Problems upgrading drivers for Geforce4 Go 440

[Guest FunkMonkey]

Hi, I've been having enormous problems upgrading the graphics drivers for the Geforce4 Go 440 card on my laptop. Everyone on these forums seems to know a lot about this card so I'd really appreciate it if you could take a look at my problem and possibly offer a solution.

First of all, the specs of my laptop: the manufacturer is Mitac, model 806,0 and I'm running Windows XP with SP2, the chipset is intel, I'm using a Geforce4 Go 440 64M card as stated above, not sure of bios version but I could check if neccessary. I am currently using the drivers supplied with the laptop which are version 3.2.2.0. As these are dated sometime in 2002 I'd like to upgrade them to a newer set but have been having trouble doing so.

When I uninstalled my current drivers using add/remove programs the screen used to simply switch to a lower resolution and not seem to recognise the updated drivers when I loaded them but ever since I tried installing v67.42 (I think that was the version) that changed. Now the screen becomes horribly distorted when restarted and I am unable to make out anything. The same effect occurs in safe mode but NOT vga safe mode thankfully where the graphics obviously run at vga quality.

Now when I upgrade to newer drivers, including those that specifically support my card and OEM, or any that were not specifically designed for my laptop (that is, either the original drivers supplied or ones downloaded from Mitac) I get that same distorted screen and am forced to enter vga safe mode to reinstall the original set (3.2.2.0). I've tried different drivers from the 40, 50 and 60 series and with modded ones I've copied the correct INF for my OEM and installed them correctly as far as I know. I've used Detonator R.I.P and drivercleaner to remove all remains of the driver after uninstalling and this hasn't helped. Not sure if it's relevant but I got an illegal operation when using cab cleaner to clean driver.cab so wasn't able to completely clean that file, although the service packs and the maiin driver cleaner worked fine.

If I install the drivers downloaded from the Mitac website (version 4.4.2.2) however the distortion doesn't occur when starting windows normally but the resolution is set to 1024x768 rather than my laptop's normal 1280x854. The slider in display settings and the modes list doesn't give me the option to set this resolution, it seems 1024x768 is as high as it goes. I've tried using powerstrip, rivatuner and refreshforce to force the resolution to 1280x854 but this doesn't work, it always ends up in 1024x768. I've also looked in the nvidia control panel but can't find an option to force the resolution.

What I'm looking for is either a way to get modded drivers working without that distortion and in the right resolution (1280x854), or simply a way of getting the drivers downloaded from Mitac to work in 1280x854. Simply to know why my laptop isnt accepting any drivers apart from ones downloaded from Mitac would be of help even if it's something I can't fix. Thanks for taking the time to read this rather long post, I'm off to bed now as I've spent most of the day trying to sort this out with no success and need a break from graphics drivers! If anyone out there can think of a way to fix this I'd be really grateful.

[Guest Guest]

Just found BIOS version info. The system bios info in the registry reads as:

INSYDE - 1

Insyde Software MobilePRO BIOS Version 3.00.04

Insyde Software MobilePRO BIOS Version 3.00.04

KBC/EC Firmware Version R1.05

The video BIOS info shows:

Version 4.17.00.75.A3

Version 4.17.00.75.A3

Version 4.17.00.75.A3

are MobilePRO BIOS Version 3.00.04

KBC/EC Firmware Version R1.05

Hope that helps!

[Guest Guest]

en, i have encounter the same problems. how to solve it ?

thanks in advance.