Installing ATI Catalyst driver on my new Dell I6400...er, how?

I got my shiny new Dell Inspiron 6400 a week early yesterday, and on a day off of work too. Everything's been running great except for updating the video drivers.

I found the Dell DeCrapifier to remove the bloatware which worked great. Then installed a few of my own things and ran Windows Update for critical patches. Then I grabbed the latest Catalyst drivers (this model has an x1400 ATI in it) and tried to install them. The installer told me I needed Net 2.0. Oops that wasn't updated so back to Windows Update for a few more rounds. Went back to install catalyst again. Now it tells me that I do not have a reconizable video setting and I should install a basic video driver first and then it exits.

I'm a little lost. I'm assuming that since this is a Dell and with the Dell preinstalled OS of XP MCE there's something Dell-like that I either need to remove or tweak but I cannot figure it out.

Any ideas?

PS I tried searching thru here but came up with nothing but if I did miss this being explained already please forgive me and link me the answer heh

 

With most laptops, there is a specific driver set to update the video drivers. You can use the Dell's, or try www.laptopvideo2go.com (I think that's the site) which usually has a way to install the desktop ATI/Nvidia drivers on laptops.

EDIT: Link fixed.

 

Thanks although I cannot find any drivers on that page and from what I found on Dell's page are older drivers. There has to be a way I can install newer sets of ATI drivers on this thing

 

Check out the updating video card drivers on the gaming part of the forums. I have the same computer as you, witha ATi x1400 (512). My 6400 was a big trouble for me. (when i updated the graphics card i got huge errors with ANY graphics setting) so i reformatted, then i was all good.

the latest version for ATi is 7.1 cats. Frames in games are low for this so i would go for the 6.12 version...


good luck

by the way there is a tutorial on the updating graphics card page caus its a tedious process.

 

OK!

seems as if you have similar problems as if i did. If you have no important files on your 6400, i suggest you reformat or reinstall xp.


there is a certain key combo when you turn on your laptop and it would fix that problem you have, it would restore default settings. I suggest you then take it from there.

 

A clean install is highly reccomended, the crapifier is quick and easy, but incomplete, you wont get the same result as a new install, as for the drivers, omegas seem to be your best bet, look around the gaming forum. If you look at ATI's site, you will see a list of supported notebook vendors for their drivers, DELL, among many others is not on that list, so it can be tricky installing drivers from ATI's site, as said checkout the gaming forum, read the stickies and you should be in the know