Category Archives: Device drivers

Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, WED Blog

Waiting On Next NVIDIA Studio Driver

February 14, 2025 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Oho! A new NVIDIA Game-ready driver is out. As you can see in the lead-in graphic this one’s numbered 577.42. But if you’ve been reading this blog of late, you already knew that both the January 30 Game-Ready AND Studio drivers gave my dual monitor rig fits (get the gist from this Feb 5 item). Hence, my response to the new driver is below tepid. Instead, I’m waiting on the next NVIDIA Studio Driver to come along. I hope my optimism that it might fix dual monitor gotchas is justified. We’ll see…

Why I’m Waiting On Next NVIDIA Studio Driver

The January 30 update included both Game-Ready and Studio driver version. Alas, both also exhibited the same unwanted behaviors on my dual-monitor setup. The left-hand monitor didn’t want to wake up from sleep, and I had to use a combination of two techniques to bring it back to life:

Use the WinKey-Ctrl-Shift-B key combination (shortcut) to reload the graphics driver
Use the Ctrl-Alt-Del “three-fingered-salute” to bring the desktop back to life

Shoot! I like it a lot better when I just hit a key, or click the mouse, and the PC wakes up on its own shortly thereafter. Neither of the preceding 572.16 versions were so obliging, which is why I rolled back to version 566.36. I don’t plan on updating until a new Studio version comes out (and I’ll be sure to back up 566.36 for re-use, should I need it back).

Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog

NVIDIA Rollback Gets Interesting

February 5, 2025 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Take a look at the lead-in graphic. It shows multiple daily crashes — hardware errors mostly — on my production desktop for the past week. As it turns out, my switchover from Game-Ready to Studio NVIDIA driver did not fix my dual monitor problems. I had to forcibly reload the graphics driver (WinKey+Ctrl+Shift+B) to get both displays working after sleep even after the switch. Resolved to undo recent updates, I learned that NVIDIA rollback gets interesting on this PC. Let me explain…

Why NVIDIA Rollback Gets Interesting

It doesn’t seem to matter which January 30 version of the NVIDIA driver I try to run on this PC and its RTX 3070 Ti GPU. Both posed stability and “wake from sleep” issues. Thus, I knew I had to roll back to the previous version.

Alas, the rollback button in Driver properties was not lit up, so I had to find and download the driver from the NVIDIA website. Once I identified the next-most-recent version — namely 566.36 — I was able to download its installer file from the older drivers listing for my graphics card, filtering on the Studio Driver tab.

Just to be safe, I also told the installer to do a clean install of that driver. This flushes out all associated files and registry settings found on the PC and replaces them with clean new (in this case, older) copies.

Rollback Success?

I was able to reboot and get into the OS with both monitors working just fine. I just put the PC to sleep, and was able to wake into both monitors without difficulty. I’d hazard the hypothesis that this might have fixed the issues I was experiencing. But after being too quick to declare victory in my Febuary 3 post after switching to the 572.16 Studio driver, I think I’ll wait and see if things keep working before calling this one “fixed for sure.”

Stay tuned! I’ll report back tomorrow and let you know if ReliMon throws any more errors. So far, so good even after “forced sleep and wake…”

Info Added 25 Minutes Later

I just came back from lunch. The PC woke up with a single keystroke (Enter) and both monitors are working as they should be. I’m encouraged.

Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog

Latest NVIDIA Game-Ready Driver Disses Dual Displays

February 3, 2025 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Last Thursday, January 30, I installed new versions of the NVIDIA app and the latest game-ready driver (version 572.16) on my production desktop. It’s got a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GPU, so I generally stay on the leading driver edge. Not this time! Immediately after I installed the new driver, trouble came to visit. Indeed, I’ll claim that the latest NVIDIA game-ready driver disses dual displays because no sooner did it next sleep, monitor 2 went dark and stayed that way. Eventually, I figured out that I had to cycle power on that monitor to get it working again. Sheesh!

Undoing Latest NVIDIA Game-Ready Driver Disses Dual Displays

I’m OCD enough about Windows stuff that I can’t leave something broken for too long. So when uninstall/reinstall failed to fix my wake-from-sleep issue with Monitor 2 (left-hand, as shown in lead-in graphic), I switched from NVIDIA’s Game-ready driver to the Studio driver model.

It, too, shows the same version number and release date. But as far as I can tell, it’s not inclined to lose Monitor 2 when the desktop goes to sleep. That’s a good enough reason for me to switch and stick with that selection. If I were a gamer — I’m not — I might feel differently. But because I’m not I’m glad that the more staid and reliable Studio version of the driver meets my needs, and keeps my monitors going.

And isn’t that just the way things go here in Windows-World sometimes? But the principle is a good one: if the driver you’re using is causing trouble, and a different model is available, there’s no harm in trying to see if the trouble goes away upon switching. In my case, I was lucky that it did!

Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog

Resuscitate Dead Device Driver

January 31, 2025 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

OK, I admit it. When it comes to buying printers, I don’t do that very often. Both of my current printers were purchased long, long ago. Oldest is the Dell 2155cn color networked laser (2011); next is the Samsung ML2850 (2012). Before that I had an Apple LaserWriter that I’d purchased in the late 1980s. Because printers last so long, I’ve learn how to resuscitate dead device drivers. At least, legerdemain aside, I’ve learned how to find old ones.

Dell 2155cn: Resuscitate Dead Device Driver

I got a comment yesterday on this site about a January 2024 post Adding Ancient Dell Printer Gets Interesting. Seems that the commenter couldn’t find or install the driver for that very same printer (Dell 2155cn) of which he apparently also has one.

First things first: I did include a link to that driver in the post that still works on Windows 11. How do I know? Because I downloaded and installed it on a 2018 vintage Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga x380 running Windows 11 Beta Channel Build 22635.4805). That’s what you see as the lead-in graphic above, in fact. I even printed a page to that device. It all still works, decrepitude notwithstanding.

Why Ask for Help, Then?

I’m guessing the commenter missed that link. And when he went to the Dell support pages — as I did myself yesterday — to check on the link, its search engine no longer proffers it for users to download. My guess: they’ve aged it out of the actively available content. This happens to most hardware as it gets so old that vendors no longer wish to give its drivers storage space in which to reside.

Interestingly, armed with the literal name of the package I was seeking — namely “Dell 2155cn/cdn color MFP” (multi-function printer) — Google took me right to its support page. The Dell engine from its support pages worked, too — provided with the exact title that I elicited from the very page itself (that’s cheating, I know). The commenter may not have looked as hard or cleverly as I did to find the info.

But if Google and vendor sites come up short, don’t forget the Wayback Machine. This public project houses historical snapshots of previous states of most publicly accessible websites (NOT the dark web, AFAIK). You may be able to use it to find old snapshots of old drivers unavailable through other methods. This is where precise or unique and relevant search strings can be helpful. It is, after all, another way to look for a needle in a haystack (or maybe several decades’ worth of same). Good luck!

Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 11

Backing Off Intel Graphics Driver

January 27, 2025 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Ok then: I was operating under the belief that no harm should come to Lenovo PCs after updating to Intel GPU drives via DSA. Apparently I was mistaken: I’ll show evidence that for the ThinkStation P3 Ultra at least, the DSA-supplied Arc & Iris Xe drivers pose problems. Hence, I’m backing off Intel graphics driver on that machine.

Why I’m Backing Off Intel Graphics Driver

Check out the lead-in graphic. It shows Reliability Monitor with 2 crashes on both 1/22 and 1/23 for the IntelGraphicsSoftware Service process. Not good! Indeed, it causes about a 5-point drop in the reliability index in two sharp dips.

To me, that makes it pretty clear that — at least for this PC — the Intel driver is not working properly in its runtime environment. The notion that I picked up was that updating Windows 11 graphics drivers would not necessarily overwrite OEM customizations. FWIW, Copilot confirms this. But the evidence from ReliMon on the P3 is pretty hard to contest. Methinks Intel is still right to post its warning in DSA where such drivers are concerned (with a checkbox for users to explicitly opt in anyway), to wit:

And indeed, now that I’ve uninstalled that driver and reverted to a Lenovo driver dated 10/29/2024, I’ve experienced no further issues with Intel graphics stuff. That said I do have an APPCRASH for the IntelSoftwareAssetManagerServer.exe process. But a quick hop to the Intel Support Community shows that this belongs to PROSet Wireless stuff not graphics. So there’s a problem for another day!

Here in Windows World it’s always something. Lately, those “somethings” have an interesting number of elements with Intel’s name involved. Go figure…

Cool Tools, Device drivers, Hardware Reviews, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog

Further Intel DSA Follies

January 21, 2025 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

So I’m working on the new loaner unit here at Chez Tittel: a Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Gen5. As part of my management process, I routinely install the Intel Driver and Support Assistant — aka DSA — on PCs with Intel CPUs. That includes the M90a because it sports a beefy i7-14700. In catching up the device on the latest Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GbE drivers this morning, I found myself engaged in further Intel DSA follies following (and during) installation. Let me explain…

Fostering Further Intel DSA Follies

My first folly occurred as DSA was getting installed. Even though it wasn’t quite done, it popped up a notification of available updates. I’d never seen this before, so I bit on that offer. It got me downloading the aforementioned communications drivers, and I started that sequence with Bluetooth. Imagine my surprise when the install refused to run because “another installation is underway.” For me, then, Folly #1 is “Don’t start on updates until DSA install is finished.”

Folly #2 reflects a recent UI change in DSA. Once it completes any driver install, it shows installation history. Because one is installing drivers in sequence, that means one must click the “Refresh” button to see any and all remaining drivers that still need to be installed. Repeat until all desired drivers are updated. I’ll summarize Folly #2 as “Remember to click ‘Refresh’ as each install completes, to see remaining pending installs.”

Folly#3 is extreme user engagement in the various driver installers. I counted from 7 to 10 mouse clicks per driver install to get through that process. This bothers me enough that I’ve already blogged about this (April 2023: Achieving Intel Update Driver Silence). Given that Intel has documented this capability for most of its drivers, I’m apparently not the only DSA user to find this irksome.

Done and Dusted: Follies Behind Me

The M90a is now caught up with all of the Intel drivers I choose to update. Even though it’s not supposed to matter, that brings me to Folly #4: The Intel Arc & Iris Xe Graphics warning (appears as the lead-in graphic above, in fact). Intel says elsewhere that since 2022 or thereabouts, its drivers do NOT trample upon OEM customizations. Yet it continues to flash this warning and require user opt-in before enabling install. Sheesh.

Here in Windows World, it’s always something. Today, it’s Intel DSA follies. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Wait til then, and I’ll let you know…

Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 11

DSA Update Succeeds Where Lenovo Vantage Fails

January 2, 2025 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Go figure! When Lenovo Vantage reported this morning that the ThinkStation P3 Ultra needed a new Intel Wi-Fi driver, I thought nothing of it. I elected the install, fired it off, and waited for the results. Oops: “Failed to install.” Tried again, and got the same result. So I checked Intel’s Driver and Support Assistant (DSA). Sure enough it reported the same outdated driver (23.60.0.10) and the same incoming new replacement (23.100.0.4). But that DSA update succeeds where Lenovo Vantage fails. As you can see in the lead-in graphic, a subsequent Vantage update check post-DSA reports no updates available (and shows a failed attempt below).

Guessing Why DSA Update Succeeds Where Lenovo Vantage Fails

I’m a great believer in the old principle that “if one tool fails, try a different one.” What’s trickier is figuring out why Vantage falls over while DSA does the job correctly. Copilot speculates it could have to do with compatibility, permissions, or software conflicts. Turns out one must enable a registry setting to get Vantage to log and report on failures — absent on the P3 Ultra, alas — so I can’t really tell what went south when Commercial Vantage did its thing.

If it were really important (and I hadn’t found an immediate and easy workaround) that’s what I’d be doing next. The key string involved is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Lenovo\
SystemUpdateAddin\Logs

The REG-SZ (registry string) value named “EnableLogs” needs to be changed from its default value of “False” to “True” for subsequent logging to occur. I’ve made that change, and will check out if and when future Vantage install or other update errors occur. Good stuff!

Prepped for the next gotcha: logging enabled.

Hopefully next time I won’t have to guess what happened. The log should tell me something. Whether I can parse its meaning is a whole ‘nother challenge!

Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11, Windows Update

ThinkBook Hybrid Fails 24H2 Upgrade

December 16, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I can’t say I’m surprised, but I can confess to mild bepuzzlement. Over the weekend, WU decided that a new test laptop — a Lenovo ThinkBook Plus G5 — was ready for 24H2. Alas, for a variety of good reasons that ThinkBook hybrid fails 24H2 upgrade and goes down in flames. Indeed, I had to use the WinRE “Uninstall upgrade” option for the first time ever to bring that machine back to life.

Why ThinkBook Hybrid Fails 24H2 Upgrade

Of course, when I checked the machine this morning, I hadn’t interfered with WU, so it was already attempting this doomed upgrade again. You can see it’s at 25% complete in the lead-in graphic. I foiled that by restarting the PC, then pausing updates for 7 days in the WU controls, as you can see here:

While I’m troubleshooting, I suspended updates.

What the Panther Logs Have to Say

There are two primary logs worth checking into if an upgrade fails to complete successfully — namely:

C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources\panther\setupact.log C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources\panther\miglog.xml

These are liberally bestrewn with errors of all kinds including device drivers and storage items. The ThinkBook’s “hybrid drive” bridges between native Windows storage on the deck and native Android storage on the tablet. It takes the form of something called a Hybrid Tab in File Explorer (see next screencap). I believe it’s very likely involved in my snafu.

Because it uses a special driver and customized software, I’m betting that the Hybrid Tab is the source of storage and driver issues.

Copilot tells me that if I upgrade from bootable media, the ThinkBook may survive the upgrade process intact. Right now, I think it’s losing the Hybrid Tab scaffolding amidst the post-GUI reboots during the serious parts of OS install. That sounds like it’s worth a try. But first, I’ll make a fresh image backup and be ready to restore same should things go south again.

Stay tuned! This could get interesting…

Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 11

BIOS Update Demands Cable Switch

October 29, 2024 Ed Tittel 1 Comment

Whoa: this time, things got just a little bit TOO interesting. I’ve got a Lenovo P360 Ultra ThinkStation on loan, and a BIOS update came through today (to version S0JKT2AA). But when I would install the update, the usual BIOS flash screens did not come up after a reboot. It wasn’t until I swapped the graphics cable from the full-size DP to full-size DP port, to a full-size DP (monitor) to mini DP (PC) that the splash screen showed up at boot, and the BIOS flash ran through to completion. Thus, the BIOS update demands cable switch to succeed. Go figure!

How Did I Figure Out That BIOS Update Demands Cable Switch

By watching the post-reboot behavior on-screen, I realized it wasn’t showing me what it was supposed to. Basically, the screen stayed black post-restart until the lock screen for Windows 11 appeared. I knew I was supposed to see the boot-up splash screen (which reads “Lenovo” in white letters on a black background on this device). But instead: nada.

So on a whim, I brought down the video & power cables box from atop my bookshelves. Then, I grabbed a full-size DisplayPort to mini-DP cable and used it to replace the full-size DP to full-size DP I was currently using. Immediately thereafter, I got a splash screen and the BIOS update started processing. It took a while, but it eventually ground through to a successful update.

What About those Intel Graphics?

The next item of business was to get the built-in Intel graphics (UHD Graphics 770) updated. After a handful of failed attempts to get the Lenovo version to run, I visited the Intel DSA (Driver & Support Assistant) and installed that version instead. It worked. You can see the results for my final — and entirely welcome — update check using the Lenovo Commercial Vantage tool as the lead-in graphic above.

That was a wild ride. But indeed, that’s the way things go in Windows-World far too often, based on my current level of interest vs. fatigue. Today, fatigue wins out. Sigh.

Device drivers, Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Updates, WED Blog, Windows 11

KB5043145 Throws Interesting Stopcode

September 30, 2024 Ed Tittel 4 Comments

Here’s one I’ve not run into before: Stopcode 0XEA. It shows up on BSODs as THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER. The intro screencap show results running that stopcode against the MS error code lookup tool. Basically, it says a device driver thread is stuck in an infinite loop. (See the MS Bug Check 0xEA page for further deets.) Apparently, it’s showing that optional CU KB5043145 throws interesting stopcode and BSOD/GSOD on some PCs. Notably, says WindowsLatest, that includes some 2022 and 2024 Asus laptops.

If KB5043145 Throws Interesting Stopcode, Then What?

If that happens to any of your PCs, you’ll need to boot to WinRE on bootable media, and use the “Uninstall Update ” item in its Advanced Options menu to uninstall it from your Windows Image. When a PC won’t boot because the image is damaged, that’s pretty much the only repair that works, short of a clean Windows (re)install.

Alas, this is eerily reminiscent of the July 19 Crowstrike update, which took down 8+million Windows PCs. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as widespread nor impactful as that incident turned out. That said, Windows users should be aware that this optional CU could force recovery and repair to undo. Fortunately, such updates do not typically affect production environments, where update get tested and vetted long before they get scheduled for some update window.

But gosh, it seems like we’ve run into rather more problematic updates that is typical in 2024. FWIW, the update hasn’t caused any trouble on those test machines here at Chez Tittel where I can make it run. Even so, it’s a great reminder to be careful out there in Windows-World…