Nvidia Drivers when running windows 7 in a macbook Air

[Lefteris]

Hello all,

I succesfully installed Windows 7 on my macbook air following this guide:
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/9136...with-boot-camp-without-an-external-dvd-drive/
I am using the 11' inch macbook from late 2010.

I suppose that using the .exe from the files downloaded from the MacOsX installed all the drivers needed for the graphics card to work. But I am having some problems, particularly with the openGL driver so I thought I should just go to nvidia and update myself.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Going there I noticed a problem. There is no Nvidia Geforce 320M. Only the GT version has drivers available. How come? Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[Grannyville7989]

Option 2 finds the correct driver for the correct GPU. Have you tried that option? I use that options for my MacBook Pro running Windows 7.

 

[shyam09]

Hello all,

I succesfully installed Windows 7 on my macbook air following this guide:
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/9136...with-boot-camp-without-an-external-dvd-drive/
I am using the 11' inch macbook from late 2010.

I suppose that using the .exe from the files downloaded from the MacOsX installed all the drivers needed for the graphics card to work. But I am having some problems, particularly with the openGL driver so I thought I should just go to nvidia and update myself.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Going there I noticed a problem. There is no Nvidia Geforce 320M. Only the GT version has drivers available. How come? Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance for the help!

http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook-win7-winvista-64bit-266.58-whql-driver.html
this link is for 64-bit

and than im not too sure if you have 64 bit or 32 bit, so change accordingly

 

[Dromidas]

I'm able to get those drivers selected and downloaded however they do not install. It says no compatible hardware found on the system.

I'm running a very old version of the nvidia display drivers (its the one provided by bootcamp). I really need to update them...
When I select option 2 for the driver download nvidia says that the manufacturer requires me to download the nvidia drivers from them instead. I haven't found an air nvidia driver link on the apple website though... any ideas?

Or is there a trick to getting those drivers to install?

 

[brandone]

is there a trick to getting those drivers to install?

Yes. Each PCI device has a hardware ID. Even though this is an integrated card, it still runs over a PCI bus. Once you have the hardware ID, you can add it to the installer INF and the nvidia driver installer *should* verify your video card as an acceptable card and update your drivers accordingly. I happen to have a macbook air 11" with windows 7 x64 as well. Let me see if i can get those drivers to install and i will give you the modified INF.

 

[brandone]

As promised...
I modified the inf from the newest NVIDIA mobile drivers. Download the attached file, extract, and move it to this location:
C:/Nvidia/DisplayDriver/266.58/Vista 64-bit/International/Display.Driver/
Once you have moved the modified inf to that folder, run setup.exe in:
C:/Nvidia/DisplayDriver/266.58/Vista 64-bit/International/
Good Luck.

 

[ant1225]

Brandone can you kindly help me?

As promised...
I modified the inf from the newest NVIDIA mobile drivers. Download the attached file, extract, and move it to this location:
C:/Nvidia/DisplayDriver/266.58/Vista 64-bit/International/Display.Driver/
Once you have moved the modified inf to that folder, run setup.exe in:
C:/Nvidia/DisplayDriver/266.58/Vista 64-bit/International/
Good Luck.

Can you kindly teach me where you've modified that file?
Since I am trying to change it for 32-bit based.

I will look forward your reply and if you have any chance and kind enough then mail me

djnosferatuz@hotmail.com

 

[janfix]

32bits

Hello, can anyone tell me how to modify the file for the 32bit version?
Cheers,
JF

 

[Flybus]

I think I have the same problem. Looking in the Windows 7 device manager under graphics adapter it only shows a generic VGA adapter. I'm assumung it should show the nVidia Geforce 320M? Thus, as mentioned above, when I download the nVidia drivers it won't install them as it thinks they're incompatible.

Is this the same?

How do you modify the driver?

 

[jegbook]

I think I have the same problem. Looking in the Windows 7 device manager under graphics adapter it only shows a generic VGA adapter. I'm assumung it should show the nVidia Geforce 320M? Thus, as mentioned above, when I download the nVidia drivers it won't install them as it thinks they're incompatible.

Is this the same?

How do you modify the driver?

Huh. When I ran the installer for the 266.58 driver it just worked for me. But possibly my .inf file from the previous install didn't get overwritten, so the added text needed was already there.

Check out this guide: https://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-1029926.html

Basically, there are just two or three places in the .inf file that you need to add lines to match a hardware ID of the 320m card to the name of the 320m card. When the installer runs, it compares against this "database" of supported cards and when it sees the text indicating the hardware ID, it's all happy. You can add the line for your card yourself by just copying the format of the pre-existing text and inserting the hardware ID of your card.
If I go to System Profiler in OS X and Graphics/Displays, it shows the device ID as 0x08a0. This is the magic number.
There must be different revisions of the card as I believe the modified .inf that you can download references the 320m with 4 or 5 different IDs.

It might work to update the driver from the Device Manager, using Update Driver, then Have Disc, and pointing to the extracted folder with the driver files, but it might still complain about not finding matching hardware with the non-modified .inf file.

Looks like NVidia has a new version out as of last week: 267.76.

Cheers.

 

[Flybus]

Thanks for that, you're obviously way more technical than I am!

What I still fail to understand is that when any OS is installed it doesn't know what the hardware configuration is.

How is this resolved?

Windows doesn't know it should be looking for an nVidia Geforce 320M driver.

 

[jegbook]

Thanks for that, you're obviously way more technical than I am!

What I still fail to understand is that when any OS is installed it doesn't know what the hardware configuration is.

How is this resolved?

Windows doesn't know it should be looking for an nVidia Geforce 320M driver.

Do you mean the NVidia installer doesn't know it should be looking for the 320m driver?

Windows often doesn't seem too smart about what the actualy hardware is that it's trying to find a driver for. Granted, Windows 7 is a lot better than previous versions, but not perfect.

All in all, I'm not sure I understand what you're getting.

Happy to help if you elaborate a bit more.

Cheers.

 

[Flybus]

Thanks jegbook!

What I'm trying to explain (poorly!) is that in device manager under display adapters my MBA is only showing a "Standard VGA Graphics adapter".
Whereas my desktop shows an NVIDIA Geforce 6800.

Consequently, even if I right click and try to update driver software it searches online correctly but is only looking for driver software for a generic adapter. How can I "tell" the MBA device manager that it's got the Geforce320M installed?

I have downloaded the 320M driver but it won't install as it thinks it's incompatible.
As an aside I have installed the newest Bootcamp drivers a couple of times.

Thanks!

 

[Flybus]

Finally fixed!

I tried reinstalling the bootcamp drivers through the bootcamp normal install but no difference.

If you have a look within bootcamp though, there is a folder full of drivers, nVidia being one of them. There are multiple .exe files in there and I can't quite remember which one worked, but it did.......display now as clear as when in OSX and, as importantly, it fixes the problem of no sleep option.

All working fantastically.

 

[jegbook]

Finally fixed!

I tried reinstalling the bootcamp drivers through the bootcamp normal install but no difference.

If you have a look within bootcamp though, there is a folder full of drivers, nVidia being one of them. There are multiple .exe files in there and I can't quite remember which one worked, but it did.......display now as clear as when in OSX and, as importantly, it fixes the problem of no sleep option.

All working fantastically.

Hurrah!

Sorry to not respond until now. Haven't been on MR the past couple days.

Do you plan on doing any gaming? If not, you're good to go with the Boot Camp drivers. If you're interested in some gaming, you'd likely benefit from the newer drivers and I can try to guide you through getting those working. It doesn't take too much.

(The latest installers keep working for me without fuss. I can only think maybe that it sees that a recent driver was already installed so it doesn't cross-check the nvdm.inf file for compatibility...)

 

[Flybus]

Not into gaming thanks so no worries there.

I think now that the device manager is listing the correct graphics card it'll be easy enough to update it through their website.

The added benefit is getting the sleep working nicely. Doesn't seem to eat the battery in sleep as it can in a normal PC.

 

[Susurs]

What is the latest official bootcamp driver for Nvidia? 260.xx?
Thanks!

 

[zepharus]

What is the latest official bootcamp driver for Nvidia? 260.xx?
Thanks!

Looks like 257.46 which is OLD. Anyone get the new drivers working???? 270.61?