What to do if a factory driver won't install?

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Prozac1964

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 1, 2010
Messages
309
First I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has been helping me with this nightmare laptop repair! :)

Ok, reformatted again, installed Windows XP again on this Dell Inspiron. I installed the Intel Chipset first, and it installed perfect. Then I downloaded the ATI x300 video driver directly from Dell, attempted to install, and the ATI install screen popped up, then crashed. It gave me this error message:

"setup was unable to find components that can be installed on your current hardware/software configuration"

What should I do now, if the factory driver itself will not install? There is some kind of Windows generic video driver in there now, so I have video, just not the right one. Should I seek out an ATI x300 driver at ATI or a random 3rd party website.

And the error message, does that tell us something. I just don't get it. My thinking on this second reformat/reinstall is just install the drivers in a logical list, and if you have trouble with any driver: don't move to the next until you've fixed the one that isn't working.

Again, I know that I'm not the greatest tech AT ALL, and there are many extremely knowledgable techs here at Hard Forum. I've been learning from you for several years. If you have any knowledge about my dilemma I would appreciate it so much if you teach me what I'm doing wrong and how I can get better results! :)
 
Whats the hardware ID of the integrated videocard? Check that on device manager
 
Ok, I don't have the typical "Display" icon in the device list - at all. Further down under "Other Devices" I have a Video Controller and Video Controller (VGA Compatible) listed with big yellow ? and !

Does that help? And thanks for your reply. :)
 
What's the Inspiron model number?

For both Video Controller and Video Controller (VGA Compatible), double click on it, go to the Details tab then change the Property box to Hardware Ids. The most important bits are the 4-character long hexadecimal number after VEN (vendor) and DEV (device).
 
if the hardware ID is 10D, I think that's NVidia, 8086 is Intel...forget what ATI is
 
Well, I'm beat. I'm going to get some rest and start on it fresh in the morning. When I get into the device manager and find all the numbers you mentioned I will post them.

Thanks to everyone for your help. I feel like there might be light at the tunnel, but not without you guys and gals. :)
 
Snowknight26 said:
What's the Inspiron model number?

For both Video Controller and Video Controller (VGA Compatible), double click on it, go to the Details tab then change the Property box to Hardware Ids. The most important bits are the 4-character long hexadecimal number after VEN (vendor) and DEV (device).
Click to expand...

Ok here's what I got: double clicked on both Video devices and both gave me the normal window with the General, Driver, and Resources tabs, but there is no Details tab. There's a Driver Details button under the Driver tab, so I clicked it just to see and it gave me an error beep and this message:

"No driver files are required or have been loaded for this device."

No details/property/hardware id's/hex 4 digit number. Before I throw out any more theories I'm going to wait to see what everyone thinks of this craziness. :) Man, I've repaired quite a few pc's along the way, build all my own rigs, etc. but I've never had this much trouble with any of them.

Snowknight26 said:
You either need this or this.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Snow. I had already tried the ATI link which gave me the error in my OP. The Nvidia link crashed on Nvidia install screen with similar error as ATI:

"Nvidia could not locate any drivers compatible with current hardware."

Back to the drawing board. :(

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'll wait to hear back. :)

:):):):):):):):):) Possible breakthrough: I found a cmd that I could use in the run>cmd.exe. Devmgr show details. I double clicked again and the vga properties now has a details tab!!!

Changed to hardware ids and got:

VEN - 8086 DEV - 27A2

Is that what we were looking for? :)
 
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Not sure why Dell's site doesn't list that model as also having an Intel GPU.

Either way, this will work, guaranteed.
 
It worked!!!!!!! Thank you so much for helping me, Snowknight26. You're a lifesaver. Ok, so I've successfully installed Chipset, and Video drivers.....should I go for the network driver next?
 
It doesn't matter what in order you install them. As long as you don't have any unknown devices after you're all said and done.
 
Ok thanks Snow, btw I successfully installed the ethernet Broadcom controller and the Broadcom utility that came with it. Yay
 
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