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Solution: All drivers (inc. video) on MBP i7 17" w/ nvidia 330m

N

nathangudmunson

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 30, 2010
3
0
I had a lot of trouble getting my new macbook pro i7 17" to work with Windows 7 x64 in Bootcamp. I especially had issues getting the video drivers to work, so I thought I would document my steps here to help others out.

The first problem is that after installation of win7 x64, when you put in the snow leopard disc, it says that it can't install the drivers. To get around this, locate the command prompt in the Accessories folder of the start menu and right click on it, selecting "run as administrator." Once you've done this, browse to your drive and run the program:

d:
cd\Bootcamp\Drivers\Apple
msiexec /i BootCamp64.msi

This should allow you to install most things that you need. The install still had some issues, so I tried downloading the newest bootcamp 3.1 drivers from http://support.apple.com/kb/dl979. This got everything working except the video.

My first attempt at getting video working was to download the newest nVidia drivers for the 330m series from their website. These drivers (version 197.16) didn't install, saying they were "unable to find any supported adapters." After poking around on the web, I was able to find some drivers to install from laptopvideo2go.com here: http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/26537-v19745-windows-7vista-64bit-nvidia-desktop/. These drivers are paired with a modified .inf file which will allow you to install drivers on machines that aren't officially supported yet, such as the core i7 macbook pro w/ nvidia 330m.

Once you've downloaded these, extract the driver to a directory on your desktop such as nvidia. Then, go into that directory and delete the file nv_disp.inf. Then, go back to the page you downloaded the drivers from and click on the "INF Modified" link, and download that file. Simply copy that file into the nvidia folder on your desktop, and run setup.

By completing these steps, I was able to get a fully functional Windows 7 x64 build working on a 2 day old MacBook Pro core i7 17" machine. I hope this helps somebody out there...
 
Thx very much for your contribution, i'm going to receive on the next days my 17'' mbp and i was hoping to install W7 without issues :D
 
Well, I know I had these issues with win7 x64. I'm not sure about the 32-bit version-you should either have to do this or have an easier time installing it :)
 
Very kind of you to post your findings. I know someone will find this helpful down the road. :)
 
nathangudmunson

nathangudmunson said:
I hope this helps somebody out there...
Click to expand...

Although I browse this forum frequently, I'm one who signs in and posts something about once every three years, or so. So, now, I just wanted to sign in and let you know that someone truly appreciates that you took the time to write this helpful post. Thank You.

I am going to be ordering a new 17-inch MBP soon. This will be my first Mac. I have lots of Windows software that I need to keep using, so I, too, am looking to install Win7-64. I'm generally tech-capable, but mostly Mac-ignorant, so your post will help ease the stumbling and frustration.

Thanks again.

p.s. How big did you make your Win7 partition ?
 
Sure, I figured that since I had such a hard time, others would as well.

My MBP came with a 500 gb HD. While I will be using OSX for most of my work activity, I wanted to install outlook, visual studio and maybe a couple games on the Win partition, so I made it 100 gb to allow ample room for whatever I need. I keep all my media on the 400GB OSX partition, since I can browse through it easily through the Windows 7 side.

Honestly, though, it depends on your use. Heavy Windows users will obviously want more space on that partition.
 
nathangudmunson said:
Sure, I figured that since I had such a hard time, others would as well.

My MBP came with a 500 gb HD. While I will be using OSX for most of my work activity, I wanted to install outlook, visual studio and maybe a couple games on the Win partition, so I made it 100 gb to allow ample room for whatever I need. I keep all my media on the 400GB OSX partition, since I can browse through it easily through the Windows 7 side.

Honestly, though, it depends on your use. Heavy Windows users will obviously want more space on that partition.
Click to expand...

I noticed you said you got at 17". Do you think your process would be the same for a 15" i7?
 
Hmm... strange. I installed Win7 Home Premium 64bit on my 17" i7 yesterday and everything went smoothly. All drivers installed absolutely fine from the included Snow Leopard DVD, without any manual interaction.

Maybe Apple already fixed the problem on newer DVDs.
 
try this thread
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/879681/

I wrote a guide on how to modify your own inf.

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...
 
Thank you!

Thank you for posting this! I had the same exact issue and followed your steps, and it worked perfectly! I appreciate the help! :)
 
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