Vostro 220s Windows 7 64 Bit Drivers

Thanks Natakuc4. This is helpful information.

natakuc4, what about a driver for the graphics chipset?  You don't link to a driver and your wiki link is broken.

I'm trying to do a clean Windows 7 install on a Vostro 420.  The Intel Q43/Q45/G43/G45 driver offered by Dell (R230123) says my hardware does not support it.  I ran driver detection from Intel's website and the driver they offered says the same thing.

Of the other drivers I needed, all the ones Dell offered for Windows 7 32 bit installed and ran for me under Windows 64 Professional.  Most of them were the same as the ones listed above.

Oh, OK.  Now I understand.

The difference between P43/P45 and Q43/Q45 is that the P's don't have integrated graphics.  So they probably don't need an Intel graphics driver.

And Dell shouldn't have suggested that driver for my system.

My wiki has been removed from the Dell Community since the earlier post. Its now updated alongside many other wikies of mine in a pdf document which you may get here: http://philipyip.wordpress.com/dell-community-forums/

The Dell Driver (R230123) looks like it is 32 bit only so won't work on the 64 bit OS. The other drivers contained both 32 bit and 64 bit installation files so could install on either or. Have you tried installing this driver here? https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=22167&keyword=intel+q43&lang=eng it should be compatible and is 64 bit.

Thanks for your reply.

I think that Intel driver is the one I tried that was suggested by Intel's auto detect.  In any event, it gives the same error message.

When started, it lists the chipsets it applies to, including Q45/Q43, but does not mention P45/P43 which CPU-Z says is on my motherboard.

In any event, I installed the driver for my graphics card and it works.  What am I missing by not having the chipset driver?

Let me explain a better; as you have a dedicated graphics card you still physically have the hardware for the Intel video, it is just disabled.

If you go into the BIOS setup, you will have the option on enabling/disabling integrated video.

As your system detects that a graphics card is installed it automatically disables the integrated video as it would likely cause some conflicts. Were you to remove the Video Card (for instance in the case that it failed and you had to remove it), the system would require the integrated video driver and you would be able to install the one I listed.

Some units are not shipped with the dedicated graphics card and these would require installation of the driver for the same reasons above. The driver is thus listed for every single Vostro 220 alongside the Chipset and other common components; although as mentioned many have dedicated graphics cards installed and installation of the Intel video driver is not necessary.

Thanks for the further information.

My BIOS does not list graphics in the integrated peripherals, which is consistent with my P45/P43 chipset, which according to the Intel site does not have onboard graphics.

Perhaps some Vostros were shipped without a graphics card and with the Q45/Q43 chipset.  But Dell should have known from my service tag that mine wasn't one of those and should not have offered the graphics driver, causing me to waste an hour or so chasing this mirage.

Is it possible to load and use Windows 8.1 on to a DELL VOSTRO 220S,which came with Windows XP Professional from DELL;HW4N12S?.

Yes it will work well see here and here:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/a-clean-install-of-windows/

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/driver-sets/vostro-desktops/vostro-220s-windows-7-64-bit/

Thank you most kindly for your prompt and courteous response;i will now proceed to load Windows 8.1 to the Vostro 220S,assuming that the drivers for Windows 7 - 64 bit willalso suffice for 8.1?.I have also been trying to purchase quantity 2x 4GB 'sticks' of DDR2/800MHz/SD/DIMM RAM,however none available from Kingston,Corsair,or Crucial.The mother board has only 2 SOCKETS for the existing 2x2GB DIMMs,even though the board has the holes in its layout for the extra 2 DIMM sockets;Dimm 3,and Dimm4?.Why,is anyones' guess;maybe the DELL engineers can answer this one?.

The page has been updated for Windows 8.1 (although the URL is still the original one and mentions just Windows 7).

Let me know how the upgrade goes.

Thank you so much, Natakuc4, for all of this very helpful information and links!

I was able to salvage a few workstations for my friend's job with this info, and I ended up with a free Vostro 220 out of the deal.

I have now installed Win7 Pro 64bit on it and all that remains is the audio driver downloading now.

I'd like to trick out this system and see how well it handles Adobe Creative Cloud's application suite.

Any upgrade recommendations? I'm thinking to max out the RAM (anybody determine actual max yet?) and try to figure out the best graphics card this system can handle (thoughts?) and possibly an SSD.

Any advise welcomed!

Get 4 GB of RAM if the system doesn't already have it, while more is better the price of DDR2 RAM is pretty high and not worthwhile. Its better to have 4 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD than 8 GB of RAM in terms of overall performance.

I generally have a preference for Crucial, I'm using the MX200 in my Inspiron laptop. The Samsung range of SSDs are also reported to be really reliable.

I'm not an expert in upgrading video cards but the low range video cards mentioned here should work well in this system:

http://techbuyersguru.com/VideoCardAdvice.php

Any upgrade recommendations?

I second the suggestion for an SSD. As for memory, since the 220s has only 2 DIMM slots, 8gb of memory will be very expensive. 

I have a 6450 in my 220s, but there are better (and more expensive) low profile cards available.