iceman2 said:
I have a Nvidia Geforce 6150 card on my Laptop - HP Pavilion tx2001au
Entertainment Notebook PC (
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?
lc=en&dlc=&cc=us&lang=&product=3653674&) .
Where do i get an Windows Xp driver for this Nvidia card ?
"Downgrading tx2001au to win xp"
http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer....
"Nvidia Graphics:
http://tinyurl.com/2q6ss4" ---->
http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/GRAPHICS-BOARD/NVIDIA/NVIDIA-32bit-F...
Appears to be 156.55 driver, with potentially a hacked INF.
Another site that does stuff like that, is here.
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t14838.html
Their FAQ page.
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9243
Driver series numbers are summarized in this post.
156.xx is termed "Notebook OEM drivers, now taken over by the
160's, some of these are not too old and might be of interest
to non 8x00M GPU's."
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16866
My guess would be, some reading and research are ahead of you.
When you download the Softpedia 156.55, it has a hacked INF, and the
original INF files are backed up in a ZIP file, as proof of what
the driver was originally based on. The download is 38,342,392 bytes.
For comparison, HP offers a 156.55 as well. It supports WinXP (32 bit)
and WinXP X64 (64 bit). That makes the download at least twice as big.
(Actually, the download is huge.)
If you compare the backup copy of original INF files in the
Softpedia download, to the "real" INF in the HP 32 bit folder,
you'll see they bear some resemblance. The HP file may have
served as a source, for the modified Softpedia download.
One other difference you'd note, is the file name in
Softpedia is "advanced.tvp" and in the HP download
it is "Advanced.tv_". A file with a dash on the end, is
compressed, and when uncompressed, you get back the "correct"
file name.
So if you wanted to checksum the files, to see what files
are similar or different, you'd want to have them all
in the same state (i.e. uncompressed).
An invaluable tool for extracting the files, without running
the installer, is 7ZIP. I used it to take apart the two
downloads. But since a large number of files are involved,
I'm not going to check which of the 278 files in one directory,
are the same as the 312 files in the other directory. I have
to leave some of the fun for you
(You can even use this
if you want, to expand files with the underscore on the end
of the file name.) Create a directory first, drop the download
in it, then expand with 7ZIP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7zip
One difference in the Softpedia installation, is the INF has
been beefed up, to support as many video devices as possible.
That is basically what the contributors at laptopvideo2go are
doing, adding in all the missing VEN/DEV codes. Your 6150 Go
is likely Dev 0244, in case you're looking for it. As far as I
know, the "secret sauce" to the Softpedia download, is lines
like this in the INF file.
nv4dispd.inf
[NVIDIA.Mfg]
%NVIDIA_C51.DEV_0244.1% = nv4_C51, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0244
Anyway, that is an abbreviated summary of the differences. You
can take your time, and do as much investigation as you want,
before using the download. (The HP one should not install, since
the paltry few lines in the INF, don't match your hardware. But
at least you know the HP should have unadulterated copies of
most of the files, like the DLLs.)
If you need a command line tool, to checksum files for comparison
purposes, you can use this. What you do, is run this tool, on
the two files you want to compare. If each has the same
checksum string, then chances are very good they're the same
file. File size alone, is not sufficient guarantee of equality.
This tool supports multiple checksum standards, so you can
use whatever you're comfortable with.
FCIV.exe checksum tool
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=B3C93558-31B....
*******
Generally speaking, there is a potential for laptop drivers, to
have customizations over and above what is provided directly
by Nvidia, ATI, or Intel. That means, preferentially, you want to get
the driver from the laptop manufacturer. But since the
laptopvideo2go people have long experience in messing about
with this stuff, they probably have that stuff under
control (based on getting a lot of feedback from
their users).
Good luck,
Paul
