a simple question about drivers - im new so please bare with me!

[mcd840]

hi there, i have just joined to see if any of you can get a solution to my problem, the pc i am using is an "acer aspire m1610" it was bought new with windows vista basic which was saved on a partition of the hard drive - didnt come with a disk and i had never made a back up when prompted to do so. 4 years later the hard drive went so i got a new hard drive and i got myself a new copy of windows xp pro which the system is running now ( i went on the acer website, put in the computers details and i found out the computer was available with xp and vista so theres no reason it cant run it ) when the computer was running vista there was a programme/driver called SIS VGA UTILITIES if memory serves me correctly, now that its runnning xp that driver is not present ans screen quality is poor and not very sharp in comparison to when it was running vista. there is a section of the acer website which allows you to put in computer details and it allows you to download drivers, i managed to get the realtec audio driver for the computer on xp with no probs, there is the download for the sis vga utilities driver but its for vista, there are similar sis vga driver downloads for this model of computer on xp but there huge compared to the vista one, ( could it be when this computer was made with xp it had its own graphics card rather than being on board? ... just a thought ! ) if it means anything the graphics and sound are on board the motherboard rather than having a graphics card and a sound card. hopefully someone can help,

 

sorry for the essay

 

cheers

[KenB]

Hi and welcome to ExTS

 

The drivers for your XP OS are here:

click here

 

Select XP from the drop-down menu.

[mcd840]

Hi and welcome to ExTS

 

The drivers for your XP OS are here:

click here

 

Select XP from the drop-down menu.

 

hi, thanks for your help, that was very easy to find. when i select my xp operating system it narrows it down to 2 VGA Drivers i had no luck installing either of them or what it has installed has made no difference, there is however so much to choose from when i extract all the files... i dont suppose you can give me instructions on which one(s) i need

 

thanks

[BeeCeeBee]

Do you see a file with a .exe extension on it?

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, I see there are four different drivers available for each different chipset maker. It now depends on knowing which make of graphics chip is on your motherboard in order to get the correct driver for it. Do you know which it is and if SIS are you sure?

if it is SIS, then that is the driver you need.

 

Nev.

[mcd840]

Hi, I see there are four different drivers available for each different chipset maker. It now depends on knowing which make of graphics chip is on your motherboard in order to get the correct driver for it. Do you know which it is and if SIS are you sure?

if it is SIS, then that is the driver you need.

 

Nev.

 

hi there, i dont have a clue what make of graphics chip it is, all i know is that when it was running vista there was something called "sis vga utilities" i did find a "sis vga utilities" driver but i didnt find them in the 2 VGA downloads at the bottom of the acer support page, i found it in the "chipset driver" download at the top of the page, it wasnt however a "setup.exe" it was just "setup" a kind of blue symbol.

 

have i downloaded the correct thing? i think i cant tell now as ive sat here to long !

 

cheers

[Plastic Nev]

Further to my last posting, I have now realised that the site does not carry a SIS driver for XP, those I have seen are for Vista only. The two available are not for SIS and will possibly not work.

You said in your first post that you had found a SIS driver for XP and it was a big download. It may well be a large file but XP may need it in order to work correctly.

Can you give us a link to that driver download so we can look further into it as to whether indeed it is the one you need.

 

Edit to add, you posted while I was writing,

right at the top of the page, there is a diagnostic tool to determine which make of hardware you have, have you tried that tool? That will tell us for sure if indeed it is SIS.

If it is, and the VGA driver is amongst those in the chipset, installing the lot will update all drivers and install the correct VGA one at the same time.

 

Nev.

Nev.

[Plastic Nev]

I have also found an independent but seemingly trustworthy site for driver downloads, scroll down the list at the bottom is a zip download for SIS graphics drivers, see if that is the one you need.

 

http://www.getpcmemory.com/drivers/download-acer-aspire-m1610-desktop-windows-xp-drivers/

 

Nev.

[mcd840]

Further to my last posting, I have now realised that the site does not carry a SIS driver for XP, those I have seen are for Vista only. The two available are not for SIS and will possibly not work.

You said in your first post that you had found a SIS driver for XP and it was a big download. It may well be a large file but XP may need it in order to work correctly.

Can you give us a link to that driver download so we can look further into it as to whether indeed it is the one you need.

 

Edit to add, you posted while I was writing,

right at the top of the page, there is a diagnostic tool to determine which make of hardware you have, have you tried that tool? That will tell us for sure if indeed it is SIS.

If it is, and the VGA driver is amongst those in the chipset, installing the lot will update all drivers and install the correct VGA one at the same time.

 

Nev.

Nev.

 

hi, i tried the diagnostic tool but didnt work, all it told me was that i was running a 32 bit of windows xp pro...if you look at the post that ken b gave me you will get a link to the downloads i have been trying, you will need to select xp pro from the dropdown list otherwise it will show you the drivers for xp and vista...the two at the bottom of the page for vga drivers didnt work, i found the sis vga driver in the chipset...if it means anything there was a blue flickering screen during startup for a few seconds which has now dissapeared after installing sis vga utilities from the chipset driver download. i will however look into that other driver download site you gave me.

 

any other info gratefully appreciated

 

craig.

[Synapse]

Chipset = SIS 672 & 968

 

Video - SIS Mirage 3

 

Go here

 

http://w3.sis.com/download/

 

Choose your operating system, choose IGP graphics drivers, and then SIS66x/SIS76x/SIS67x

 

Click Go,

 

Next page, choose a download location, and download the latest version V3.93

 

Hopefully that will work

[mcd840]

i think its working ok now. if i were to buy a graphics card to put in the computer myself would i have had to bother with drivers for the on board graphics? would a graphics card automatically cut out the on board graphics? and would the picture quality be even better with a graphics card?

 

thanks.