GPA Troubleshooting Tip: Upgrade your BIOS

Brief Problem Description:

We've recently encountered an issue whereby Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel® GPA), version 2.0, wouldn't run unless a specific version of the system BIOS is installed on the user's system. The symptom is that the user receives the following error when trying to run System Analyzer or Frame Analyzer: "Instrumented driver is not installed," even after upgrading to the latest graphics drivers.

The specific system that demonstrated these issues is the Dell Vostro* 220 with the Intel® G45/G43 Express Chipset. After upgrading from the pre-installed BIOS (1.0.3) to the latest BIOS (1.1.4) , the user was able to successfully launch all GPA tools.

Details:

The user had just purchased a new system, then downloaded GPA and verified that he had the latest graphics drivers installed (check your own system for the latest drivers). The user had specifically purchased a system that included the Intel® G45 Express Chipset, as they were intending to optimize their application to specifically work on this graphics chipset. Everything else on the system was standard, "off-the-shelf" hardware and software, and default BIOS setting were used.

The user then went to the Intel driver download site to verify that the latest graphics drivers were installed, as recommended by the GPA Release Notes. But every time he attempted to run one of the GPA tools, the error message seemed to indicate that an old, "pre-GPA" version of the graphics drivers was installed that did not include the instrumentation interface that GPA needs to obtain gpu metrics.

After acquiring one of these systems in-house, Intel was able to determine that system settings needed by the graphics driver were missing. After trying different BIOS versions, it was determined that the latest version properly configured these settings. If you have a Dell Vostro* 220, this link points to a correct version of the BIOS. The Dell suport site for this system lists other information you may need to install this patch.

Final Recommendation:

Note that it is possilbe that systems other than the one mentioned here may experience similar symptoms which are resolved by upgrading the BIOS. If this is the case, please let us know so that other users in this community can benefit from your efforts.

And last but not least, if you are encountering issues running GPA, verify that (a) you have a supported configuration, (b) you've updated your graphics drivers, and (c) you have installed the latest BIOS for your system configuration.

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

This article applies to: Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers Knowledge Base

Comments (1)

November 24, 2009 2:45 PM PST

Naresh Reddy

It worked for me on Linux(Fedora 11) G45 chipset drivers. Did well and working fine for playing HD content. But I figured that the CPU utilization is too high (On a intel quadcore, any one of the core is always 100% and other cpu cores are >50%) and gets heated up a lot. Is is a problem with the codec or player or linux G45 chipset drivers...should figure that out. Plays videos in a loop for a 30-36 hrs and then then doesnot play videos until the player is started again.