Guide to Updating your ATI Drivers Manually

I've seen a bunch of posts of people wanting to update their drivers but can't because the mobility modder doesn't work on more recent drivers. So, we're going to mod the inf's by hand so your card will be able to take the drivers.

***Let me know if some of the steps need clarification or if something that should show up, doesn't***Pics may come later if people want them***

1) open up the device manager
2) go to your GPU under the Display Adapter
3) right click and select properties
4) go to the details tab
5) in the property box, select Hardware Ids
There should be a few entries, something like this (mine below):
PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9581&SUBSYS_FF001179&REV_00
PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9581&SUBSYS_FF001179
PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9581&CC_030000
PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9581&CC_0300
(don't worry too much about the numbers, yours will likely differ)
6) copy the longest hardware id. (EDIT)(as Vicious said the extra info might be necessary in some cases) (/EDIT)
7) paste somewhere for later use

Now that that's done, we need to find what core your GPU is based on.
8) continuing from step 5) window. You should have an inf section option (in the property box)
9) copy that, mine for reference is: ati2mtag_RV630
9-1) if you can't find this, you'll have to do a google search, I searched for mine: "ati radeon 2600 rv", which upon inspecting a few entries showed it's based on the RV630 core

Now we have all we need to add our GPU to the list of supported GPUs.

10) Open up
C:\ATI\Support\ 9-4_vista32_win7_32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu\Packages\Drivers\Display\LH_INF
Replace the bolded part with whatever driver you want to install.
11) Now open up both TEXT files, they start with "CL_" and "CW_".
12) In the [ATI.Mfg.NTx86.6.1] section we'll put the info we gathered a few minutes back.
13) Write the equivalent of ""ATI MOBILITY RADEON HD 2600" = ati2mtag_RV630, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9581&SUBSYS_FF001179&REV_00" in both files (just to be sure)
Replacing the GPU's name with your own, changing the ati2mtag_RV630 to the value you copied from the inf section (step 8), and changing the (EDIT)PCI\VEN... (/EDIT) to what you got in step 7.

14) go back to your display adapter (in device manager), right click and select update driver software
15) choose browse my computer for driver software
16) select the folder of the driver you want to install (should be something like this: C:\ATI\Support\ 9-4_vista32_win7_32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu, replace the folder name with whatever yours is)
17) allow it to install the unsigned driver
18) happy dance

Now have fun with your new driver.

Again, ***Let me know if some of the steps need clarification or if something that should show up, doesn't***Pics may come later if people want them***

 

I wonder if it can be this easy, lots of people have been trying to change the drivers on the Asus W90 with no luck.

I wonder if its because it has a 4870x2 card that it has different IDs for each card or something.

 

I followed the guide and it worked for me , i think no error, but still no control panel.

Also at step 16 select the CL .inf file not the CW one or you will get an error.

Also if you card eg. HD3650 is already in the inf file and you add a new one, you will get a choice of 2 , one will work the other will not, when you come to install, so i deleted the other HD3650 entry.

Also how do you check the 9.4 has taken if you have no control panel?

 

Not working for me, first of all both the test files start with CH for me and when I point the device manager to the files it says that windows has determined my drivers are already up to date and does not try to install.

Update: Using the Have Disk method works for forcing the update but an error saying the driver is not for Vista even though it really is. Its the Vista x64 Win 7 driver.

 

I used mobile modder on mine, even though it is not mentioned on the guide above, before i started.

 

I got it working, somebody gave me a different .inf that included the &sys xxx stuff and I think thats what made it work.

It only worked for the master card in the system not the the slave in the 4870x2 so I took the chance and bios flashed the slave to a master and then installed it and it worked.

Pretty advanced stuff but all came out well.

I do not know why but using this guide to mod just did not work, the extra strings seem to be important.

 

Interesting, I'll make a note of it.