no chipset driver... FTW?!?!

Hey guess how stupid this is, VERY STUPID. I was on tech support with alienware yesterday (4th time) and he noticed something very odd, in the hardware manager, there doesn't seem to be a base system driver. I just get question marks like the driver doesn't exist.

When i installed XP i used the chipset driver from the disk. i thought it worked fine until i realized it was the vista chipset driver. The odd thing is, everything works fine. no problems, the driver just doesn't show up.

the tech installed the normal XP chipset driver and the problem was still there. I don't want to format this thing AGAIN in order to fix whatever problem may arise here.

does anyone know wtf could be causing this. it's the oddest problem i've ever seen. (other then my old motherboard HAVING to have raid enabled so that even 1 hard drive will work)

i'll edit this with a pic later in the day.

 

Why do you install XP on the computer that is shipped with Vista without the knowledge how to fix the driver problems that are bound to happen?

Anyway, if it is working as you say, why try and fix it? And what is there really to fix if it is working...

 

I don't know if it is a real problem or not, it's just weird.

 

haha, classic! +rep for best thread and then best follow up response!

Anyway, I think that if there are no other problems that are due to weird chipset drivers, then just leave it. As i suspect if the AW CS tried to install the XP drivers and nothing changed then you will probably have to go into registry or some little folder in the windows folder to delete the original driver and reset the whole thing before windows "registers" the new driver.

Or just reformat and reinstall your whole computer. But that seems like a huge pain when there is nothing that is actually wrong! just my .02

 

Well it may not be a problem, but something like that doesn't happen every day. the alienware techs don't know wtf could cause it, and they have even less of an idea about why installing proper chipset drivers won't fix it. This may not be a problem or it may be a precursor to a huge problem, i'd rather shoot this thing down now.

I'm just wondering why the hell the vista chipset drivers worked fine on XP. shouldn't they be incompatible?

 

if it ain't broken, don't fix it. remember that next time

 

I wish high end notebooks had better mainstream support. I think the reality is that we are a very small minority when you look at the big picture.

Desktops generally have pretty good support for things like drivers and updates.
Now we get to laptops and more specifically, high end gaming laptops where the number of enthusiasts is miniscule compared to the former.

Business's will always cater to where the bulk of the money is and while they are starting to see there is money to be made here it is still a fringe sector compared to more mainstream systems.

This also reminds me of the whole "upgradability" thing. I'm not talking about simple things like Ram, hard drives, or even processors. I'm talking about GPU's. I've heard many people cite this as a big plus when they are considering one of these systems but how many people who have these have actually upgraded to the next level GPU? We obviously have a way to go.

IMO the parts manufacturing companies are deliberatly changing the way hardware connects and gets used which is of course dependent upon the rest of your hardware and even your O.S.

Sorry to be so long winded,
Rob

----------------------------------------------------------
M9750
7950 GTX
4 Gig's memory
2.0 Core 2 Duo
2 OCZ SSD's in Raid 0

 

i wouldn't fix it if it wasn't broken, but idk if this is broken or not. thats why i asked.

rob, while yuor statement was very insightful, i don't think it helped much. i think we should let this die, alienware called me and said they were looking into it. so i'll trust them for now and not bother NBR with this crap.

 

Sorry to be of so little help, i have never encountered your problem and dont know what to do. Maybe someone else knows...