If it changes something, looks like the newest drivers working well are 195.xxx I haven't found anything usable above it.

Also, after some quick search it seems I don't have a much choice for a BIOS. The only found is the same as currently used (62.92.27.00.09)

SYmek
I have a QuadroFx 3600M on my HP8710w laptop. The problem is that any driver newer than 173 series or so, sooner or later freezes my computer to death.

This also extends to the GeForce cards. Im getting random freezes with a 470GTX running driver 285.62 (the last 2 drivers gave me the same issue). Freezes requiring a power off at the tower as nothing at all responds.

Win7 x64 as the os.

But, but… this is madness! In our studio we stick to even older video drivers because legacy kernels, but there are people using newer drivers, aren't they? Do they work solely on newer cards (assuming they behave better)? Does everybody else experience constant, periodic, hard crash with all certified nvidia drivers published in a last year or so!? Can't be true!

I got a Geforce 310M in my laptop which is not exactly brand new anymore and it works fine with all drivers.

Erik_JE
I got a Geforce 310M in my laptop which is not exactly brand new anymore and it works fine with all drivers.

Well, this is what I would expect. thanks.
skk.

SYmek
If it changes something, looks like the newest drivers working well are 195.xxx I haven't found anything usable above it.

Also, after some quick search it seems I don't have a much choice for a BIOS. The only found is the same as currently used (62.92.27.00.09)

Similar experience here: Quadro FX 3600M, and the most “stable” driver I've found is the 185.85.

I really think that it's a shame: high end laptop (HP 8710w), high end graphics card (Quadro FX 3600M 512 MB) and I'm locked to a 2009 driver.

Well, I also want to tell that the same issue affects Linux drivers, so I have to stick to open source Nouveau drivers when using Linux.

The best thing is that I can't even get a NVIDIA forum account to complain about this problem!!! And, of course, customer support is non-existent (like: “talk with your laptop manufacturer”). Same as always: the industry pushes hardware development to get faster and faster with model releases, so firmware, software and sometimes the hardware itself are always full of bugs or unstable as hell and you can't get a decent customer service to fix them.

Thanks for confirmation.
So this looks like HP thing. They own BIOS or something.

Hmm, I should note, that I experience some semi-progress with updated Linux kernel, semi, as crashes with 270 serie is not so often, but still happen. I didn't consider updating kernel earlier, since the same problem happened on Windows. After two weeks I came back to 173 driver though, since these crashes ruined my file system ext3 twice.

Looks like the newest drivers for Windows from HP is 186. They don't support Linux though.

Looks like the newest drivers for Windows from HP is 186. They don't support Linux though.

That's really unfortunate. 186 supports only supports OpenGL 3.0, and 176 is still OpenGL 2.1. H12's GL3 viewport renderer requires GL3.2

It sounds like whatever BIOS changes HP made aren't compatible with Nvidia's drivers.

Well, this forum thread seems to address the problem. Not really a practical solution, but for someone it has worked. I've got no time to test it now, but if you can, here is the link:

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-HP-ProBook-Compaq-Slate/8710w-Win7-random-freezing-black-screens/td-p/2337373 [h30499.www3.hp.com]

al76it
Well, this forum thread seems to address the problem. Not really a practical solution, but for someone it has worked. I've got no time to test it now, but if you can, here is the link:

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-HP-ProBook-Compaq-Slate/8710w-Win7-random-freezing-black-screens/td-p/2337373 [h30499.www3.hp.com]

Thanks for a link, albeit not directly applicable, as I mostly work on Linux, it leads investigation further! Thank again.

That's really unfortunate. 186 supports only supports OpenGL 3.0, and 176 is still OpenGL 2.1. H12's GL3 viewport renderer requires GL3.2

Indeed. Do you know, by chance, which driver is the oldest supporting GL3.2?

Indeed. Do you know, by chance, which driver is the oldest supporting GL3.2?

The 195 series, I believe. But I ran into a few GLSL compiler bugs with 195 and 197, so the minimum for Houdini may be 256 (there's a big version # jump there, for some reason).

twod

Indeed. Do you know, by chance, which driver is the oldest supporting GL3.2?

The 195 series, I believe. But I ran into a few GLSL compiler bugs with 195 and 197, so the minimum for Houdini may be 256 (there's a big version # jump there, for some reason).

Thank you.

Anyhow, it seems like I nailed down the problem thanks to previously mentioned threads from HP forum. What could possible HP changed in BIOS of nvidia card if not a power management settings! Using “Max performance” energy scheme in Nvidia Control Panel, solves problem… seems to. 3 days on 270 drivers without a single hard crash. Not bad (though it's noisy).

It sounds like either the power settings weren't providing enough cooling (being overly optimistic with the fan control), or enough voltage. Eventually the GPU messes up, giving you a BSOD or blank display. Glad you managed to fix it

I sense that houdini version greater than v8 (sic!) doesn't respect quadros
My oldie precision M70 is unable to run houdini.
It's just an old typewriter now.
But why (?!) brand new w520 displays poo in H viewport?

Never had problems with any cheapo geforce though.

I swapped the drivers and it worked for a while, but now again there are
strange black stripes, empty windows, no point attribs in scene viewer etc.

I don't know what's going on.
Perhaps it's the lack of black panther or laser blaster image on the box.
Or the name of computer is not evily spooky enough

ok, seriously…
Do you know a rock solid driver version for this setup?

Have you tried downloading a recent driver from Nvidia's site? Here's a 285 driver [nvidia.com] for the Quadro mobile series, similar to the 285 that I've been using for a desktop Quadro 4000 with good success.

285 works all right, thanks!

I also had incorrect powerplan setup, and Houdini switched to intel when on battery

:roll:

Houdini switched to intel when on battery

That would definitely do it. Intel's GL drivers are, well, I think you said it well enough above

Slightly offtopic. I really dislike Nvidias switchable graphics solution Optimus. Its not trustworthy and works like crap in linux.

If buying a laptop at the moment is there any switch solution that works good in linux? I read somewhere that lenovo still provides the option to force the graphic mode in bios making the dedicated card at least usable. Are there any other good solutions?