Video Card no longer detected or installing drivers!

I'm working on this Acer Aspire AS7520-5311 laptop, on Vista 32, with a NVIDIA GeForce 8400M. Trying to tweak some graphic settings last night somehow I guess I deleted the video drivers for the nvidia card. I went into the device manager and deleted all of the display drivers. When it rebooted it tried to install it again. For some odd reason, it installed a "Standard VGA adaptor". So my desktop resolution is back to the former settings but any remotely graphic demanding programs will not run. I've went to Acer's website and nvidias website and cannot find the exact NVIDIA GeForce 8400M driver. I've tried everything listed under the model number on acer's website and it will install, reboot, but when comes back up. It still only shows the same standard vga adaptor.

Ugh!! This did not come with a restore disk for some odd reason!


Now before I just blame Vista, transfer all of my data, erase it, and then put XP on it. Can anyone help me? I'm sure If I could somehow find the correct driver for the video card it would help. Any ideas?

Lost as usual.

 

These drivers should work. Under nvidias download page there listed as 8M series, 8 being the 8x00 series, and M meaning mobile.

Additionally you could try 'scanning' for the drivers here. It should auto detect the card and current drivers installed and point to the latest drivers. *It only seems to work in IE and not in FF*

edit: if you're still under warrenty, call acer and tell them you didn't get any restore disks with the laptop. I had reinstalled vista which killed the recovery partition & had problems finding some drivers (like bluetooth) from acer's site. I called and told them they were missing drivers from their download page on both acer-euro & panam. They sent the cds in under a week, free of charge.

 

Ugh Everyone keeps recommending that. I've tried it, installed it, then it reboots, but when it loads back up....

It installs the vga standard adaptor again.

 

hm, have you tried uninstalling the standard vga before installing the nvidia drivers?

Have you tried rolling back the driver as well? Or maybe system restore and select the point manually, that way you might be able to go back to the working drivers... Sometimes this works.

try something like driver sweeper and make sure all display drivers are fully removed as well. also go into your c driver and fully delete the NVIDIA folder... Might be corrupt files in there.

 

If you haven't uninstalled Vista yet, you might be able to fix things.
Try a system restore as DarkCobra mentioned first.
If that doesn't work, it's time to use your system recovery discs.
You're supposed to burn your own using the Acer eRecovery utility. Acer never sends recovery discs, as they expect you (and remind you on first boot) to create your own.
Using them will take your C: drive back to factory default while leaving the D: drive untouched.

 

I suggest using some of the nvidia driver cleaners like this one, clean the system of possible nvidia reg/file/folder junk then reinstall the drivers using the manual method.

 

@Dark yes I have tried uninstalling it and then the patch and i get hte same thing. As stated I've already tried system restore with no success.

@TehSuigi As stated in my initial post I've already tried a system restore with no success. Ha no points saved before the change. I should have made some disks. Is it too late? I can still use the laptop fine just nothing outside of browsing.

 

Trying your steps right now.

 

Success!!!!!​

Steps worked a 100% ATG! Woot! Im pleased!

 

Hooray! At least your system is working again.
And as long as you still have the eRecovery utility and you haven't touched the 10GB hidden partition on your hard drive, you can burn your recovery discs.

 

Yea still trying to get that program to run but I am happy as hell.

 

Glad you've sorted it out. Now burn those recovery disks.

 

Yea looks like I don't have the eRecovery software installed so I'll have to see what I can do to get it.

 

http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_7520.html

Under Vista SP1 E downloads.