A31 ATI/Video Driver for Vista

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Chief409 · #1 Post by **Chief409** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 5:50 pm

Hi, I just joined the group. Of course for a reason.

The hard drive in my A31 crashed, system recovery and all (head crash I'd guess) so I needed to install a new one, and then I didn't have XP available, so I upgraded the memory and installed Vista Home Premium. Of course the latest video drivers on the Levanto site are for XP. I've tried more then once, using suggestions I found on other forums to get them installed under Vista to no avail. This is NOT GOOD, darn near every modern program requires 3D graphics, which the MS generic VGA drivers do not provide.

Has anyone else experienced this? The ATI site can't support laptop video, due to restrictions.

Except for this my A31 handles Vista as well as I could want.

Chief409

ajkula66 · #2 Post by **ajkula66** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 5:59 pm

Welcome to the forum!

I don't believe that there are any Vista drivers designed for A31/p available, because these machines are not supposed to be running Vista in the first place.

You may want to go back to XP...

Just my $0.02

Chief409 · #3 Post by **Chief409** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:03 pm

Would if I could, but I lost all that in a fire so I popped the $$$ for Vista.

Chief409

ajkula66 · #4 Post by **ajkula66** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:52 pm

I've got the restore disks for A3x series, if you're interested, I can make you a copy, just let me know what machine type is your A31.

sjthinkpader · #5 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 7:50 pm

The T40/T41/T42 driver list indicated ATi video driver is included in Vista. So A31/A31p driver should be the same driver and included also.

Actually, I am using XP T40/T41/T42 ATi driver even for my A30p. You can see the supported chips on AMD/ATi website and the same driver actually spans many family of chips.

ajkula66 · #6 Post by **ajkula66** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:06 pm

That's assuming that A31 qualifies to run Vista, which it doesn't under MS guidelines.

Chief409 · #7 Post by **Chief409** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:24 pm

sjthinkpader wrote:The T40/T41/T42 driver list indicated ATi video driver is included in Vista. So A31/A31p driver should be the same driver and included also.

Actually, I am using XP T40/T41/T42 ATi driver even for my A30p. You can see the supported chips on AMD/ATi website and the same driver actually spans many family of chips.

So installing the Radon drivers like I would for my desktop... I'll try that in the morning. I've been using ATI vid boards for all the systems I've built for years, didn't consider going that route for a laptop. But this is a clean install without hidden partitions and such. The loud SMACK you hear is my hand hitting my forehead.

As far as running Vista Home Premium, 1.8GHz P4, 1.25G PC2700 RAM installed and reported by both BIOS and Vista, yes a A31 is quite capable. Almost as good as my Core2Duo Gateway.

Chief409

sjthinkpader · #8 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:07 am

ajkula66 wrote:That's assuming that A31 qualifies to run Vista, which it doesn't under MS guidelines.

Thanks George,

I scanned my A31 (ATI 7500) with Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor and it indicated ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 is not supported.

I checked the AMD/ATI website and Windows Vista support starts from 9600 and FireGL T2.

So even if you can get Vista installed, it will run with a basic video driver without the benefit of more advanced features. A31 and A31p will not work, most of the T40/T41 XGA resolution machines with ATI 7500 will not work. Only the T41 and later with SXGA+/ATI 9600 will work with Vista.

ajkula66 · #9 Post by **ajkula66** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:23 am

Given my experiences, nothing that has a single core CPU will run Vista properly, but that's a topic for a whole another debate...

Honestly, I don't have an issue with the fact that none of my "babies" qualify to run Vista, I don't like it to begin with, and support for XP will be there for years to come, especially given the fact that Vista hasn't done as well as MS had expected...not to mention the fact that I barely use Windows anymore...

To each his own, obviously. Good luck to OP with his A31 + Vista endevour...

cmarti · #10 Post by **cmarti** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:29 am

I tried vista in my A31p for the video drivers i used the drivers for the T42p and it work perfectly, but... Even with the machine max out in ram and the 2.0ghz processor and 7,200rpm drive it was painfully SLOW....

Cure? I went back to xp.

sjthinkpader · #11 Post by **sjthinkpader** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:40 am

That's how I felt about running XP on A22m/A22ps. Win2K ran much faster on those.

When you installed the Vista T42p video driver, did you have to manually select it?

I installed the latest XP Mobility Radeon driver on my A30p but had to do it manually.

Argonaught · #12 Post by **Argonaught** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 9:03 pm

I have a Toshiba Satellite 210 Pro~AMD Athlon 64X2 Duo 1.9 GHz with Vista Home Premium 2 gig of RAM its GPU is ATI X1200 and quiet honestly my PIII A30 Thinkpad with 512 RAM 16MB GPU on XP SP2 runs rings around it I wont mention my other Thinkpads on XPSP2 with faster CPU's SO I DONT UNDERSTAND WHY ANYONE WOULD PUT VISTA ON ANY THINKPAD MORE THAN A YEAR OLD

Its beyond me (Just mt $0.02 worth)

I wish Microsoft would stick Vista up their respective XXXXXXX(censored by myself)

A31 ATI/Video Driver for Vista

A31 ATI/Video Driver for Vista

Vista

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