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Edit: After trying again with the latest drivers and starting from scratch I've managed to get the installer to detect the card correctly, but after the install both my Intel and nvidia cards are showing up with exclamation marks in device manager.

(My previous attempts were accidentally using the wrong Section numbers it turned out)

Does anyone have any information as to how to specifically install the drivers in the same way the 29x drivers worked? Is there any workaround?

I was considering flashing the graphics BIOS to have a more "official" hardware ID, but due to it's hybrid nature I'm not really willing to risk it.

I have tried normal nvidia drivers, Verde drivers and Beta drivers.

Original I've got a Dell Vostro 3700 with the hybrid Intel/Geforce 330M chip, Dell haven't updated their drivers for years and (presumably) becuase of the hybrid nature they have used a non-standard hardware ID on the chip itself.

This means I cannot use nvidia's updated drivers, the pre-installation check shows no compatible hardware error. I'm familiar with the hacked inf methods (here), adding my device's hardware IDs into the right places of the driver that it gets installed. This method seems to have stopped working since about version 296 (or so).

Here is my Hardware ID set:

PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_044F1028&REV_A2
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_044F1028
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&CC_030000
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&CC_0300

This is to be run on Win7 64-bit.

I've also tried using the most recent LaptopVideo2Go drivers (which include other 330M models) and adding my hardware IDs to the INF. These install but do not work. Both the Intel and nvidia chips show with exclamation marks in device manager, saying there was a problem with the driver.

I cannot disable the Intel card via the BIOS (the ability was removed from the production 3700 models for some reason, presumably to make my life harder)

Any help is really appreciated.

Community
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Martin Lyne
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2 Answers2

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Sorry for the really brief answer, I would have commented if I'd seen this earlier. You can use laptopvideo2go.com, they release the latest drivers with all the INF hackery already done. All you need to do is download the correct setup files from their site and install.

Hassan Khan
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The thread why no driver support claims that the Nvidia driver installation also applies to the Geforce 330M, but is omitted for some unknown reason from the list of compatible cards.

It describes how to modify the installation files after extracting them from the installation exe file using an unzip software (for example 7-Zip).

  1. Downloaded the latest Nvidia Beta drivers - I got these ones, "285.38-notebook-win7-winvista-32bit-international-beta", and extracted them using WinRar.

  2. I opened the "Display.Driver" folder, and looked at the .inf files in there with a text editor (I used notepad++ so I can search inside multiple files and have line numbers).

  3. I noticed all the 330M drivers listed in ListDevices.txt. They have a few listed but the part I noticed was this, "DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04421028" (various ones with the "DEV_0A29" being the 330M card and "SUBSYS_04421028" seeming to correspond to the version of card (not sure exactly).

  4. I checked in device manager and opened the driver properties for my Nvidia display adapter. Under the "Details" tab, under the "Hardware Ids" drop-down I saw a similar code, "PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_044F1028&REV_A2". I searched all Nvidia driver .inf files and did not see my specific version listed. So I edited it in there myself.

  5. There were two files I needed to edit, ListDevices.txt and nvdm.inf

  6. In the ListDevices.txt this is what I changed (forum removes some formatting so make sure to look at whats in the .inf and follow the same pattern):

    FROM:

    DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04421028 "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M" DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04671028 "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M " DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04681028 "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M " DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_046D1028 "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M " DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_046E1028 "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M "

    TO (first line is my card info):

    DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_044F1028 "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M" DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04421028 "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M " DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04671028 "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M " DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04681028 "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M " DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_046D1028 "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M " DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_046E1028 "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M "

  7. In the nvdm.inf this is what I changed (I'm sure if you search in the file you'll find where these go):

    Part 1

    FROM:

    %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.01% = Section031, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04421028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.02% = Section033, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04671028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.03% = Section033, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04681028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.04% = Section007, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_046D1028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.05% = Section007, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_046E1028

    TO (first line is my card info):

    %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.01% = Section031, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_044F1028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.02% = Section031, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04421028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.03% = Section033, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04671028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.04% = Section033, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04681028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.05% = Section007, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_046D1028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.06% = Section007, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_046E1028

    Part 2

    FROM:

    %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.01% = Section032, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04421028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.02% = Section034, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04671028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.03% = Section034, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04681028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.04% = Section008, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_046D1028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.05% = Section008, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_046E1028

    TO (first line is my card info):

    %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.01% = Section032, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_044F1028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.02% = Section032, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04421028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.03% = Section034, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04671028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.04% = Section034, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_04681028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.05% = Section008, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_046D1028 %NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.06% = Section008, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A29&SUBSYS_046E1028

  8. Now after saving those changes I ran the "setup" executable and told it to do a "clean" install. It installed the drivers, rebooted, detected drivers and rebooted again. HOWEVER it had installed the default drivers again. SO now I said "Update driver" and "Browse my computer" and then "pick from a list" and low and behold it showed me drivers from 2011 in the few options it showed me. I selected those, rebooted and voila I had the Nvidia drivers with the Nvidia control panel.

This seems like a lot of work to get them working but really I don't know why they were not included with the Nvidia release of the drivers anyway. I hope this helps others (sorry its not a simple step by step but hope it makes sense).

harrymc
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  • Thanks, I'll give the "update drivers" method a go (I've already modified the inf files to contain my hardware IDs), but I fear this is sub-296 release drivers as they changed the formatting of the inf files from `NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.01` to `NVIDIA_DEV.0A29.044F`. Will update you in about 24h. – Martin Lyne Dec 18 '12 at 23:03
  • Sorry, doesn't seem to work, it claims the drivers install, but both adapters show up as erroring drivers. Tried with Both altered versions of 304.79 and 310.70. These are 64-bit drivers, perhaps they're different again. – Martin Lyne Dec 18 '12 at 23:27
  • I can see from the specs that you have Windows 32-bit, so you need to do that operation on 32-bit drivers. I found on Nvidia the [310.70 32-bit driver](http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/54534) - is this the one you used? – harrymc Dec 19 '12 at 08:26
  • Which specs are you looking at? Mine's definitely 4-bit http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/vostro-3700/pd – Martin Lyne Dec 19 '12 at 09:13
  • I got them via google, so that review was bullsh*t. To be sure I understand correctly, I summarize : the "latest" Dell driver update for your computer does work but is too old, and your problem is that the newer Nvidia updates don't work. Is that the case? – harrymc Dec 19 '12 at 09:48
  • That's right. Slightly older versions of nvidia drivers can be modified to work, but that method no longer works (or there's a new requirement on top). My original drivers were from another site, so it's possible they were Verde driver, which I've also tried (I'll amend the question) – Martin Lyne Dec 19 '12 at 11:33
  • Well, the procedure above worked for you, although the driver didn't, so it might be true that Nvidia drivers from version 304.79 and up do not support your card. There are earlier drivers listed in the [Beta/Legacy Driver](http://www.geforce.com/drivers/beta-legacy) section, which are at least newer than the Dell driver (which dates from 3/2010). So you could go backward in time, looking for a driver that works, first by simple installation and if not then by the above procedure. If none of them works for you, then I'm afraid that you will unfortunately have to settle for the Dell driver. – harrymc Dec 19 '12 at 13:56
  • That's correct, I've been continually updating my drivers using that method up until the point where something changed. The last known stable are 296. If my drivers remain stuck in time.. that's not ideal for me, already they are too old for some games :( My chip is listed as supported, it's the hybrid bits that are (likely) causing the issue. – Martin Lyne Dec 19 '12 at 17:03
  • Wish for a new laptop for Xmas? – harrymc Dec 19 '12 at 17:22
  • Haha! Probably my best bet – Martin Lyne Dec 19 '12 at 18:36