Notebook video driver updates

[Ridah]

Last month I bought myself a Sony Vaio F Series laptop, it's been awesome for gaming so far. I can run most games at medium to high settings with an excellent framerate. However, as I discovered, notebooks tend to have proprietary video drivers as they work in collusion with the laptop's own software for things like performance management and so on.

On Sony's official site, there's only one set of video drivers to download and they are from August. Do they just take forever to put out new updates? Are there community sites that update them on their own?

[Victoria Raverna]

Last month I bought myself a Sony Vaio F Series laptop, it's been awesome for gaming so far. I can run most games at medium to high settings with an excellent framerate. However, as I discovered, notebooks tend to have proprietary video drivers as they work in collusion with the laptop's own software for things like performance management and so on.

On Sony's official site, there's only one set of video drivers to download and they are from August. Do they just take forever to put out new updates? Are there community sites that update them on their own?

Most laptop producers rarely put out new video driver updates. You are lucky if they release more than 2 video drivers update during the lifetime of your laptop. Your best bet is to get to community sites like laptopvideo2go.com for laptops using nvidia video chips.

[Hamsterball_Z]

It has the GT 330M, right?  You can download drivers from Nvidia's website.  260.99 are the latest WHQL ones, dated October 25th.  The custom driver requirements of the older generation laptops are mostly gone now.  You may still run into it on business class machines using pro-type CAD cards like the Quadros and Firepros.

[Ridah]

It has the GT 330M, right?  You can download drivers from Nvidia's website.  260.99 are the latest WHQL ones, dated October 25th.  The custom driver requirements of the older generation laptops are mostly gone now.  You may still run into it on business class machines using pro-type CAD cards like the Quadros and Firepros.

No, mine has the GT 425M. When I try and download drivers from Nvidia's website it says they aren't compatible. Any suggestions on how to get around this?

[Hamsterball_Z]

I found this post, sounds like it may be a common problem with this release.  There's a link in post 7 that walks through steps to uninstall the old driver before installing the new one.  That should solve the problem. 

[Ridah]

I went to the link, but it notes this:

"Notebook users: Some laptops, especially older ones, require that you get your drivers directly from the manufacturer. If you attempt to install a driver from the NVIDIA site and get a message saying the driver could not find a compatable device then you will need to get your driver from the laptop manufacturer. Unfortuantely for you, this likely means that this driver will not have the latest feature set. NVIDIA is working with laptop manufacturers to eliminate this issue."

So basically he is saying my problem doesn't have a fix.

[Victoria Raverna]

I went to the link, but it notes this:

"Notebook users: Some laptops, especially older ones, require that you get your drivers directly from the manufacturer. If you attempt to install a driver from the NVIDIA site and get a message saying the driver could not find a compatable device then you will need to get your driver from the laptop manufacturer. Unfortuantely for you, this likely means that this driver will not have the latest feature set. NVIDIA is working with laptop manufacturers to eliminate this issue."

So basically he is saying my problem doesn't have a fix.

Try the website that I posted - http://laptopvideo2go.com

[Hamsterball_Z]

I went to the link, but it notes this:

"Notebook users: Some laptops, especially older ones, require that you get your drivers directly from the manufacturer. If you attempt to install a driver from the NVIDIA site and get a message saying the driver could not find a compatable device then you will need to get your driver from the laptop manufacturer. Unfortuantely for you, this likely means that this driver will not have the latest feature set. NVIDIA is working with laptop manufacturers to eliminate this issue."

So basically he is saying my problem doesn't have a fix.

No.  You were able to select your video card and download the driver for it.  If it weren't supported you wouldn't have been able to do that.  It's just something broken in the install procedure.  I had the exact same thing happen with an old ATI desktop card.  Follow the uninstall procedure and you'll be fine.  It's not much more than what you typically do on a desktop: uninstall driver, run driver cleaner, install new driver.  Worst case if I'm wrong, you to reinstall the old driver.

[Ridah]

Victoria - I tried that website but had the same issue when I tried to install the driver.

I'll try the instructions you linked Hamster, will report how it goes.

[Victoria Raverna]

Victoria - I tried that website but had the same issue when I tried to install the driver.

I'll try the instructions you linked Hamster, will report how it goes.

I think you need to download the custom inf files from that side and replace the one that come with the driver to install. Check the site for instruction.