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Dell Driver Support for D800 - nVidia GeForce4 4200GO
Hello.
I am wondering if Dell is still supporting the GeForce4 4200?
The latest driver on the site is very old. nVidia released 44.03 last May (2003) and the current version Dell provides is 44.87 (6.14.10.4487). Current nVidia release is 56.72.
I understand that my Dell D800 is over one year old but I would expect Dell to continue to provided the latest drivers and support for all OEM equipment inside my system.
Could someone from Dell please provide an update on the status of this card (as it is no longer being offered for sale with a new system)? Is Dell going to provide a discounted and/or free trade in program since the current hardware appears to be lacking driver updates and support?
Thanks
Marc
markleary
4 Posts
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June 16th, 2004 13:00
Dell seems to only release new video drivers to provide bug fixes, so you probably will never see another Dell released driver for the 4200. You can download a modified version of the latest Nvidia Detonator reference drivers (with support for mobile devices added) here:
http://www.omegacorner.com/nvidia_2kxp.htm
-Mark
marcmelk
3 Posts
0
June 16th, 2004 20:00
Hi Mark.
Thanks for your post. I installed the latest and on the reboot my system screen would stay black. It appeared to have power (as I could see some light on the edge) but overall the display would not kick in.
I rebooted twice before going into safe mode and reinstalling the Dell drivers.
Thanks for your suggestion though. Maybe I did something wrong in the installation. Also, I have the WUXGA display. I wonder if that would have an impact.
Take care and Thanks again.
Marc
Shari17
5 Posts
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July 3rd, 2004 12:00
Marc,
as sad as it might be, I tried hundred of drivers and 'modded INFs' variations from the most reputed sites such as laptovideo2go, but it seems the oemmed chip inside the D800 is really something so alien and so intricately tied to the rest of the motherboard circuitery that no original driver will manage to offer you the same set of functionality as the Dell-issued driver. Of course you might be luckier. I am no newbie at driver juggling. I am not afraid of hacking INF files. I know it is very difficult to actually damage the hw just by setting software configurations (but you CAN do it, believe me).
Sometimes it's the lid close problem (the screen doesn't resume when opening), sometimes is the video connector not working, sometimes the chip heats too much, sometimes... there's always something wrong. You will see many reports of success on the various forums (not here). You won't be able to reproduce them. Some Inspiron users reported success. I finally gave up.
And Dell is not issuing a new driver. Full stop. The new models do not even use a 4200Go but the newer FX chips. The new D800 Dell drivers (you can find them if you know how to search) do not support the 4200. You won't see a new driver supporting our chipset.
The sad lesson I learned is:
- never buy a top of the line portable thinking you'll be able to both use it for business and for non-business (e.g. videogames). The two things don't match. The Latitude is business-oriented. Dell won't satisfy your gaming desires. They will not issue a new driver. They don't care if Directx 9.0b doesn't work well with their ancient driver. You don't need Directx 9.0b to run Microsoft Office. You can search this forums: there are dozens of questions like yours. It appears not a single answer ever came out.
- it appears the Nvidia chipsets have a very high degree of customizability by OEMs and OEMs apparently like this and customize it. This makes the 'standard driver' approach unfeasible. Apparently ATI is less prone to this problem. So in case you want to try the business+pleasure way and spend money for this, you might try a different combination of OEM and chipset.
For sure I will both skim Dell and Nvidia on my next buy. Not because I think the D800 is a bad machine or that Dell is not fulfilling is support promise (after all they're not promising they will update your drivers, just that they'll replace you defective part), but It is really, really disheartening to own a D800 and not be able to run the games I bought it for. For business use, the D800 is plain overkill. I could have bought a less expensive portable (1k USD less and up), and just upgrade my PC at home for games or buy a completely new low-cost and short-live system to be thrown away in one year / one year and a half. In the end, it would have cost the same (almost the same for materials and a lot less in wasted time). Or I could have bought an Inspiron. Maybe I would have met the same problems, but at least I would have lost less money.
After all it's "only" two years before the D800 I bought about one year ago will be completly depreciated and I will be able to buy another system without feeling guilty. But it took only four months for the graphics driver to become obsolete as new games started taxing the hardware to the limit and a driver upgrade would have been the case (44.82 or 87 wasn't "new" even at time of D800 release).
Well, a benefit is there: I won't be wasting money in games for the next two years...
DarkTech
2 Posts
0
October 21st, 2004 12:00
Dell has their own line of gaming laptops. The 5200 or 4200 cards are NOT meant for gaming, as they are the low end GeForce cards.
Buying a laptop for gaming, imho is a waste. You spend 3-4K on a REALLY good gaming laptop, when you could spend 2K on an even better gaming desktop.