Drivers get uninstalled on a Sony Vaio FZ18E with Geforce 8400 GT

[sberla54]

Hello,

first of all, thank you for all the work you do...this is a great project!

I'm writing because i'm having some problems with a Sony Vaio VGN FZ18E, that has a Nvidia Geforce 8400 GT.

I'm trying to downgrade to Windows XP and everything works but the video card.

Basicly, with every method, the installations seem to succeed, but when i reboot the computer, Windows is using the default VGA driver, with 640x480 resolution and 256 colors.

The operative systems gives me this error (i traslate from italian):

"This driver is created for an older version of windows. We'll come back to de default driver."

I'm using a Windows XP iso with service pack 3 integrated....could it be the service pack 3 the problem?

By the way, i firstly tried with the 165.01 drivers, because they were linked on the italian guide i'm following (this one: http://notebookitalia.it/forum/view-4530.html and even this one: http://notebookitalia.it/forum/windows/dri...18m/view-2.html ), then i tried with the lastest version of the drivers, the 185.20.

I firstly tried the "have disk" procedure, as written here: http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/index.php?showtopic=33

the i tried to just overwrite the default inf with the custom one and run setup.exe.

In both ways, with both versions of drivers, the installation goes to success, but at first reboot the drivers are gone.

Only one time the drivers were still working at the first reboot, even if there was only a resolution (or a bunch of resolutions) that really worked; all the other one had refresh problem and were unusable. Anyway, when i rebooted the second time, windows came back to the default drivers..

So, i'd like to ask you:

1) Is it a clue of the service pack 3? If i use a Win XP iso with only the service pack 2, should the drivers work?

2) Are you sure that Nvidia 8400 GT always works fine?

3) Which drivers should i use? The latest ones?

4) What else could be to cause my problem? Maybe i've to install the video drivers before some others drivers?

I have to fix this problem as soon as possible, because the laptop it's of the boss of an office when i work...and he wants the job to be done in this week :)

I really hope you could help me.

I've made a lot of tries but i don't know what else to do.

Best regards,

sberla.

[Guest BenkoG]

I have some problems that sberla, but this is an VGN-FZ11Z Vaio. My screen works with 1280x800 pixels at 32m of colors, but all Nvidia setup programs terminated with the following message: "NVidia setup program cannot find drivers what are compatible with the hardware. Setup will exit."

Very interesting,I read tons of discussion forus where men looking for answer this quote, but nobdy answers... Or some people knows in truth? :-)))))))))

Another interesting Driver Detective knws this device and have driver but first pay

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