Geforce Go 7900 GTX Drivers

[destman1]

Hey I'm new here and just attempting to update my drivers for my laptop. I have Windows xp 32bit and an alienware Malx Computer. It has 2x 7900 go gtx cards. I've been trying to use the new forware drivers that have been posted on the website but everytime I install them when i restart my computer my computer loads up windows then just sits at a black screen and never starts. Does that just mean I cant use those drivers? Or am I doing something wrong. I know I have some clevo chipset or soemthing I dont know if that has anything to do with it. But yea if anyone could maybe suggest a driver that will work for me that would be awesome thanks a lot. Ive tried like 169.09 and .04 and a bunch of lower ones I could name them all but I dont know if that would help. Thanks!

[Pantharian]

destman1,

I have exactly the same setup - an Alienware mALX with two sli'd GeForce Go 7900 GTX cards. You are the only other person I know who has bought one of these. :rofl:

The bad news is that it doesn't look like Alienware support this card on XP. I am apoplectic ( :) ) that I have splashed out over £3k for a laptop that has not had an official update on their support download pages since I bought it 14months ago!

Anyway... the latest drivers available from Alienware support site is v84.22 dated March 2006 :) They did post some updated drivers on their ftp site but they have now passworded access to it :( . However, they are exactly the same (bit-4-bit) as the ones found here: http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/GRAPHICS-...8614-WHQL.shtml. These drivers can be installed from the setup.exe without any issues and have the SLI option in the NVidia Control Panel.

However, I know they don't work well with the TimeShift demo :P - because I got a blue screen when I tried to play it on maxed settings. It also looks like they won't work well with Crysis either.

Fortunately, the guys at laptopvideo2go have found a way to install the latest drivers that definitely works on the Alienware mALX - you just need to know how to install them :thumbsup: I installed v169.04 last week and I have the SLI option. :thumbsup: Once enabled the Timeshift demo ran at 50-60fps with settings maxed out. I haven't tried v169.09 yet.

So how do you install them? The following steps have been copied from http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index....vers&st=120 :

1) Download the driver you want along with the modified .INF, and replace it (I used the latest 169.04 XP 32-bit "Crysis Demo" Beta drivers).

2) Uninstall old driver, reboot (preferrably use Driver Cleaner Pro in Safe Mode).

3) Install new driver BUT when it goes to install the second card (i.e. The 2nd Continue/Stop installation prompt), STOP THE INSTALLATION FOR THE 2ND CARD.

4) Reboot.

5) Navigate to the Device Manager and notice the second card is uninstalled. Update it's driver by manually selecting the driver folder for the one you just installed.

6) Reboot.

7) Voila!!! Successfully installed drivers.

Personally, I didn't use Driver Cleaner in step 2.

I followed the other steps precisely and it worked:

Note that the Enable SLI option will not appear until after the second reboot even though the OS doesn't prompt you to do it.

Good luck (and please post an update when you get the chance!!

:P

[destman1]

ok so i tried doing this ....

first i uninstalled my old video card drivers so now i have 2 unknown video controllers. Next I tried installing them so i clicked accept for the first one and then it started installing but half way trhough the screen changes and goes black and just freezes. Then I restarted and I had 2 gtx 7900s in my controll pannel but I had to use safe mode because I kept getting black screens. So yea IDK it didnt really work for me. Should i be installing the drivers with the setup thing in the folder or via the device manager and update driver. And should I be trying to do it in safe mode when I'm installing? Im using 169.04 and for removing old drivers do i need to do anything other than remove them in add/remove programs?

[Pantharian]

ok so i tried doing this ....

first i uninstalled my old video card drivers so now i have 2 unknown video controllers. Next I tried installing them so i clicked accept for the first one and then it started installing but half way trhough the screen changes and goes black and just freezes. Then I restarted and I had 2 gtx 7900s in my controll pannel but I had to use safe mode because I kept getting black screens. So yea IDK it didnt really work for me. Should i be installing the drivers with the setup thing in the folder or via the device manager and update driver. And should I be trying to do it in safe mode when I'm installing? Im using 169.04 and for removing old drivers do i need to do anything other than remove them in add/remove programs?

Sorry to hear you are having problems installing v169.04. I'll do my best to help. Some of the questions I am about to ask may seem a bit stupid but please bear with me :)

0) It should be OK to uninstall them from the Control Panel - don't know why you are gettng black screens - I didn't get this.

1) Did you replace the original inf file that comes as part of 169.04 with the modded inf supplied by laptopvideo2go?

2) When you click on setup.exe to install the first card which card is identified by the installation program? It should be 'NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900GTX/Quadro NVS 510M'.

3) Having installed the drivers for the first card it should ASK you if you want to install the second card - cancel the installation at this time and reboot.

4) Select Start -> Control Panel -> System. Select the Hardware tab and click Device Manager. Open up the Display Adapter node. There should be one card that is recognised and one that is not.

5) Click on the card that has not been installed and the right-click and select Update Driver... Use the Hardware update wizard to select the modded inf file. This should install the drivers for the second card. Reboot again.

6) Goto the NVIDIA Control Panel, expand the 3D Settings node. There should now be a child node called 'Set SLI Configuration'. Click on this. There should now be an option to enable SLI

If this doesn't work then I recommend you install the drivers from softpedia that I mentioned in my previous link. Get them working i.e. so that you can play games with SLI enabled (let me know when you have done this). I'll revert my machine back to those drivers and then will provide step-by-step details of how to uninstall the old drivers and how I installed v169.04.

[destman1]

ok so i uninstall the drivers fine and restart. then on my restarted computer i have 2 unknown devices. I open the folder i unpacked the driver into modder inf included.

then i run setup.exe and i click yes i give permision to install a 'NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900GTX no quadro thing afterwards.

so it starts installing then it just sits there and i dont know if its working or not but after a few minutes of installing my screen just goes black. no 2nd prompt no completed message my screen just goes black.

[Pantharian]

ok so i uninstall the drivers fine and restart. then on my restarted computer i have 2 unknown devices. I open the folder i unpacked the driver into modder inf included.

then i run setup.exe and i click yes i give permision to install a 'NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900GTX no quadro thing afterwards.

so it starts installing then it just sits there and i dont know if its working or not but after a few minutes of installing my screen just goes black. no 2nd prompt no completed message my screen just goes black.

In that case I suggest plan B. Uninstall the current graphics drivers. Download the drivers from the softpedia website and install those. You don't need a modded inf - just run as is. Make sure the SLI is working (try out a game or two). I'll revert back to these drivers too and then I'll post the steps I took to get the 169.04 working.

N.B. This may take me a few days to put together - so please be patient!

[Pantharian]

In that case I suggest plan B. Uninstall the current graphics drivers. Download the drivers from the softpedia website and install those. You don't need a modded inf - just run as is. Make sure the SLI is working (try out a game or two). I'll revert back to these drivers too and then I'll post the steps I took to get the 169.04 working.

N.B. This may take me a few days to put together - so please be patient!

Have you got it working with v86.14 yet?

[destman1]

yep im running 86.14 with sli

[Pantharian]

yep im running 86.14 with sli

Excellent.

I'll try and post something tomorrow night (Thursday evening - UK time).

[Pantharian]

Excellent.

I'll try and post something tomorrow night (Thursday evening - UK time).

To get my machine to a known state I used my Alienware Respawn DVD to restore to factory settings with v84.22 of the graphics drivers

I then installed all High Priority updates from the Windowsupdate Website

I then selected Start > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Nvidia Drivers > Change/Remove

The following dialog appeared:

Note I only opted to uninstall the graphic drivers!

I clicked Remove and restarted the computer when prompted.

After logging in I cancelled the 2 'Hardware Found' wizards and then installed v86.14 from softpedia using the setup.exe

I then restarted when prompted.

At this point my machine should be in the same state as yours :)

Now its your turn!

Click Start > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Nvidia Drivers > Change/Remove

The following dialog is displayed:

Select the option to remove only the Nvidia Display Drivers and then click Remove

(You may get this prompt: 'Would you like to erase all your saved nView profiles as well?' If you do click Yes.)

Restart computer when prompted.

Login and cancel the two 'Hardware Found' wizards.

Now extract the 169.04 drivers and replace the orginal inf with the modded inf and run the setup.exe

When the installation wizard appears click Next. The following dialog should appear:

Click Continue Anyway - The screen may flicker a few times - hopefully it won't stay black on your machine.

When the next 'Hardware Install' dialog appears click 'STOP installation' and reboot when prompted

Login and then click Start > Control Panel > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager. It should look like the attachment below:

Open 'Display adapters' node > Right-click 'Video Controller (VGA Compatible)' > Update Driver ...

In the 'Hardware Update Wizard' select 'No, not this time' and click Next

Select 'Install from a list or specific location (Advanced) and click Next

Select 'Search for the best driver in these locations.', uncheck 'Search removable media' and check 'Include this location in the Search and click Browse.

Navigate to the folder containing the setup.exe you used to install the first card - this folder also contains the modified inf file. Click Next

When the 'Hardware Installation' dialog appears click 'Continue Anyway'. Dismiss the dialog when the installation has finished and reboot (you won't get a prompt but do it anyway!)

During the boot up phase (after the progress bar has appeared) the screen should go blue (not BSOD!) and the text 'Please wait ......' will appear for a few seconds. Boot up will then continue as normal.

Right-click on the Desktop and click Nvidia Control Panel and choose 'Advanced Settings' in the dialog that appears. Click OK

Under the 3D Settings node should be a child node 'Set SLI Configuration'. Select it and in the right hand panel select 'Enable SLI technology (recommended).' and click Apply. The screen will flash for a couple of seconds. Click Yes to the displayed dialog to keep your settings.

Hopfully, by now all went smoothly. If it didn't I suggest you use your respawn dvd and go back to the factory settings and try again.

Good luck!

[destman1]

alright jsut checking the differences between our systems when i choose 2 uninstall the nvidiea drivers i dont get the prompt for what i want 2 uninstall it just says this will remove the nvidea display drivers from your system so does that mean im missing some nvidea driver component that you have? i dont know if I have an aliewn respawn disk what does that do? but yea about the other part am i missing like a driver component thats not the video driver that may be causing my machine not to work

[Pantharian]

alright jsut checking the differences between our systems when i choose 2 uninstall the nvidiea drivers i dont get the prompt for what i want 2 uninstall it just says this will remove the nvidea display drivers from your system so does that mean im missing some nvidea driver component that you have? i dont know if I have an aliewn respawn disk what does that do? but yea about the other part am i missing like a driver component thats not the video driver that may be causing my machine not to work

Interesting. :)

The repsawn pack that I have includes a boot CD that boots the machine and starts Ghost and a separate DVD containing the Ghost image which represents the state of my machine when it was delivered to me, i.e. factory settings. Takes about 10 mins to restore the partition.

Don't know why on the same system i.e. Alienware mALX (two SLI'd 7900 GTX cards) there would be differences. :) When did you buy it? I got mine around September '06.

Anyway, try out what I posted yesterday (and in the meantime I'll look into the other software the dialog mentions and get back to you).

[destman1]

im thinking earlier when i tried to uninstall my old drivers maybe i uninstalled too much do u know what driver files you have? like maybe I should try to reinstall them

[Pantharian]

im thinking earlier when i tried to uninstall my old drivers maybe i uninstalled too much do u know what driver files you have? like maybe I should try to reinstall them

The drivers that were installed when I received the laptop can be found here: Hopefully, :) , it will install the additional bits too. If it doesn't I suggest you raise a support call with Alienware - they should be able to provide you with the additional drivers.

I'll have a look at the cds/dvds that Alienware included with my machine and see if I can find the approriate installer.

[Guest Eric Gatley]

I also have an mALX. I'm having trouble installing the drivers as well, my issue is I get a message saying that there was no supported hardware found during the install process. trying with 169.09 drivers with the provided INF. Any ideas?

[Pantharian]

im thinking earlier when i tried to uninstall my old drivers maybe i uninstalled too much do u know what driver files you have? like maybe I should try to reinstall them

The nForce PCI System Management drivers can be downloaded from here

Choose option 2 (Motherboard Drivers) and allow the ActiveX control to install. It should then scan your system and identify the appropriate drivers :)

[Pantharian]

I also have an mALX. I'm having trouble installing the drivers as well, my issue is I get a message saying that there was no supported hardware found during the install process. trying with 169.09 drivers with the provided INF. Any ideas?

I haven't tried 169.09 only 169.04.

I suggest your try downloading the modded inf again and overwrite the original file.

Alternatively, try 169.04 (there doesn't appear to be much difference between the versions) and I KNOW they work!

[Guest Eric Gatley]

Well, I was able to finally get the driver to run, but now I'm also getting a black screen. At this point I have been unable to download the .04 drivers as the site isn't letting me get to that screen right now. Once I uninstall and restart, I click cancel on the two 'new hardware found' screens. Then I install the 169.09 drivers. It'll ask me once, I continue, and then after the screen will go blank, with some HD activity for a little while, before that starts. It seems as though the driver never fully installs, a reboot gets you back to a black screen after the windows startup screen, going to safe mode and you get a 'found new hardware' box. I even tried doing an install over the existing 86.14 driver without removing it, that allows me to get to the prompt for the second card driver install. However once I restart, then I get the black screen again. I'm thinking there are some registry artifacts from all these failed attempts, when I reboot after uninstalling the new driver in safemode, the computer has several missing nvidia DLL's. Once I'm able to back up my important files I'm going to do a fresh Alienware recovery and try again. Any ideas welcome, but I will be out of contact for a little while so don't think I'm being rude! Thanks for the help so far, I appreciate it.

Eric

[Pantharian]

Well, I was able to finally get the driver to run, but now I'm also getting a black screen. At this point I have been unable to download the .04 drivers as the site isn't letting me get to that screen right now. Once I uninstall and restart, I click cancel on the two 'new hardware found' screens. Then I install the 169.09 drivers. It'll ask me once, I continue, and then after the screen will go blank, with some HD activity for a little while, before that starts. It seems as though the driver never fully installs, a reboot gets you back to a black screen after the windows startup screen, going to safe mode and you get a 'found new hardware' box. I even tried doing an install over the existing 86.14 driver without removing it, that allows me to get to the prompt for the second card driver install. However once I restart, then I get the black screen again. I'm thinking there are some registry artifacts from all these failed attempts, when I reboot after uninstalling the new driver in safemode, the computer has several missing nvidia DLL's. Once I'm able to back up my important files I'm going to do a fresh Alienware recovery and try again. Any ideas welcome, but I will be out of contact for a little while so don't think I'm being rude! Thanks for the help so far, I appreciate it.

Eric

I have managed to successfully install 169.04 following a restore of my system back to factory settings using the Spawn dvd (ghost image) provided by Alienware. If you have the option to do this, then it is the approach I recommend.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

[Guest Eric]

Well, I finally was able to use the respawn, I followed all the directions, including using the driver cleaner, and unfortunately, I still got the same thing. I'm not even getting to the second stop/continue dialog, after the first one, the screen flashes a few times, I get some random scattered horizontal lines for a second, and then it's gone. I tried both .09 and .04, neither has worked for me. I really am desperate for some kind of fix to this problem as newer games aren't running in SLI well or at all, with the exception of COD4, where the programmers took it upon themselves to integrate SLI. Very frustrating that I paid this much money for something unsupported like this. Any other resources for us to go to? Any other ideas?

Eric

[Pantharian]

Well, I finally was able to use the respawn, I followed all the directions, including using the driver cleaner, and unfortunately, I still got the same thing. I'm not even getting to the second stop/continue dialog, after the first one, the screen flashes a few times, I get some random scattered horizontal lines for a second, and then it's gone. I tried both .09 and .04, neither has worked for me. I really am desperate for some kind of fix to this problem as newer games aren't running in SLI well or at all, with the exception of COD4, where the programmers took it upon themselves to integrate SLI. Very frustrating that I paid this much money for something unsupported like this. Any other resources for us to go to? Any other ideas?

Eric

Very sorry to hear that it didn't work, even after a respawn. :)

The only other thing I can suggest (I haven't tried this myself but it COULD work) is to try and install the latest BETA drivers for the m9750. This uses two GeForce Go 7950 gtx cards which are similar to the ones used in the mALX machine. It is a LONG shot but I can't think of anything else.

Does anyone else have any suggestions?

[Guest Eric Gatley]

I actually tried that already as well. Didn't work either. I posted on the Alienware site, primarily complaining about lack of support and upgradeability. I got a call from a tech while I was at work, he has offered to help me get the drivers working, when I can call back during working hours. We'll see how that goes. Thanks for the help, and anyone with ideas, please let me know. I did reinstall the latest mALX drivers with the XML's from the latest drivers, haven't noticed a difference so far.

Eric

[Guest bunjee]

I have a mALX too, Eric I'm encountering the exact same black screen issue.

I'm trying a respawn tonight.

[Guest Bunjee]

Eric,

Exact same issue here:

Fresh install,

84.22 AW default drivers,

Delete drivers,

169.04,

Black screen, right after continue anyway.

I'll try to find something tonight

[Guest Eric Gatley]

All,

I left some posts on the Alienware website, and they called me about it. My primary post was concerning upgrading the computer, and I had a secondary post complaining about the driver issue. One of their techs has promised to help me get the Laptop video 2 go drivers work. I will be calling him tomorrow, and will let you all know how it goes. Hopefully, we can discover what the issue is.

Eric