***Updating Mobile Graphics Cards Drivers (Windows 7 and Vista)***

[crash]

Updating Mobile Graphics Cards Drivers (Windows 7 and Vista)
by crash
last updated: 25 August 2010

Why update your drivers? Newer drivers can improve 3D performance, fix bugs and other graphical glitches in certain games, support new features, and use your hardware more efficiently.

Disclaimer: ***I take zero responsibility for any possible damage caused by following this guide. Proceed at your own risk***

Quick Jump to
NVIDIA Drivers »
ATI Drivers »
Switchable Graphics Drivers »
FAQ »

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NVIDIA Drivers

There are three recommended places to find drivers for your mobile NVIDIA card: your manufacturer, NVIDIA, and LaptopVideo2Go.

Your Manufacturer
Often these are referred to as "stock" drivers for your card. Depending on your manufacturer, some companies update frequently and others infrequently. These drivers contain support for only a limited number of cards, so make sure you're downloading the correct one for your model! Although they are recommended as a baseline driver to use for stability, updating to a newer driver usually results in some sort of performance boost.

NVIDIA
NVIDIA now supports official updates for mobile cards. They can be found here.

LaptopVideo2Go
These drivers are desktop and/or notebook graphics drivers from NVIDIA that are modded by the LaptopVideo2Go team to be compatible with almost all currently existing mobile cards. They offer a performance increase, but sometimes at the cost of stability. You can find their drivers here.

Procedure
Note: If updating to a LV2Go driver, follow instructions in orange as well

1. Download the new driver from one of the three sources above (manufacturer, NVIDIA, or LaptopVideo2Go)
   • If from LV2Go, be sure to download the modded .inf as well
2. Uninstall the current driver by going to device manager, expanding Display Adapters, opening up the current driver info and clicking "Uninstall"
3. Restart your computer once the driver has been uninstalled
4. Install the new driver by running the executable you downloaded earlier
   • If from LV2Go, you may need to install it manually using the "Have Disk" method as explained here
5. Restart your computer
6. Open the device manager to verify that the new driver installed correctly!

NVIDIA Drivers », Top »

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ATI Drivers
Note: If you have switchable ATI/Intel graphics solution, please see the next section

There are three recommended places to find drivers for your mobile ATI card: your manufacturer, ATI, and Mobility Modder.

Your Manufacturer
Often these are referred to as "stock" drivers for your card. Depending on your manufacturer, some companies update frequently and others infrequently. These drivers contain support for only a limited number of cards, so make sure you're downloading the correct one for your model! Although they are recommended as a baseline driver to use for stability, updating to a newer driver usually results in some sort of performance boost.

ATI
ATI now supports official updates for mobile cards. ATI updates their mobile (as well as desktop) drivers once a month. They can be found here.

Mobility Modder
This program modifies any ATI desktop driver to be compatible with your mobile card. Manufacturers and ATI themselves do not update their mobile drivers very often, so this program allows you to use the latest enhancements on your notebook. If you experience system instability after using one of the modded desktop drivers, it is recommended to switch back to an official driver from either ATI or your manufacturer. You can find the program here (scroll down about half way for the download link).

Procedure
For manufacturer driver or official ATI driver...
Note: If you have switchable ATI/Intel graphics solution, please see the next section

1. Download the new driver from either your manufacturer's site or from ATI directly
   • Note: If you are upgrading from a 10.x driver to a newer 10.x driver, it is not necessary to uninstall the previous driver before upgrading
2. Uninstall the current driver by going to device manager, expanding Display Adapters, opening up the current driver info and clicking "Uninstall"
3. Restart your computer once the driver has been uninstalled
4. Install the new driver by running the executable you downloaded earlier
5. Restart your computer
6. Open the device manager to verify that the new driver installed correctly!

For Mobility Modder drivers...
Note: If you have switchable ATI/Intel graphics solution, please see the next section

1. Download and install MSXML 6.0 SP1 from Microsoft
   • If you're using Vista, you must turn UAC off! It must remain off while updating your driver but can be turned back on once the driver has been updated. If using Windows 7, proceed to step 2
     • Type in "User Accounts" in the Start menu and open "User Accounts and Family Safety"
     • Click on "Add or remove user accounts
     • Click on your account name
     • Click on "Go to main User Account page"
     • Click on "Change security settings"
     • Unselect the box and click "Ok"
     • Restart your computer
2. Download the latest desktop Catalyst driver you wish to use from ATI
3. Uninstall the current driver by going to device manager, expanding Display Adapters, opening up the current driver info and clicking "Uninstall"
4. Restart your computer once the driver has been uninstalled
5. Run the driver you downloaded earlier, but stop the installation once all the files have been extracted
   • Remember where the driver was extracted to!
6. Run Mobility Modder and direct it to the folder where you extracted the driver and press "Modify"
   • Default directory is c:\ATI\SUPPORT\
   • In Vista, if nothing happens, navigate to the directory and run the SETUP.exe file
7. Once the driver has been modified, restart your computer
   • If you're using Vista and you want to turn UAC back on, navigate to the same place where you turned UAC off and check the box to turn it back on. Restart your computer
8. Open the device manager to verify that the new driver installed correctly!

These instructions were taken in part from Mobility Modder's official site.

ATI Drivers », Top »

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Switchable Graphics Drivers

Notebooks with switchable ATI/Intel graphics appear to require that any new drivers be installed over the factory installed driver since only the factory driver supports the Intel integrated GPU on core-i chips and the ATI discrete GPU. You can upgrade to a new ATI driver version (and I would recommend not using Mobility Modder in this case), but the procedure changes slightly:

Procedure

1. Download the new driver
2. Install the new driver by running the executable you downloaded earlier
3. Restart your computer
4. Open the device manager to verify that the new driver installed correctly! Also, check to make sure your laptop is switching between cards (ATI and Intel) properly

Switchable Graphics Drivers », Top »

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Frequently Asked Questions

1. How can I tell if I have switchable graphics?
2. How can I roll back my driver in case something went wrong?
3. What is the difference between WHQL, unsigned, and beta drivers?
4. How do I boot in safe mode?

1. How can I tell if I have switchable graphics?
Open up the Device Manager and expand "Display Adapters". If you see two items here - an ATI card and an Intel card - then you have switchable graphics. If there is only one, then you do not have switchable graphics.
FAQ », Top »

2. How can I roll back my driver in case something went wrong?
Open up the device manager, expand "Display Adapters" and double click on your graphics card. Under the "Driver" tab, click on the "Roll Back Driver" button.
FAQ », Top »

3. What is the difference between WHQL, unsigned, and beta drivers?
Companies can submit their drivers to Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) for compatibility testing. They test the drivers for stability and compatibility with a wide range of hardware configurations, and when they pass the tests, they become WHQL certified drivers.
Unsigned drivers are those that either were not submitted to Microsoft's WHQL for testing or they did not pass the tests.
Beta drivers are working versions of drivers that work in most cases, but sometimes have stability issues as they are not the finalized version of a driver. Often times NVIDIA classifies any driver that they do not fully support as beta.
FAQ », Top »

4. How do I boot in safe mode?
Restart your computer and repeatedly press F8 until the "Advanced Boot Options" screen comes up. Select "Safe Mode" and you're good to go.
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[crash]

New updating mobile graphics drivers sticky for the new decade! Let me know if I'm missing anything or if you want to see something added.

Post all questions regarding mobile driver updates here.

[xTank Jones16x]

Very nice job as always crash.

+rep

[hakira]

I'm not sure if it's worth mentioning but, with ATI's newer driver structure (ie. 10.1, 10.2 ect) they are designed to handle "lazy installs" - meaning a direct install over the current driver without any uninstalling. Also ATI updates their desktop and mobility drivers at the same frequency now, once a month

You might want to add an FAQ about how to roll back drivers in case something went wrong, and maybe add a really short one explaining the difference between WHQL and beta releases.

[crash]

Originally Posted by hakira

I'm not sure if it's worth mentioning but, with ATI's newer driver structure (ie. 10.1, 10.2 ect) they are designed to handle "lazy installs" - meaning a direct install over the current driver without any uninstalling.

Cool, I did not know that about their latest drivers. Nonetheless, it's probably still prudent to recommend uninstalling, although I can make a note of it in the guide.

Originally Posted by hakira

Also ATI updates their desktop and mobility drivers at the same frequency now, once a month

I'll update the description

Originally Posted by hakira

You might want to add an FAQ about how to roll back drivers in case something went wrong, and maybe add a really short one explaining the difference between WHQL and beta releases.

Good idea, I'll add those later today!

[sean473]

Originally Posted by hakira

I'm not sure if it's worth mentioning but, with ATI's newer driver structure (ie. 10.1, 10.2 ect) they are designed to handle "lazy installs" - meaning a direct install over the current driver without any uninstalling. Also ATI updates their desktop and mobility drivers at the same frequency now, once a month

You might want to add an FAQ about how to roll back drivers in case something went wrong, and maybe add a really short one explaining the difference between WHQL and beta releases.

this is good news because i'm lazy but crash thanks for all your effort.. i was really hoping this thread was updated as the old one was well too old and didn't help much with newer drivers. Could i also suggest that you add the method for installing mobile ATI drivers as mobility modder isn't used much now.

Cheers
Sean473

[crash]

Thanks

The procedure for upgrading an ATI driver both with and without Mobility Modder are provided. Maybe you missed it?

[sean473]

Sorry crash... I nver read properly.. need to read slowly .. But really thanks.

[Valantic]

First of all, thank you for reading my problem, and hopefully helping me come up with a solution.

I recently purchased an Alienware M15X. (Windows 7, i7 740QM @ 1.73 GHz, 8 Gbs RAM, HD 5850)

I spent quite a bit of money on this machine, so as can be expected, I was very upset when my screen would freeze, and then go black. My sound would continue for a couple seconds and then cut out as well. After awhile the screen would come back up, with the default windows 7 theme. However, the computer would run VERY slowly. My mouse would disappear and reappear somewhere else. To fix this, I would have to manually shut down my computer, to reboot. This would generally only happen when I was watching full-screen videos with VLC.

After much hardship working with Dell's technicians, to no avail, I noticed a new ATI driver on Dell's website. I downloaded it, and installed it (without uninstalling the old driver, I'm relatively new). This driver magically fixed all the problems I was having.

Since then, I've had to reformat my hard-drive. When I went back to the Dell website to download the new driver, it was gone. My computer is back to having this problem, and I don't know how to fix it without that driver.

My driver's current version is 8.683.2.0.

TLDR; I need to update my driver, but the update isn't on Dell's website anymore.

Help? Please ask if you have any questions. Thanks in advance! You'll sure get a lot afterwards, as well.

[Tenspeed33]

Have you tried downloading the latest driver that is brought up on the ATI website?
Graphics Drivers & Software
Let me know how this goes.