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Nvidia driver wont install!!!

xi mezmerize ix

xi mezmerize ix

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 24, 2010
602
0
Maryland, USA
I know that I am downloading the correct driver and everytime i try to install it theis message pops up: "The NVidia setup program could not locate any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware." WTF?!?!?
 
xi mezmerize ix said:
I know that I am downloading the correct driver and everytime i try to install it theis message pops up: "The NVidia setup program could not locate any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware." WTF?!?!?
Click to expand...

Are you sure you have activated the NVidia card before you installed the driver...it will not show up unless you have switched from the integrated graphics to the discrete graphics.
 
xi mezmerize ix said:
I thought my MBP was already discrete. How do you switch it?
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The MBP has integrated graphics and discrete graphics that can switch automatically in OS X...don't think it's possible in Windows to switch...it's either one or the other.

Try to enable discrete graphics in OS X then reboot into Windows...see if that works...I have no idea what to try other than that.
 
xi mezmerize ix said:
Well i knew it did that in osx but i figured in xp it was just always discrete. how do i change it in xp then?
Click to expand...

I wrote a guide on how to modify your own inf so you can install a driver from nvidia.com

Guide for Updating Video Card Drivers From Nvidia

1. Go to http://www.nvidia.com and download the notebook specific driver for your version of windows and your video card (either 9400 or 9600).

2. From the Start Menu in Windows, go to run and type dxdiag. Once the window appears, on bottom right hand side there is an option to "Save All Information". Save this information on your Desktop. It will save a .txt file to your desktop.

3. Within this text, file search for "Device Key". You only need to use a certain piece of the Device and Subsystem ID such as "DEV_0863&SUBSYS_00B9106B&REV_B1" from my base MacBook Pro 13. This will be important in the next step.

4. Now you will need a tool like WinRar to extract the files from the Nvidia driver executable. Once you have WinRar or similar installed, you can right on the Nvidia driver executable and choose extract.

5. Within the file folder extracted from the Nvidia driver executable, you will need to open the file nvam.inf with notepad or another text editor. Once the file opens, scroll to the bottom of the file and you should begin to see text such as "NVIDIA_DEV.0862.01 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9400M G"".
Find the first line associated with your video (either 9600GT or 9400M). Now copy the number following NVIDIA_DEV. such as "0862". Now you will need the Device and Subsystem ID found earlier in Step 3.

6. Return to the top of the nvam.inf file, and from your text editor's menu, choose find and enter the number found in Step 5 such as "0862". There are two instances to find. Once you have found the first, towards the end of the line you should see the text "PCI\VEN_10DE&", highlight all the text following this and paste the Device and Subsystem ID found earlier in Step 3. You should end up with something like "%NVIDIA_DEV.0862.01 = Section52, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0863&SUBSYS_00B9106B&REV_B1".
Make sure to do this for both instances.

7. Now you must uninstall the nvidia display driver from the control panel. Make sure to only uninstall the display driver as that is all you are updating (my MacBook Pro had four drivers associated with the Nvidia uninstaller).

8. Now you can reboot. Once your computer has restarted, within the file folder extracted from the Nvidia driver executable, you can simply double click the setup.exe, and your new driver will install.

Credit goes to this site for getting me an idea how to begin
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8596214
Click to expand...
 
What the heck are all of you talking about? Under Windows the Nvidia GPU is always active. You cannot install drivers direct from Nvidia's site as the MBP is an unsupported model. You can use drivers from laptopvideo2go or modify the INF yourself, which is what I did.
 
Bill Gates said:
What the heck are all of you talking about? Under Windows the Nvidia GPU is always active. You cannot install drivers direct from Nvidia's site as the MBP is an unsupported model. You can use drivers from laptopvideo2go or modify the INF yourself, which is what I did.
Click to expand...

Sure you can. Check out my guide in the post above yours.
 
Any gaming benchmarks of the Bootcamp vid drivers, versus modding the latest Nvidia drivers
 
I know this is kind of a late bump. But im having the same issue you were all having and i know if i can get these damn drivers installed it'd fix it. I got as far as your directions up to the replacing the NVAM.INF text file. There isnt one in my nvidia folder. Anywhere. Any idea what else i can do to fix it? Now i think my problem is im running on windows XP. I found this forum through one of about 100 google search responses. Would seriously appreciate any help.
 
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