***Updating Mobile Graphics Cards Drivers (Windows 7 and Vista)***

Updating Mobile Graphics Cards Drivers (Windows 7 and Vista)</top>
by crash
last updated: 25 August 2010

Why update your drivers? Newer drivers can improve 3D performance, fix bugs and other graphical glitches in certain games, support new features, and use your hardware more efficiently.

Disclaimer: ***I take zero responsibility for any possible damage caused by following this guide. Proceed at your own risk***

Quick Jump to
NVIDIA Drivers&raquo;
ATI Drivers&raquo;
Switchable Graphics Drivers&raquo;
FAQ&raquo;

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NVIDIA Drivers

There are three recommended places to find drivers for your mobile NVIDIA card: your manufacturer, NVIDIA, and LaptopVideo2Go.

Your Manufacturer
Often these are referred to as "stock" drivers for your card. Depending on your manufacturer, some companies update frequently and others infrequently. These drivers contain support for only a limited number of cards, so make sure you're downloading the correct one for your model! Although they are recommended as a baseline driver to use for stability, updating to a newer driver usually results in some sort of performance boost.

NVIDIA
NVIDIA now supports official updates for mobile cards. They can be found here.

LaptopVideo2Go
These drivers are desktop and/or notebook graphics drivers from NVIDIA that are modded by the LaptopVideo2Go team to be compatible with almost all currently existing mobile cards. They offer a performance increase, but sometimes at the cost of stability. You can find their drivers here.

Procedure
Note: If updating to a LV2Go driver, follow instructions in orange as well

1. Download the new driver from one of the three sources above (manufacturer, NVIDIA, or LaptopVideo2Go)
   • If from LV2Go, be sure to download the modded .inf as well
2. Uninstall the current driver by going to device manager, expanding Display Adapters, opening up the current driver info and clicking "Uninstall"
3. Restart your computer once the driver has been uninstalled
4. Install the new driver by running the executable you downloaded earlier
   • If from LV2Go, you may need to install it manually using the "Have Disk" method as explained here
5. Restart your computer
6. Open the device manager to verify that the new driver installed correctly!

NVIDIA Drivers&raquo;, Top&raquo;
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ATI Drivers
Note: If you have switchable ATI/Intel graphics solution, please see the next section

There are three recommended places to find drivers for your mobile ATI card: your manufacturer, ATI, and Mobility Modder.

Your Manufacturer
Often these are referred to as "stock" drivers for your card. Depending on your manufacturer, some companies update frequently and others infrequently. These drivers contain support for only a limited number of cards, so make sure you're downloading the correct one for your model! Although they are recommended as a baseline driver to use for stability, updating to a newer driver usually results in some sort of performance boost.

ATI
ATI now supports official updates for mobile cards. ATI updates their mobile (as well as desktop) drivers once a month. They can be found here.

Mobility Modder
This program modifies any ATI desktop driver to be compatible with your mobile card. Manufacturers and ATI themselves do not update their mobile drivers very often, so this program allows you to use the latest enhancements on your notebook. If you experience system instability after using one of the modded desktop drivers, it is recommended to switch back to an official driver from either ATI or your manufacturer. You can find the program here (scroll down about half way for the download link).

Procedure
For manufacturer driver or official ATI driver...
Note: If you have switchable ATI/Intel graphics solution, please see the next section

1. Download the new driver from either your manufacturer's site or from ATI directly
   • Note: If you are upgrading from a 10.x driver to a newer 10.x driver, it is not necessary to uninstall the previous driver before upgrading
2. Uninstall the current driver by going to device manager, expanding Display Adapters, opening up the current driver info and clicking "Uninstall"
3. Restart your computer once the driver has been uninstalled
4. Install the new driver by running the executable you downloaded earlier
5. Restart your computer
6. Open the device manager to verify that the new driver installed correctly!

For Mobility Modder drivers...
Note: If you have switchable ATI/Intel graphics solution, please see the next section

1. Download and install MSXML 6.0 SP1 from Microsoft
   • If you're using Vista, you must turn UAC off! It must remain off while updating your driver but can be turned back on once the driver has been updated. If using Windows 7, proceed to step 2
     • Type in "User Accounts" in the Start menu and open "User Accounts and Family Safety"
     • Click on "Add or remove user accounts
     • Click on your account name
     • Click on "Go to main User Account page"
     • Click on "Change security settings"
     • Unselect the box and click "Ok"
     • Restart your computer
2. Download the latest desktop Catalyst driver you wish to use from ATI
3. Uninstall the current driver by going to device manager, expanding Display Adapters, opening up the current driver info and clicking "Uninstall"
4. Restart your computer once the driver has been uninstalled
5. Run the driver you downloaded earlier, but stop the installation once all the files have been extracted
   • Remember where the driver was extracted to!
6. Run Mobility Modder and direct it to the folder where you extracted the driver and press "Modify"
   • Default directory is c:\ATI\SUPPORT\
   • In Vista, if nothing happens, navigate to the directory and run the SETUP.exe file
7. Once the driver has been modified, restart your computer
   • If you're using Vista and you want to turn UAC back on, navigate to the same place where you turned UAC off and check the box to turn it back on. Restart your computer
8. Open the device manager to verify that the new driver installed correctly!

These instructions were taken in part from Mobility Modder's official site.

ATI Drivers&raquo;, Top&raquo;
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Switchable Graphics Drivers

Notebooks with switchable ATI/Intel graphics appear to require that any new drivers be installed over the factory installed driver since only the factory driver supports the Intel integrated GPU on core-i chips and the ATI discrete GPU. You can upgrade to a new ATI driver version (and I would recommend not using Mobility Modder in this case), but the procedure changes slightly:

Procedure

1. Download the new driver
2. Install the new driver by running the executable you downloaded earlier
3. Restart your computer
4. Open the device manager to verify that the new driver installed correctly! Also, check to make sure your laptop is switching between cards (ATI and Intel) properly

Switchable Graphics Drivers&raquo;, Top&raquo;
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Frequently Asked Questions

1. How can I tell if I have switchable graphics?
2. How can I roll back my driver in case something went wrong?
3. What is the difference between WHQL, unsigned, and beta drivers?
4. How do I boot in safe mode?

1. 
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1. How can I tell if I have switchable graphics?
Open up the Device Manager and expand "Display Adapters". If you see two items here - an ATI card and an Intel card - then you have switchable graphics. If there is only one, then you do not have switchable graphics.
FAQ&raquo;, Top&raquo;

<a name="FAQ2">2. How can I roll back my driver in case something went wrong?
Open up the device manager, expand "Display Adapters" and double click on your graphics card. Under the "Driver" tab, click on the "Roll Back Driver" button.
FAQ&raquo;, Top&raquo;

3. What is the difference between WHQL, unsigned, and beta drivers?
Companies can submit their drivers to Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) for compatibility testing. They test the drivers for stability and compatibility with a wide range of hardware configurations, and when they pass the tests, they become WHQL certified drivers.
Unsigned drivers are those that either were not submitted to Microsoft's WHQL for testing or they did not pass the tests.
Beta drivers are working versions of drivers that work in most cases, but sometimes have stability issues as they are not the finalized version of a driver. Often times NVIDIA classifies any driver that they do not fully support as beta.
FAQ&raquo;, Top&raquo;

4. How do I boot in safe mode?
Restart your computer and repeatedly press F8 until the "Advanced Boot Options" screen comes up. Select "Safe Mode" and you're good to go.
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New updating mobile graphics drivers sticky for the new decade! Let me know if I'm missing anything or if you want to see something added.

Post all questions regarding mobile driver updates here.

 

Very nice job as always crash.

+rep

 

I'm not sure if it's worth mentioning but, with ATI's newer driver structure (ie. 10.1, 10.2 ect) they are designed to handle "lazy installs" - meaning a direct install over the current driver without any uninstalling. Also ATI updates their desktop and mobility drivers at the same frequency now, once a month

You might want to add an FAQ about how to roll back drivers in case something went wrong, and maybe add a really short one explaining the difference between WHQL and beta releases.

 

Cool, I did not know that about their latest drivers. Nonetheless, it's probably still prudent to recommend uninstalling, although I can make a note of it in the guide.

I'll update the description

Good idea, I'll add those later today!

 

this is good news because i'm lazy but crash thanks for all your effort.. i was really hoping this thread was updated as the old one was well too old and didn't help much with newer drivers. Could i also suggest that you add the method for installing mobile ATI drivers as mobility modder isn't used much now.

Cheers
Sean473

 

Thanks

The procedure for upgrading an ATI driver both with and without Mobility Modder are provided. Maybe you missed it?

 

Sorry crash... I nver read properly.. need to read slowly .. But really thanks.

 

First of all, thank you for reading my problem, and hopefully helping me come up with a solution.

I recently purchased an Alienware M15X. (Windows 7, i7 740QM @ 1.73 GHz, 8 Gbs RAM, HD 5850)

I spent quite a bit of money on this machine, so as can be expected, I was very upset when my screen would freeze, and then go black. My sound would continue for a couple seconds and then cut out as well. After awhile the screen would come back up, with the default windows 7 theme. However, the computer would run VERY slowly. My mouse would disappear and reappear somewhere else. To fix this, I would have to manually shut down my computer, to reboot. This would generally only happen when I was watching full-screen videos with VLC.

After much hardship working with Dell's technicians, to no avail, I noticed a new ATI driver on Dell's website. I downloaded it, and installed it (without uninstalling the old driver, I'm relatively new). This driver magically fixed all the problems I was having.

Since then, I've had to reformat my hard-drive. When I went back to the Dell website to download the new driver, it was gone. My computer is back to having this problem, and I don't know how to fix it without that driver.

My driver's current version is 8.683.2.0.

TLDR; I need to update my driver, but the update isn't on Dell's website anymore.

Help? Please ask if you have any questions. Thanks in advance! You'll sure get a lot afterwards, as well.

 

Have you tried downloading the latest driver that is brought up on the ATI website?
Graphics Drivers & Software
Let me know how this goes.

 

Should I uninstall my current driver, and restart my computer before I run the executable from the ATI website? Or just install it over my current driver? And, also I thought that you weren't supposed to use 3rd party driver updates with Dell computers?

 

Yes, ALWAYS uninstall current driver, restart in safe mode, install new driver, reboot into normal mode again. NEVER install a new driver over an older version!
And regarding 3rd Party Drivers, it's not they have been packaged by a modder in his back room, they are official ATI drivers. If the Dell ones aren't working for you and they won't help you over the customer service lines, then I would deem it perfectly acceptable to do so!
If those drivers do not work out for you, try Catalyst 10.6, which you can find here:
Download 10-6_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc.rar from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way (Use only if the others don't work)

 

When I tried installing the new driver in safe mode, right after I started the installation, an error message popped up from ATI saying, "Failure to load detection driver." After that, the installation finished, and it prompted me to view the log. I tried this a few times with no different results.

 

I tried installing the driver in normal mode, and it completes the installation. However, it says "Installation complete (warnings occurred during installation). View log for details."

The log doesn't give me any information that I find useful. I don't see any of the errors.


Existing packagesCatalyst Control Center
ATI Catalyst Install Manager
ATI Display Driver
HDMI Audio Driver
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable

Packages for install
ATI Catalyst Install ManagerFinal Status: Success
Version of Item: 3.0.782.0
Size: 20 Mbytes


Other detected devices

Error messages


That's all the log says.

It was not a success, as my drivers are still 8.683.2.0.

 

Have you followed the process to the very last detail on the first page? Your thread must have been moved to a more convenient place.
Can you list your system specs, check you have uninstalled your previous driver fully, make sure you downloaded the correct driver for your OS etc. It tends to be the little things that have been overlooked.

 

I listed my system specs in my first post:
Windows 7, i7 740QM 1.73GHz, 8 Gb RAM, HD 5850 GDDR5 1056MB.

Yeah, I'm sure I did everything to the very last detail. The Dell driver works fine, just the one I downloaded from ATI comes up with that error message.

 

My apologies, I missed your specs.
Ok, there is a work around trick for the problem of not installing.
Step 1: Open notepad and load c:\ATI\Support\10-7_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc\Config\InstallManager.cfg
Step 2: Change "WorkaroundInstall=false" to "WorkaroundInstall=true."

Now run through the setup.exe found in the support folder.
Now, when you reboot, hopefully the 10.7 catalyst drivers will be installed.
Hope this helps!

 

It successfully updated the drivers. I did not uninstall the previous drivers beforehand though.. Will that be a problem? Also, now in the Device Manager, and in CCC my Display Adapter hardware is "ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5800 Series." It was "ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850" before. I don't think that's a problem though. I'm going to watch a few videos, and see if I still have the problem.

Thanks!

 

No problem, hope everything is working fine now!

 

hey...
what about in case of sony vaio laptops?
the sony vaio eb series has ati 5650 cards but for the driver update ati site mentions not for sony vaio notebooks
also....vaio hasnt updated drivers like probably ever...
which method to use for this scenario.....shud i use moding 1 or that uac disable method or is there any diff procedure for that?

 

Gunna hold my hands up and say I don't know about VAIO laptops, I've read on the ATI websites that they are "not supported", but I've seen forum users with them before...
Take a look at the owners thread (found below) and see if there is any information in that. My instinct is that there is a similar work around but I'm not sure what it is, sorry.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...538-official-vaio-e-series-owners-thread.html

 

You can get the latest Catalyst here. It works with VAIO laptops.

32bit: https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206..._32_dd_ccc.exe

64bit: https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206..._64_dd_ccc.exe

 

hey thnkz for the links but there seems to be some problem with the links....it says page not found

 

ill upload the x64 version, it's the only one I have.

EDIT: here you go http://rapidshare.com/files/415097588/10-7_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc.rar

 

thnkz ....that was the 1 i wanted=)

 

Why is it there is a 200 point difference between those two drivers, in 3Dmark06, with my 9650M? (200 point difference in the negative direction) Not to mention the card doesnt even beat my old 9600M... 258.96 also seem to do worse than 186.82 in some games like Simcity..

Im confused...

 

Isn't 3Dmark06 mostly cpu driven? Besides, 200 is a negligible difference.
And maybe your 9600 had higher clocks.

 

Hello!
I’ve Sony vaio with Nvidia 9300M GS and Windows 7 (64). (Sony Z-41)
The driver from LaptopVideo2Go doesn’t works.
After installation the switcher (between stamina and speed) doesn’t works too.
What can I do?
Thanks!

 

Try the new driver from there called 259.47, a lot of people seem to be having trouble with vaio video drivers. First uninstall curr drivers, goto safe mode, use driver sweeper, restart and go back to safe, install new driver,reboot, repeat if it failed

 

Doesn’t work...

Any ideas?

 

A lot of people seem to be having trouble with updating their vaios. Dont know what to tell you, maybe try asking for help in the sony section?

 

Is there a way to prevent Vista from reinstalling a driver automatically after uninstalling it from the device manager? I have an nvidia card on my laptop and followed the instructions on this guide but after I restart the computer after uninstalling the old driver, windows automatically looks for a driver and reinstalls the old one before I run the executable for the new one.

I should mention that when uninstalling the driver I left the "delete the driver software for this device" box unchecked, but I thought that would be correct in case something went wrong with the new driver and I had to go back to the old one, should I just check that box? what is recommended?

 

Quick question, i recently got a laptop with a HD5650 and updated the drivers. Can i expect a boost in performance?

 

u should especially in newer games as they'll be better optimised now.

 

Thing is i bought budget laptop (well i recieved one for dyslexia) and i was blown away that not only did it have a GPU, but one that is actually even capable of playing new games on High settings at roughly 30 FPS.

Ive been following this guide ( ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 - Notebookcheck) but unfortunately it doesnt give me any idea what the specs of their test system was or the resolution they were playing the games.

Can i expect better performance than those?

 

According to the Nvidia drivers website

Sony decided to opt out of allowing the Nvidia generic drivers (and the ATI ones as well) from running on their laptops. Sony wanted to keep control of the drivers/features allowed to be installed, a very Apple-esque move. You'd either need to wait for Sony to release updated drivers, or mod the .ini file to allow driver installation (the ones on laptopvideo2go should work, but you need to remember to download the modded .ini file as well).

 

If you want to install the latest Catalyst drivers on your VAIO, just look for the direct download inks (the FTP ones). I'm running 10.8 now (a few things might not work, such as automatic downclocking when in 2D enviroments, or stamina modes, etc.)

 

I haven't updated the boot camp drivers on my Macbook Pro Late 2008 in forever. What should I be using for TF2 and Mafia 2?

 

Hey guys.. Just got my m15x a few days ago and was wanting to update the new catalyst drivers as BC2 is running pretty poorly for such a powerful system.

System Specs: M15X, windows 7 64bit, 1gb hd 5850 (gddr5), i7 720qm quad core, 3gb memory.

Im getting about 20 fps on mostly high and 2aa.. This is annoying! i should blow this away with this rig.

I used nvidia for about 3 years so ATI is seeming a bit confusing.
In my device manager it says my current driver is 8.623.2 - Is this the factory installed driver? Everytime i go to the ATI website and download a new driver it causes my system to go to 800x600 display and there is no way to change it back to my native resolution. Also even after i install the driver and reboot it still says my driver is 8.623.2 - Surly it should change? The only way to return to my native resolution is to do a system restore!!!

Any suggestions and/or a step by step guide for what i should do??

And i have followed this Procedure
For manufacturer driver or official ATI driver...
Note: If you have switchable ATI/Intel graphics solution, please see the next section

1. Download the new driver from either your manufacturer's site or from ATI directly
* Note: If you are upgrading from a 10.x driver to a newer 10.x driver, it is not necessary to uninstall the previous driver before upgrading
2. Uninstall the current driver by going to device manager, expanding Display Adapters, opening up the current driver info and clicking "Uninstall"
3. Restart your computer once the driver has been uninstalled
4. Install the new driver by running the executable you downloaded earlier
5. Restart your computer
6. Open the device manager to verify that the new driver installed correctly!

It still says my driver is 8.623.2 andf my screen is at 800x600.. =[

Kind regards

 

Thanks for guide! Updated succesfully

 

basically first uninstall ur old drives and run drive sweeper in safe mode.... go to ATI website and download 2 files.. the 70mb one is Control pannel while the 2MB one is the client which downloads the actual driver.. should work now.

 

If you go to the website there is no download at 2mb.. I have installed the full catalyst software suite which is recommended at 74mb~ and it doesn't work. Thanks for ur help

 

Which one are you supposed to install first? The 70mb file or the 2mb file?

 

70mb.. then 2mb is driver download manager with is last.

 

Thank you +rep

 

I just updated my drivers yesterday night with no problems. Thanks Crash.. now i'll install games

 

Ive tried downloading the mobility version of Catalyst 10.8 as well as normal 10.9, unfortunately however it detects my driver as 8.712 and says its up to date when its actually months old. Also, whenever i uninstall from Device Manager, upon restart it reinstalls 8.712. How can i get it to install the newest version?

Help would be greatly appreciated!

 

For some reason, the Catalyst version number, and the driver version number aren't the same. I have 10.8 w/hotfix installed, and I have driver version 8.762. Maybe 10.8 was 8.712 before they released the hotfix?? Either way, here's the newest version, install it and see what it says. GPU-77: ATI Catalyst? 10.8b Hotfix

 

Thanks for the link, but when in the list of things that install, the newest driver isnt one of them, in fact it doesnt even show my current driver. Will i have to use MM on it first?

 

When I tried downloading the upgrade from ATI for my Radeon 5650 version 8.62 to version 10.7 I was unsuccessful. I called Acer support (which only has 8.6 available on their site) and they are unable to give me a time frame when 10.7 will be available. I called ATI support and they said DO NOT TRY TO INSTALL DRIVERS FOR LAPTOPS FROM THEIR SITE. GO THROUGH YOUR MANUFACTURER. I just bought this new Acer Aspire 7741G and it came with outdated version vga card I needed to buy a new computer to play FINAL FANTASY XIV and I am to understand that the benchmark needs the newest version (10.7. When I try and run it it crashes). If I am unable to play the actual game as well I am going to be pretty upset..Help?