'Can't find compatible hardware' m17x R2 driver install

Hi,

Sorry to ask what I know is a often asked question, but I can't get install to work. I recently upgraded my laptop (m17x R2) that I primarily use now for streaming to a projector for video and games (I stream from steam on my desktop) to windows 10 from windows 7. When I upgraded it no longer has my gpu drivers installed. When trying to install the driver I get the "can't find compatible hardware" that is notorious on these and that I remember dealing with back when I used the laptop as my primary computer. I tried getting the latest driver from laptopvideo2go along with the modding the inf file. I'm still getting the same error.

Does anybody have any links or solution that I am missing?


Thanks

 

Hi, no real answer but maybe a sanity check? You did overwrite an original inf with the one from laptopvideo2go?

Also I do know that win 10 is like win 8 when it comes to non-standard GPU driver installs. You need to disable driver verification (I think that's what it's called) and it can be done through the control panel but you'll need to track down instructions as it's buried way deep in startup options IIRC.

Not doing this under win 8 meant you got past the 'hardware not found' with a modded inf but the driver still failed to install. Maybe different in win 10?

What GPU(s) so you have?

 

Yes, I downloaded the file from LV2G, then ran that exe file to extract it. I downloaded the inf to desktop, then moved that file into the display.driver folder, overwriting the original. I then go back to the main folder of the driver and run the 'setup' program. Does this sound correct? When checking for hardware compatibility I get that error.

Do I need to do an uninstall of the driver that installed with win 10 or anything? (I'm assuming it installed the driver for the onboard graphics).

Yeah I read that and tried running the driver verification off, but my install isn't getting to that point where that's a problem yet.

I believe I have the 285m (or 260m?)

 

Yes, you are doing it all correctly and from what I've read the only real problems with win 10 and NV are the card being too old, but win 10 appears to report that problem. And the auto-update overwriting a better NV issued driver. Nothing I have seen about your problem except it being related to the inf. You should not even need a modified inf as that is a stock card as far as I know.

I'd use DDU ( http://www.wagnardmobile.com/DDU/) to strip out all the driver and then just run the NV driver install as-is?

Does the card appear in device manager?

 

Yeah, 2 cards show up (when I turn hybrid on in bios, normally I have it off so its just the main GPU). I tried doing the driver in both modes. As far as I can tell, the problem is that the driver doesn't recognize that the card is there, so I don't think you can use the normal NV driver even after stripping?

 

You should be able to use the stock driver but I do know that Hybrid must be off as NV dropped it from their drivers quite a while ago. You should then be able to turn on sli in the NV control panel. Maybe it's this dropped feature that is causing the need for a modded inf?

Hybrid was a way of using an NV on-board chip in conjunction with a NV D-GPU. Once Intel put the gpu on-board for mobile CPU's the market died for on-board NV chips, and they dropped driver support.

Thinking about it I wonder if you only have one D-GPU and the on-board? Win 10 is not going to work on that chip, I have seen a lot of older machines with NV on-board and they are unable to use win 10 with an NV driver.

Doesn't add up to me if you have tried hybrid off and it's still the same. Will an old driver install?

What does device manager show for the video card?

 

I finally just rolled back to windows 7 and luckily it had the drivers installed. Guess i'll leave it like this since I don't use the PC for too much. I was hoping going wo win 10 would solve some of the freezing bugs it has now.. oh well.

Alienware, never again.

 

That's the best thing to do IMO right now. The latest win 10 drivers do not even support mixed GPU's so anyone that gets a later NV card and leaves the old one in for physx finds the card fails to load. Sli users are finding that the memory leaks during gaming so it eventually runs out of memory and crashes.

I've put 10 on an old laptop to see how it works and I like it. Way too early to put it on my gaming rigs.

AW are not really to blame on this one but right now they only offer 'fake' gaming laptops.