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Missing Graphics Card after fix

N

nutrageti

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Feb 18, 2016
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Decided to fix my old laptop (burnt out HDD) and replaced the part.

Laptop is:
Acer Aspire 7736 ZG
Nvidia GeForce 210M 512 Mb
3 GB Ram
Hdd is now a 750 GB WD ...yes it's ancient technology :)

Installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit and short-story is I can't find the graphics card anymore. I first noticed the problem when installing the nvidia driver which said no compatible card was found. Running dxdiag or msinfo32 has the same result, there is no graphics card.

I can not check Bios settings as the Bios interface is limited by the manufacturer. Bios is up to date.

The only thing I can think of is the 64 bit OS but I have no knowledge of why that would be so (no logical argument comes to mind).

I have checked the physical graphics board and it seems ok, nothing unplugged.
The card was running before I had to change the HDD.

On a sidenote the physical memory usage is at 2.2GB out of 3 and the system is relatively slow.

Any ideas anyone apart from getting windows 7 32 bit or trying out windows 8.1 just for kicks and hopeful state of mind.
 
does it get recognized by System->DeviceManager in any case ? as Unkown device or something ?
if it get´s found check Device->Details Page -> HardwareID
 
n0tiert said:
does it get recognized by System->DeviceManager in any case ? as Unkown device or something ?
if it get´s found check Device->Details Page -> HardwareID
Click to expand...

Can't find it in device manager either...the display adapter category only lists Standard VGA Graphics Adapter. No unknown devices listed anywhere either
 
paste HWID of standard VGA
 
nutrageti said:
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A74&SUBSYS_02961025&REV_A2

this what you mean?
Click to expand...

that the device get identified as NVIDIA GeForce G210 by it´s HW-ID

check @dorsetknob link

check your latest driver if the PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A74&SUBSYS_02961025&REV_A2 is mentioned in your *.inf
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The drivers it seems are made for 32 bit OS only :) I guess that explains the problem. They won't install on 64 bit OS. Thank you all! Will update after OS change tomorrow probably :)
 
nutrageti said:
The drivers it seems are made for 32 bit OS only :) I guess that explains the problem. They won't install on 64 bit OS. Thank you all! Will update after OS change tomorrow probably :)
Click to expand...
341.92-notebook-win8-win7-64bit-international.exe should be for your GFX
 
nutrageti said:
The drivers it seems are made for 32 bit OS only :) I guess that explains the problem. They won't install on 64 bit OS. Thank you all! Will update after OS change tomorrow probably :)
Click to expand...

Just get the 64bit driver instead of downgrading to 32bit windows
 
That driver should be avaliable on Windows Update. When updating the driver, have you tried the "search online" option (or whatever it's called)?
 
Had the same problem with my old lappy.Try forcing the driver DyBRe.png uSNM8.png Step25_LetmePick.jpg If the show compatible hardware tab shows only Standart VGA adapter,untick and search for NVIDIA.
 
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I was able to revive the graphics card after installing a 32 bit windows 7 :) and a driver from 2011 :)) Thank you all for the help :D I'll try upgrading to windows 8 later i guess :D
 
try getting it from the manu website. Iv seen this before doing OSRs on customer rigs. This unit has switchable graphics doesnt it? Sometimes these drivers for these types of units are custom tweaked by the manu themself (usually because of the controller chip they use to help the transition) In these cases only installing the driver from the manufacturer will work at first to establish connectivity, then usually the driver can be updated as normal.
 
I've had this issue with one of my laptops with Nvidia gpu.

The fix... or rather workaround is to keep reinstalling until the OS detects it. Sometimes, it'd be defected on 2nd install. Sometimes it'd detect on 5th install ...

Oh, the fun.
Once detected, however, the unit worked flawlessly.
 
alucasa said:
I've had this issue with one of my laptops with Nvidia gpu.

The fix... or rather workaround is to keep reinstalling until the OS detects it. Sometimes, it'd be defected on 2nd install. Sometimes it'd detect on 5th install ...

Oh, the fun.
Once detected, however, the unit worked flawlessly.
Click to expand...
so basicly you didn't know what was actually wrong so you just keep hitting it with a hammer until it works ... no thats not how we do things on tpu
op is most likely installing the wrong driver package the GT210M is legacy hardware he needs to use one of the older packages
 
OneMoar said:
so basicly you didn't know what was actually wrong so you just keep hitting it with a hammer until it works ... no thats not how we do things on tpu
op is most likely installing the wrong driver package the GT210M is legacy hardware he needs to use one of the older packages
Click to expand...

It was a unit with 755m. If initial OS install failed to detect the GPU, it would not show up in devices and no Nvidia package was able to detect it. No amount of fiddling with BIOS or driver's package worked.

The only solution I found was reinstalling and once detected, all went well. During the laptop's lifespan which was about 3 years, I reinstalled the OS only twice, so it wasn't much of a bother.

So, yes, I had no idea what was wrong but did found a workaround to make it work.
 
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