Not a Benq Joybook S42 Review.

Hi, I still can't fix the network problem as my joybook cannot re-open my wireless network card, however I can still using the plug cable to go online which is for now fine. As well I can use those networking usb for going online and it works fine... so I considered the problem solved for now.

However here is the 2nd huge problem which now making me mad, is the graphic driver. There are no problems it detect my Mobile Intel graphic card, but it can't detect my GeForce 9600m GT card.

Please help me !! I'm on win7 64bit, and I need some advice and help on how to re-install the Geforce card driver, as well as how to disable the other one permanately.

 

Which BIOS do you have installed? Also, which driver set are you using that you are having problems with?

 

I have no idea what version of my bios is, I should go download the australia one that you listed before?

Also, I just downloaded the Nautis driver and installed, good news is that it finally detected it as 9600M GT on that card, but bad news is that the window still can't detect as a valid driver and cannot put it in primary graphic card.

Any ideas?

 

Also I can only find the bios v1.2 for Vista only, and I'm on Win 7 already.
Please in need of help here.

Ok I just successfully installed v1.2 bios..... so any thing I can do now to help with my graphic card cases?

 

The latest signed graphics drivers I know of: (too lazy right now to explain exactly how to sign c:\Windows\System32\drivers\igdkmd64.sys and c:\Windows\System32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys - you should be able to find instructions somewhere in this thread or on NVIDIA & Laptop News | Latest NVIDIA drivers and related news | laptopvideo2go.com)

Driver: ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/video/nVidia_Geforce-GT335M_A01_R273113.exe
Modded inf: NVCADM.INF


After the driver is installed, restart when asked.

After restarting, run the above reg key: still need.reg

After restarting again, you should be able to switch cards.

 

Thx so much for all the help, I'll read it throughly !!

Just maybe the last question hope if you can help out.

Just in case if I can't fix it anymore, and I want to reset the computer into factory default setting, however I already installed Win 7 and I can't find a way to do the Alt + F10 anymore for doing the reset, is there other way to do so ?? I don't mind just go back to Window Vista, oh well just felt a bit disappoint on the support for this laptop... or else this is a gem !

Thx please help me out.

 

You're going to need the recovery disc, or your own Windows Vista disc to re-install Windows Vista. The recovery partition is possibly still on the hard drive, but you will have to figure out how to boot from it if it is.

 

Update:
Coming onto the last month of this laptop's 2 year warranty.

Running Windows 7 64-bit.

Using the Dell/Alienware M11x R1's graphics drivers since BenQ doesn't support 64-bit.

nVidia/Intel haven't been too kind with driver updates so far...

Battery is at ~70% wear. It will last for ~1 hour with max power saving.


Overall, though, I am quite satisfied with this notebook PC.

A pity, but I believe BenQ has pulled out of the Australian Notebook market. (not that I usually buy according to brand)

Reflection:
Next laptop will have a screen with a resolution higher than 1280x800. (that means not 1366x768)
To be honest, I haven't found the WXGA resolution limiting, but none of my laptops have had a screen with a higher resolution.
Screen size of around 14".
A screen with a less tint of blue. >_>
Will definitely feature switchable graphics, or Optimus and with battery life of at least 5 hours or so.
Hopefully will have a quad core CPU. Some things I found are not possible in real-time with my current 2x2.4GHz CPU.
With a more powerful GPU (not something featherweight like Geforce 310m in an Optimus configuration).

If the above conditions are not met... If I chuck in that Crucial M225 of mine, and purchase a new battery, I believe this laptop could easily last me another year at least.

 

Hi Namaiki, for some reason i cant get the above drivers to work. I extracted them, replaced the inf, installed and even ran the reg fix. previous drivers were uninstalled and swept. lol i BSOD during the installation for some weird reason on my first try. On, the second, i managed to install the drivers but both cards were turned on at the same time and I couldnt switch cards even with the reg fix. Also, windows took absurdly long to shut down for some reason.

can't seem to find a stable x64 driver. oh yeah, im on the 1.2 bios as well

 

Try this:
Download and extract: ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/video/nVidia_Geforce-GT335M_A01_R273113.exe
Replace the inf: NVCADM.INF
Download this and keep it somewhere: still need.reg

Go to Device Manager, expand "Display adapters" and right-click and click 'Uninstall' and tick 'Delete the driver software for this device'.

Restart when asked, and do it for both video cards.

After that, go back there and right-click and click 'Update driver software', then click 'Browse my computer for driver software', 'Let me pick...' and now click 'Standard VGA Graphics Adapter'.

Do this for both graphics cards and restart if asked.

At this time, in Device Manager, both graphics cards should be called 'Standard VGA Graphics Adapter'.

Now, run the driver cleaner/sweeper.

Restart if asked.

Now you can run to install the new driver: C:\dell\drivers\R273113\setup.exe

After the driver is installed, restart when asked.

After restarting, run the above reg key: still need.reg

After restarting, you should be able to switch cards.

If all is well, you can download and install PhysX from here:
http://www.nvidia.co.in/object/physx-9.10.0513-driver-in.html

 

Hi namaiki, thanks for the reply. I followed your instructions to the bone but under "increase performance" i still get both cards showing. "save power" works fine with just the intel card though

 

That's how it's always been.

 

ah ok. oh another weird thing is that upon restarting, the drivers for the intel card get uninstalled for some weird reason and the screen reverts back to low resolution

 

That's weird. Make sure to block the latest Intel driver update in Windows update. (right-click it and click hide update and then click OK or something like that)

 

Thanks Namaiki, that's the problem. I couldn't really find the option to disable updating for the intel card but i switched to mannual updating.
Cheers again!

 

Updated driver from Alienware/Dell Forceware 263.08

Try this:
Download and extract: http://ftp.us.dell.com/video/NVIDIA_GEFORCE-GT335M_A02_R297688.exe
Replace the inf: NVCADM.INF in "C:\dell\drivers\R297688\Display.Driver"

Go to Device Manager, expand "Display adapters" and right-click and click 'Uninstall' and tick 'Delete the driver software for this device'.

Restart when asked, and do it for both video cards.

After that, go back there and right-click and click 'Update driver software', then click 'Browse my computer for driver software', 'Let me pick...' and now click 'Standard VGA Graphics Adapter'.

Do this for both graphics cards and restart if asked.

At this time, in Device Manager, both graphics cards should be called 'Standard VGA Graphics Adapter'.

Now, run the driver cleaner/sweeper.

Restart if asked.

Now you can run to install the new driver: C:\dell\drivers\R297688\setup.exe

After the driver is installed, restart when asked.

After restarting, run the above reg key: still need.reg

After restarting again, you should be able to switch cards.

 

Looks like Andrew08 was right; http://forum.notebookreview.com/7323104-post2750.html

edit: after a clean install, it is broken again... :/

 

Purchased a new battery for my Joybook S42.
Previous battery was ~90% wear after about 2 years.

Previous battery:
10.8V 4800mAh

New battery:
11.1V 4800mAh
Reads as 0% wear.

22/5/11
battery reads as 5.1% wear
50,549/53,280

Also, just figured out that it's possible to set custom modes in nVidia Control Panel for the laptop's internal monitor.
Range is 10Hz to 93Hz, which exposes ~24Hz, ~48Hz, and ~72Hz.

There is some amusing ghosting and annoying flicker on the screen at ~10-24Hz. Looks like the old LCD screen from my sister's Toshiba T4700CS circa 1993.

 

why u battery 2 year already wear 90%?
me now battery only wear 34.5% only.2 year ready.

 

Hello Namaiki, how are you? Extremely sorry for necro-ing a dead thread in an attempt to contact you.. but this is somewhat a thread that is related to my problem currently, I've recently (like 2 hours ago) reformatted my S42 into Windows 7 HP 32-bit (which is why I can't use the solution you've mentioned as I am running on 32 bit and not 64)

My initial plan was to give up on using only the Nvidia driver and go for Nautis's hybrid drivers instead, however I had just noticed that those hybrid download links are already long broken (I believe Nautis' website is already gone, too), only remember installing it back in 2011 or 2010, years has passed so it's not surprising for it to be dead, I guess..

Anyway, currently I only have the Intel GMA driver in the S42, no NVIDIA and I wish to update my S42 to only run the Nvidia GPU, I do not want the hybrid function and also do not mind the battery life decrease. Could you please assist me on making my laptop to only run an NVIDIA driver? I do not remember flashing my BIOS or updating it but I attempted to install BIOS ver. 1.2 however the installer tells me that my BIOS is already the same as the targeted version and no update is necessary.. weird. :\ I shall standby for your assistance and not attempt any driver installations until I get word from you, thank you so much Namaiki! And sorry for troubling you..

 

I can't seem to find a copy of the Windows XP BIOS for the JoyBook S42. I still haven't tried it myself, but I believe it will disable the hybrid graphics. It might still be on the internet somewhere though. BIOS 1.20 is still a hybrid graphics BIOS.

The newest 32-bit drivers are still only the ones that are originally supplied by BenQ.

 

Does this mean that it is recommendable for me to change my OS to 64-bit to use the Dell driver? May I know if the work of this thread is somewhat related to my case? Please mod Bios 2.0 to SLIC 2.1 for Windows 7 Thanks

 

Hey hey heyyy!! It worked! 263.08 now! I had reformatted my S42 to 64-bit, seems like it was worth it! May I know if there is a driver version more updated than 263.09 available for the S42, Namaiki? Looking forward for your response, thanks!

 

Heya, I'm trying to update to 263.08 but I've had some trouble at the 'Update driver software' step. The first VGA adapter updated fine, but the other is giving me a 'This device cannot start (Code 10)' error. The VGA with the exclamation mark is the one I can't update (I think it's the 9600M GT). Would appreciate any help, thanks

Edit: I looked up the DEV/SUBSYS for the base system devices and found that they're developed by Ricoh, who seem to just make printers, so I'm not sure they're actually related now (although I don't actually have a printer attached).

Edit 2: According to this the solution may be to enable 'Assign IRQ to VGA' in the BIOS, however I'm not sure how to get into it on this? It's not displayed as an option at startup (I'm using 1.20).

 

The "Base System Device" entries are your card reader. Not related to the graphics card. The default drivers off the BenQ CD will work.

For the graphics card, one of them won't be able to start until the hybrid graphics drivers are installed. So what I see in your Device Manager looks normal.

 

Ah thanks, I've installed those now (I got the laptop second-hand so I'm unsure why they weren't there).

I just tried 263.08 (after running driver sweeper/restarting) though and the install failed about halfway through with no reason given? The cards are both listed under 'other devices' in the device manager as 'Display' now.

 

Are you on a 64-bit version of Windows? Which version of Windows is it? Did you modify or replace the appropriate inf file?

 

Yep replaced the inf, and 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate.

 

How do you know that the install fails half way through? Does some sort of message pop up?

 

Yeah, looks like this (I tried uninstalling what it did get done and going through the steps again, but got the same error).

 

Uh, does any sort of message about driver signing come up in the middle of the install and if so, did you allow it to install?

 

Yeah the failure happens a minute or two after that.

 

Maybe try restart and reinstall again without removing the old stuff? Make sure to click the bottom button on the driver signing screen. Not much I can say otherwise as I don't have my Joybook S42 in my immediate possession at the moment.

 

Just to check in and in case anyone else has the same problem, I was able to get the Intel graphics working using method one in this article (which allowed native resolution), but couldn't manage to fix the Nvidia card. I ended up doing a clean install of Windows 7, and now they both work fine. Thanks for the help!