TomJones Posted January 17, 2009 Report Share Posted January 17, 2009 (edited) HP Pavilion zv5260us laptop GeForce4 440 Go 64mb This laptop came with XP. I have been trying to upgrade, first with Windows-7 64 bit, and then with Vista x86, and I'm having the same problem with both of them. The OS installer puts in a generic driver that does not have the right resolution for this 16:10 wide-screen display, so the image is stretched out. HP has no drivers for Vista. I tried several drivers from here along with the modified .inf, including one specifically for HP laptops. First I try the "have disc" method. After pointing at the appropriate folder I always get the response "Windows already has the latest driver installed," even though the Microsoft driver is from 2006, and the nvidia driver is much newer. Then I run the driver setup.exe. It goes through all the motions of successfully installing the driver and then tells me to reboot. I reboot. The computer still has the crappy generic Microsoft driver, and nothing has changed. After reading some more I decided to remove the Microsoft driver first, and then try to install the new one. Same result, except now the computer doesn't know any details about the display adapter, and the "update driver" button is grayed out. When I first found this site I got the impression that I would be able to install a newer video driver. Was I wrong? Am I wasting my time? Or is there something else I need to do? If it is possible, then I will try some more, but I would like to know now if it is really possible. Thanks. Edited January 18, 2009 by TomJones Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew55 Posted January 17, 2009 Report Share Posted January 17, 2009 First off, what are your current drivers and secondly, what drivers are you trying to install? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galdere Posted January 18, 2009 Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 Your card is in the modded INF - NVIDIA_NV17.DEV_0174.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 440 Go " Try installing the driver in safe mode. You only give part of your model number and no spec, so I'm guessing it's a zv5255us or zv5260us. I wouldn't change from XP with that type of laptop. So in a performance sense, graphics driver or otherwise, I would say you are wasting your time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomJones Posted January 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 First off, what are your current drivers and secondly, what drivers are you trying to install? The current driver was the generic Microsoft driver installed by Vista. After I removed that and the Nvidia driver failed to install I ended up with "VgaSave" non plug and play drivers. I tried the 181.20_geforce_winvista_32bit_english_whql, the 176.92_vista, and the 17798_vista. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
troy Posted January 18, 2009 Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 (edited) if Im not mistaken, your video card is not capable of running wddm drivers which are used for Vista and Windows7 aero interface. any pre-directx 9 card (any card under a geforce 5200...I believe) will not run these operating systems to there full visual capacities. the best you can hope for is to install a windows xp driver. this will work for your card even running the newer operating systems, but aero will not be available Edited January 18, 2009 by troy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomJones Posted January 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 if Im not mistaken, your video card is not capable of running wddm drivers which are used for Vista and Windows7 aero interface. any pre-directx 9 card (any card under a geforce 5200...I believe) will not run these operating systems to there full visual capacities. the best you can hope for is to install a windows xp driver. this will work for your card even running the newer operating systems, but aero will not be available Thanks. Do you have any idea which xp driver I should try? I don't care about aero, I just want the proper setting so my screen image isn't stretched. Your card is in the modded INF - NVIDIA_NV17.DEV_0174.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 440 Go "Try installing the driver in safe mode. I tried safe mode. Doesn't work either. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
troy Posted January 18, 2009 Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 (edited) It will be trial and error but 94.22 might work for you. Sad to say, probably any driver above v100 wont work. try from there down. also, to enable media center download MCE CUSTOMIZER v3.0 BETA 1 FOR VISTA MEDIA CENTER from http://www.mcedev.com. it will bypass the directx check and enable media center video playback on unsupported cards. good luck! Edited January 18, 2009 by troy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galdere Posted January 18, 2009 Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 An XP driver won't work on Vista. The min spec for Home Basic is: Support for DirectX 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory The min spec for Home Premium etc is: Support for DirectX 9 graphics with: WDDM Driver 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum) Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware 32 bits per pixel "Windows Vista's Basic and Classic interfaces work with virtually any graphics hardware that supports Windows XP or 2000; accordingly, most discussion around Vista's graphics requirements centers on those for the Windows Aero interface. As of Windows Vista Beta 2, the NVIDIA GeForce 6 series and later, the ATI Radeon 9500 and later, Intel's GMA 950 and later integrated graphics, and a handful of VIA chipsets and S3 Graphics discrete chips are supported. Although originally supported, the GeForce FX 5 series has been dropped from newer drivers from NVIDIA. The last driver from NVIDIA to support the GeForce FX series on Vista was 96.85." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista...re_requirements Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomJones Posted January 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 It will be trial and error but 94.22 might work for you. Sad to say, probably any driver above v100 wont work. try from there down. also, to enable media center download MCE CUSTOMIZER v3.0 BETA 1 FOR VISTA MEDIA CENTER from http://www.mcedev.com. it will bypass the directx check and enable media center video playback on unsupported cards. good luck! With these earlier drivers the installer quits after saying there is no compatible hardware found, or something to that effect. Oh well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
troy Posted January 18, 2009 Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 (edited) Yes....an xp driver WILL work with vista,but as I stated...the aero scheme will not work. Ive used them many times! However, you will have to use the driver and moded inf from this site. Trust me, it will work, you will have to find the correct driver through trial and error. For instance, I currently have XP driver v72.14 installed on my spare Toshiba with a Geforce 4 420go (32mb) running Vista home premium (with no aero as I stated) and this driver works perfectly and is an older video card than the Geforce 4 440go. Edited January 18, 2009 by troy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galdere Posted January 18, 2009 Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 Yes....an xp driver WILL work with vista, ive used them many times! You will have to use the driver and moded inf from this site. The 90 series don't, as they have a different control panel that won't work with Vista. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
troy Posted January 18, 2009 Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 Thats true Galdere, didnt think about that! Does the new control panel start in the v84-5 range? Cant remember. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomJones Posted January 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 Yes....an xp driver WILL work with vista... Well that was the key to my solution. I went to the 32 bit Windows-7 (had been playing around with the 64 bit Windows-7 and the 32 bit Vista, but I really wanted Windows-7 in some form) and downloaded the original oem driver from HP, which is an XP driver. It installed and works perfectly. I should have tried that first, but I was sure I would need a newer Vista driver (Windows-7 is based on Vista and uses all the same drivers). Thanks Troy! And thanks to everybody else who contributed to the thread. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
troy Posted January 18, 2009 Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 Youre welcome and im glad it worked for you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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