Windows 8 enable widescreen on basic display driver?

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Cold_B

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I have an old Dell E1705 that I still use, and I just installed Windows 8 on it, but I have a problem. The laptop came with a Nvidia 7900 GS GO, which is no longer supported by Nvidia or Dell.

Windows runs fine, but using the "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter", I can on go up to 1600x1200, where as my display can do 1920x1200.

I've tried the newest nvidia drivers, and the new unified windows 7 drivers for my card, they will install and allow me widescreen resolutions, but windows will crash within a minute or so.

Does anyone know a way to enable widescreen resolutions using the basic display adapter? I can only get 4:3 resolutions.


I only use this laptop for work and web stuff, so the lack of gpu acceleration is ok with me.
 
Cold_B said:
I have an old Dell E1705 that I still use, and I just installed Windows 8 on it, but I have a problem. The laptop came with a Nvidia 7900 GS GO, which is no longer supported by Nvidia or Dell.

Windows runs fine, but using the "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter", I can on go up to 1600x1200, where as my display can do 1920x1200.

I've tried the newest nvidia drivers, and the new unified windows 7 drivers for my card, they will install and allow me widescreen resolutions, but windows will crash within a minute or so.

Does anyone know a way to enable widescreen resolutions using the basic display adapter? I can only get 4:3 resolutions.


I only use this laptop for work and web stuff, so the lack of gpu acceleration is ok with me.
Click to expand...

I don't mean to sound rude but having an old laptop is bad enough, installing a spanking new Windows OS to it is asking for trouble. Laptops have a notoriously bad driver support to begin with - I'm afraid your more or less SOL.
 
B00nie said:
I don't mean to sound rude but having an old laptop is bad enough, installing a spanking new Windows OS to it is asking for trouble. Laptops have a notoriously bad driver support to begin with - I'm afraid your more or less SOL.
Click to expand...

Good advice if this wasn't a hardware forum, but this is where people come when they ARE willing to tackle those potential issues. I have a Compaq X1000 from 2003 with a Mobility Radeon 9200 (DirectX 8.1 era chip) and I managed to get Windows 7 working on there wonderfully. Video works at the native res of 1680x1050 after force installing the XP driver.

That might be something the OP could try as well. In my case, force installing the XP driver was the only option I had but Windows 7 at least does have basic support for non-WDDM drivers used for 2d purposes. You might try giving the XP driver a shot.
 
GotNoRice said:
Good advice if this wasn't a hardware forum, but this is where people come when they ARE willing to tackle those potential issues. I have a Compaq X1000 from 2003 with a Mobility Radeon 9200 (DirectX 8.1 era chip) and I managed to get Windows 7 working on there wonderfully. Video works at the native res of 1680x1050 after force installing the XP driver.

That might be something the OP could try as well. In my case, force installing the XP driver was the only option I had but Windows 7 at least does have basic support for non-WDDM drivers used for 2d purposes. You might try giving the XP driver a shot.
Click to expand...

That seems just a lot of trouble for nothing. Why not use the OS and drivers that were designed for the machine? It's not like Win7 or 8 is going to speed it up or make it better in any way, quite the opposite. If folks like to play with laptop drivers, omegadrivers.net has hacked drivers that will install to laptops and other 'non supported' devices.
 
B00nie said:
That seems just a lot of trouble for nothing. Why not use the OS and drivers that were designed for the machine? It's not like Win7 or 8 is going to speed it up or make it better in any way, quite the opposite. If folks like to play with laptop drivers, omegadrivers.net has hacked drivers that will install to laptops and other 'non supported' devices.
Click to expand...

I said it before, and I'll say it again:

Not everyone is like you, so stop acting like it.

Back on topic:

I know XP allowed you to hold down shift and adjust to resolutions not supported, but I'm not sure about Windows 8.
 
I've looked pretty hard for a W8 driver for a GeForce Go 7950 GTX (Dell Part # GU067) installed in my e1705 and even went straight to the NV site. When I attempted to install the W7 driver 179.48, which is the 32-bit driver referenced in the previous post, under W8 all I get is an error message that indicates no compatible hardware can be detected. I get the same result when attempting to install the available XP or Vista drivers in compatibility mode.

Is there a patch available to force the W7 driver install under W8 and avoid the MS "Basic Display Adapter" ?

thnx

TheGamerZ said:
You must not have looked very hard for drivers.

Straight from the NV site:

32 bit: http://www. geforce . com/drivers/results/8971
64 bit: http://www. geforce . com/drivers/results/8972

Edit... can't use geforce . com links? wtf? Take out the spaces
Click to expand...
 
Been awhile since I've installed an nVIDIA driver... does it extract to a folder on your C:\ drive? If not, you might have to dig around in your temp folder after you start the installation process. (Run > %TMP%) Usually I've had pretty good luck using the Windows 7 versions of drivers in Windows 8, but if you go into temp and pull out the folder with the driver that the install package creates, you might be able to force install it in Device Manager.

Also, have you tried the Vista driver on Dell's site? Hasn't been updated in 5 years, but might be able to get you going.
 
They extract to C:\NVIDIA by default. Once extracted, go run setup.exe in compatibility mode


Also, did you check windows update?
 
I appreciate the responses, however using device manager (Have Disk method) will not install the NVidia driver from the NVidia driver folder created when the NVidia installer runs. Running the installation routine in compatibility modes 7, Vista, and XP also fail. I've tried the driver downloaded from Dell, also. Windows Update doesn't see the adapter as needing an update.

There's probably another driver update for this video adapter out there for W8 and I just haven't found it, yet.

Thanks.
 
Interesting, because I installed the RC version on my Dell M1710 with a GS7900.
I installed the current nVidia Win7 driver with no issue. ?? GO figure, lol.
 
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