G41 with Windows 7

[Medessec]

Hello-I think I might be able to get a G41 together with the NVIDIA GeForce Go 5200, and I'm wondering if I'll have any luck with Windows 7.

I tried installing Windows 7 on a G40 with the Intel Extreme Gfx 2, and although 7 ran smoothly and seemed to pick up most hardware fine, it had the vga.dll driver for the gfx, because apparently Intel has no supported drivers for the Extreme gfx and it's parent chip, for Windows 7. So I just put XP on it and things are a bit more dandy, but the graphics are still really primitive. Flash apps and videos play, but that's about it.

I'm wondering if the GeForce Go5200 found in some G41s have a suitable driver, or if anyone has managed to get it to work with Windows 7 before. I've looked a bit on Google, and it's mostly been mixed reports.

[ajkula66]

There's no support for that GPU in Vista or W7.

Honestly, XP is by far the best bet on a G41. It runs fabulously well, especially with one of the faster CPUs...

[Medessec]

alrighty... yeah, XP has a knack of working all the time on things like this, so XP it is. I am a bit disappointed tho-I like to see 7 working on older machines. It's pretty much all down to this driver issue. I'm sure the GeForce Go 5200 can handle Aero... as the 6150LE(in my friend's HP, one gen newer) can run Halo: CE brilliantly and COD4... barely.

[ajkula66]

It's pretty much all down to this driver issue. I'm sure the GeForce Go 5200 can handle Aero... as the 6150LE(in my friend's HP, one gen newer) can run Halo: CE brilliantly and COD4... barely.

You really can't go by that...one generation can mean a lot...

Radeon 9600 seen in higher-end T42 units will run Aero, meanwhile the FireGL 7800 in A31p won't. Both of these are based on the same GPU (Radeon 7500) and have the same amount of VRAM - 64MB.

It really doesn't matter what any of us think - Microsoft has decided that GeForce Go5200 is too weak for Aero - and that's the end of that...

[pianowizard]

I had a G41 and it ran Vista Home Premium fabulously.

[ajkula66]

I had a G41 and it ran Vista Home Premium fabulously.

With Aero?

[Medessec]

Yeah-that's partly what I'm after. For the brief moment I had Windows 7 on the G40, it ran quite smoothly, but it wasn't using a suitable gfx driver. This is fine if all you do is type up documents, but as soon as you start browsing the web, especially now with standards climbing in graphics on websites, and flash apps, you'll run into an array of problems if you're still using the vga.dll driver. All sorts of things will refuse to work properly.

So it's either-I have a proper gfx driver or setup for Windows 7, or I don't install Windows 7. Dunno what the story is with Vista, but everyone shuns Vista for some reason(even though I still consider it to be a rather usable OS) so I'm not using it.

[ac12]

The other problem is RAM.
I think you max out at 2GB of RAM.
I would run Win7 with at least 4GB of RAM.
I have 2GB in my G40 and after booting up, I only have about 1.2GB free.

G40 is a nice machine (your G41 is nicer) and I would like to put Win7 on it, but the lack of Win7 video driver keeps me on XP.

[Medessec]

Well, from all the testing I've done on machines, as long as you have 1GB of RAM(and as long as that RAM isn't vegetable RAM, like, 333MHz DDR or EDO) then Windows 7 should run smoothly. It's all down to the HD space and CPU, because Vista and 7 like to cache themselves, which is why older computers with less HD space(below 16GB particularly) and anything less than a P4 CPU tend to run rather slow. It's also why in 7 and Vista you see the RAM is always taken up, whereas in XP the RAM is usually freed up.

Getting Windows 7 on a G41... I guess I can say that Aero isn't an objective, just a good gfx driver that gets the thing off of Software Acceleration. But I'm likely just going to end up using XP anyway.

I don't have any Vista discs... I'll have to see if I can get my hands on one, because I do run into the situation a lot where I figure it'd be worth trying Vista.

[aPanzerIV]

I ran into your problem a while back with the intel extreme. There are no windows 7 drivers and the vista driver will refuse to install. I thought I was toast with it and threw the machine out.

Then I had the same problem with a sony laptop, IGP 345m, last drivers were for xp. I would have been fine with the software drivers, except the 1024x768 res did not stretch the entire screen. I found that if you click proporties on the driver, click run as admin, and compatibility mode for XP sp3, the drivers will install. I have not tested this with the extreme or the gma 900, but:

If you force aero with this driver hack, your system will bluescreen when you shut it down, and aero will not work, deleting the registry hack does not fix it for some odd reason, you have to switch back to 7 basic scheme.

Resolution problem fixed.

Youtube and games work.

Hope this helps

[Medessec]

Hmm... alright, thanks. i'll have to try that on a couple of other machines I have that are borderline XP/Vista/7.