Windows 7 Macbook Pro, does not recognize nVidia graphics

Zorn

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 22, 2005
Messages
452
I just installed Win 7 beta on my unibody MacBook Pro, and everything is working fine with the exception of the graphics. It is detecting my GeForce 9600M GT as a "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" and therefore making it perform like garbage and not have Aero support. The proper Win7 nvidia drivers are supposed to be on Windows Update, but they never are found since it thinks my card is a "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter". I have also tried downloading the driver from nVidia's website, but it just says there is no qualifying hardware installed and quits out.

Anyone know if there's any way to force it to change my graphics card to the proper thing? I tried uninstalling it and when it reboots, it just reinstalls the damn Standard VGA graphics adapter right back.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Quick response but first thing that comes to mind is download the latest nvida drivers as youve done. If it fails & exits the install always....than, Just watch where nvidia extracts the install files to on your harddrive and locate them.

After locating them....go to device manager and update the standard vga device manually by clicking the update section of the driver tab and locating the driver folder yourself by browsing and than manually selecting the model you want installed. Windows may ask you are you sure cause it can't verify install blah blah balh. Say yes etc. Re-boot good luck.


Lastly if that does not work....than maybe needs better chipset drivers load/installed prior to vga driver install. try checking/fixing all chipset drivers if needed. Good luck ; )
 
Quick response but first thing that comes to mind is download the latest nvida drivers as youve done. If it fails & exits the install always....than, Just watch where nvidia extracts the install files to on your harddrive and locate them.

After locating them....go to device manager and update the standard vga device manually by clicking the update section of the driver tab and locating the driver folder yourself by browsing and than manually selecting the model you want installed. Windows may ask you are you sure cause it can't verify install blah blah balh. Say yes etc. Re-boot good luck.


Lastly if that does not work....than maybe needs better chipset drivers load/installed prior to vga driver install. try checking/fixing all chipset drivers if needed. Good luck ; )

This.

nVidia doesn't 'write' their drivers for mobile chips. They leave that up to the notebook vendors. You will never be able to download nVidia graphics drivers for laptops off of the nVidia site,

Try laptopvideo2go.com. They have all kinds of hacked .inf files.

edit for clarification. There is no difference between the drivers from nVidia and the drivers from your laptop maker. It's just a few lines in 2 of the .inf files that 'allow' the drivers to recoginize your chip. nVidia doesn't put the info in the driver packages for the mobile chips, they make the laptop makers do that (for whatever reason). The biggest problem with this is it's up to the laptop makers to update their drivers, and they really don't with any sort of regularity. Hence, the popularity of laptopvideo2go. If you really want to play around, you can easily modify the .inf files from nVidia's site and add in your mobile chip. But that's a subject for another day.
 
[EDIT] Just noticed the previous posting offering laptopvideo2go.com as well. Than this will be a follow-up on that. :D

Yes & No. No they do not offer mobile drivers directly to download but they do make them they just hand them offer to the manufacturers to customize as needed. Direct nvidia drivers will work with a work around. Try this site:

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers

Just enter the information and than you can download the modified latest nvidia drivers for your video. I've done it before in similar situations even with ATI. I would direct link you to the drivers but I do not have the information necessary to input on that website screen. Hopefully you know how to get that info & I think they have instructions on their as well.

That websites focus is in maintaining the latest laptop mobile video drivers available.

Lastly if all else fails...than follow my 1st reply instructions but with these instructions. Finally Good Luck again ; )
 
Owner of the early 08 MacBook Pro with Win7 64 here.


Go to the Nvidia site and snag the GeForce Vista64 driver. It works perfectly even in its beta state. The drivers on the Leopard DVD are older than dirt. And forget that laptopvideo2go crap.
 
This.

nVidia doesn't 'write' their drivers for mobile chips. They leave that up to the notebook vendors. You will never be able to download nVidia graphics drivers for laptops off of the nVidia site,
.

Never say "never"....I was browsing Nvidia last month looking for some Win7 specific drivers (if they had any) and found they started offering beta 179.48 laptop driver.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_drivers.html
 
drivers will install on a vostro even though Nvidia states that they won't :p
 
Man, I stand corrected. It's nice that they've started offering drivers for the mobile chips. Must be a relatively new thing though? Gonna make keeping the laptop up to date MUCH easier.
 
Man, I stand corrected. It's nice that they've started offering drivers for the mobile chips. Must be a relatively new thing though? Gonna make keeping the laptop up to date MUCH easier.

Yeah it happened I think towards the end of last year. VERY awesome and well overdue. I was never happy with the laptopvideo2go drivers and the default Boot Camp drivers are old as balls. They're still beta but they work fantastically.
 
I know it's after-the-fact now, but the success I had installing Win 7 on my MBP involved me starting with the Boot Camp driver pack (using the Vista 64 version) and making sure the networking was up and going as quickly as possible. The airport and video drivers from the Boot Camp pack weren't the greatest (Airport didn't work, video was crappy), but when I plugged in the NIC and got on the internet Windows eventually notified me that there were newer drivers available through WU. The Microsoft drivers actually fixed the Airport problem and I think the nVidia site had the same driver that Microsoft updated because there was no change after the Win Update improvement.

The lesson I learned was to always start with the Boot Camp drivers to get things going, and then follow up after the Apple drivers have covered the foundation stuff-- chipset, touchpad, etc.-- because you'll have more success getting a solid Windows install that way.
 
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