Windows 7 update on a Sony and its lost my Nvidia thingy

[Tiggsy]

Fresh instal of win 7 64bit replacing Vista 32bit.

All is well (bar a few things i dont need....volume buttons, blue ray driver, etc) but i have a graphics problem.

From what i have read it seems my lap top (VGN AR71S) has an NVIDIA Geforce800m ...... but on installing W7 only the VGA one (is that on the MB?) is detected.....so even though i have downloaded the Nvidia drivers they just say "cant find any hardware that you need this for" - device manager doesnt show the 800m???

I need it as none of the aero stuff works on the VGA...any ideas?

[onlynik]

Which driver did you download?

It should have been the one for teh series 8 notebooks one rather than the series 8 one.

ETA:Unless there isn't one, and Sony made their own driver.

Edited by onlynik on Saturday 27th February 18:57

[Tiggsy]

I just downloaded the one of the nvidia site for the graohics card i have in the vaio.....but it cat see it. In device manager it only shows the vga - i need to get the thing to see that i have a card in there...somehow???

[Smiler.]

Was it this one:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_winvista_win...

[Tiggsy]

no - doing that now. if i download a few wrong drivers is it bad? i assume if they are wrong they dont work and thats it?

although - cant see this will work as i still cant see the card in device manager? (Few mins to go on d/load of the driver you suggested)

[Smiler.]

Tiggsy said:

no - doing that now. if i download a few wrong drivers is it bad? i assume if they are wrong they dont work and thats it?

although - cant see this will work as i still cant see the card in device manager? (Few mins to go on d/load of the driver you suggested)

Always use the recommended driver, I've never tried to load an incorrect one so no experience.

It is odd that you don't have a ! next to 'unknown devices' but maybe W7 has enough included to run the GPU in some base mode, over & above the basic VGA function.

[annodomini2]

Smiler. said:

Tiggsy said:

no - doing that now. if i download a few wrong drivers is it bad? i assume if they are wrong they dont work and thats it?

although - cant see this will work as i still cant see the card in device manager? (Few mins to go on d/load of the driver you suggested)

Always use the recommended driver, I've never tried to load an incorrect one so no experience.

It is odd that you don't have a ! next to 'unknown devices' but maybe W7 has enough included to run the GPU in some base mode, over & above the basic VGA function.

Download the nvidia driver listed above it contains all the latest nvidia drivers for multiple cards, the installer will detect if it has the correct driver for the installation.

Currently the system is running on the generic VESA driver which is a mode all graphics cards are required to support.

[Tiggsy]

ok - done that but it says "cant detect any hardware that requires this driver" or words to that effect, and shuts down the driver install.

[ModMan]

I had the same on my sony.
Basically I downloaded a NVIDIA driver with a hacked .INF so it installs.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers/win7x64/196.... Download the driver, download the INF, overwrite the driver INF and install.

[annodomini2]

The Video bios has probably been changed by sony, so when the chip reports back it doesn't register as a conventional 8800.

The sony site only lists a 32bit driver.

[Tiggsy]

downloading! is there a simple guide to overwriting the INF????


oh...and anyone hacked the bios so Sony's can run xp mode in W7?

[ModMan]

When you run the downloaded file it'll ask you to extract the drivers. Once it's extracted go to the folder it extracted to and copy the downloaded INF file in there, overwriting the existing one. Then run "Setup" and it should work.

[Tiggsy]

Superstar!

Many many thanks!!!!

Now....i dont suppose you know how to get the sony's buttons (volume, cd eject, etc) working do you? Not too esential but would be handy!

[ModMan]

Sure. I am running Win 7 64Bit and found this link even though it doesn't match my Sony description exactly.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=3...

If you go down a little you'll see a whole lot of downloads "SONY FUNCTION SOFTWARE" and the "DRIVERS". I pretty much downloaded every single Windows 7 one and installed it. All my buttons work fine now (Volume, Eject, PLay, Fast Forward etc). Good luck.

[Tiggsy]

my hero!

[ModMan]

Yay, I solved a problem!

[Tiggsy]

pretty much there - all works apart from eject (but i used the cool short cut he described to create an icon on my tool bar to eject!) and the blue ray wont play (never use the lap top for that so dont care)

Only remaining issue is that sony wont let XPmode work and my corp intranet wont run on W7 - so i'm going to have to stick VPC2007 on and run XP within it.

[ModMan]

If you carry reading on that forum where you downloaded the drivers from you'll see 2 links to some VT articles. One of them may do the job, but I've not tried it and it looks risky.