i need help

Post by **HM-PuFFNSTuFF** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 3:39 am

that's for sure but anyway...

I canabalized a couple of computers with the idea of having a business computer. I stuck an old hard drive into a dell inspiron 2900 or some shit and formatted it with windows 2000.

How am I supposed to find out what driver I need, I'm stuck with an ultra low resolution which messes with the software i'm running?

I can't find info on the the display adapter and the driver needed, and my buddy who owns the dell did not receive any disks with drivers when he bought the computer.

The video card and cpu are both hidden in a green cooling unit.

Post by **HM-PuFFNSTuFF** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 3:42 am

cheers. I figured there might be some other alternative that I didn't know about.

Post by **YourGrandpa** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 3:46 am

Get a program called SiSoft Sandra. You'll be able to run different tests in it and find out exactly what you have.

GL

Post by **YourGrandpa** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 3:48 am

Also a little program called CPUZ will tell you the type of CPU and several other things.

Post by **HM-PuFFNSTuFF** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 3:53 am

thank you YourGranpa.

Post by **YourGrandpa** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 4:14 am

riddla wrote:for nothing? you're not going to get video card info from a card running with a standard VGA driver. Especially with the programs Yourerightdear posted.

If it's a stock Dell, it should have several numbers on it that you can look up on their web site. I've re-done several Dells with a combinations of SiSoft Sandra and Dell's website.

Post by **YourGrandpa** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 5:39 pm

SiSoft will tell him the type of nic card, sound card, chip set, RAM, CPU and many other things that he may or may not need to know. Anything else can be found a Dells website in under 5 mins.

Post by **YourGrandpa** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 5:48 pm

This a list taken from a SiSoft website. Notice that SiSoft reads the Video Card's BIOS. The card has a BIOS without drivers.

Here is a list of current modules.

System Summary
Mainboard/Chipset/System Monitors Info
CPU/BIOS Info
APM & ACPI (Advanced Power Management) Info
PCI(e), AGP, CardBus, PCMCIA bus and devices Info
Video Information (monitor, card, video bios, caps, etc.)
OpenGL Information
DirectX (DirectDraw, Direct3D, DirectSound (3D), DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectInput) Info
Keyboard Info
Mouse Info
Sound Card (wave, midi, aux, mix) Info
MCI Devices (mpeg, avi, seq, vcr, video-disc, wave) Info
Joystick Info
Printers Info
Windows Memory Info
Windows Info
Font (Raster, Vector, TrueType, OpenType) Information
Modem/ISDN TA Information
Network Information*
IP Network Information*
WinSock & Internet Security Information
Drives Information (Removable Hard Disks, CD-ROM/DVD, RamDrives, etc.)
Ports (Serial/Parallel) Info
Remote Access Service Connections (Dial-Up, Internet)*
OLE objects/servers Info*
Processes (Tasks) & Threads Info
Modules (DLL, DRV) Info
Services & Device Drivers (SYS) Info*
SCSI Information*
ATA/ATAPI Information
Data Sources Information*
CMOS/RTC Information*
Smart Card & SIM Card Information*
CPU Arithmetic Benchmark (MP/MT support)
CPU Multi-Media Benchmark (including MMX, MMX Enh, 3DNow!, 3DNow! Enh, SSE(2)) (MP/MT support)
File System (Removable, Hard Disks, Network, RamDrives) Benchmark
Removable Storage/Flash Benchmark
CD-ROM/DVD Benchmark
Memory Bandwidth Benchmark (MP/MT support)
Cache & Memory Bandwidth Benchmark (MP/MT support)
Network/LAN Bandwidth Benchmark
Internet/ISP Connection Benchmark
Internet/ISP Peerage Benchmark
Hardware Interrupts Usage*
DMA Channel Usage*
I/O Ports Usage*
Memory Range Usage*
Plug & Play Enumerator*
Hardware registry settings
Environment settings
Registered File Types
Key Applications* (web-browser, e-mail, news, anti-virus, firewall, etc.)
Installed Applications*
Installed Programs*
Start Menu Applications*
On-disk Programs & Libraries*
Installed Web Packages* (ActiveX, Java classes)
System Event Logs*
Burn-in Wizard* (test computer stability)
Connect Wizard (connect to remote computers, PDAs, Smart Phones and other devices)
Combined Performance Index Wizard (overall computer performance score)
Create a Report Wizard (save, print, fax or e-mail in CIM (SMS/DMI), HTML, XML, RPT or TEXT format)
Performance Tune-Up Wizard (tune-up computer)
Environment Monitor Wizard (temperatures, voltages, fans, CPU power, cooling solution thermal resistance, etc.)
WebUpdate Wizard for automatic version updating
Tip of the day
Extensive help file documenting over 500 tips
Extensive on-line documentation (HTML) with Q & A knowledge base
* Commercial versions only.

Post by **YourGrandpa** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 6:03 pm

Read up CHIP, SiSoft Sandra will read the video card BIOS. That BIOS contains information about the card. You know that info that displays during boot up, sometimes hidden by a full screen coporate logo, like Dell's boot screen.

Post by **Foo** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 6:30 pm

YGP is right. You take the serial info from Sandra and throw it into google to get your result.

Of course, if it's a stock Dell model we can bypass all of this and just google the particular PC model number to get the original specification.

Post by **YourGrandpa** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 12:57 am

Foo wrote:YGP is right. You take the serial info from Sandra and throw it into google to get your result.

Of course, if it's a stock Dell model we can bypass all of this and just google the particular PC model number to get the original specification.

Make what you want of it. At least I didn't tell him to tear apart his PC and look for model numbers. Yeah, he should pull off the CPU heat sink, wipe off all the thermal paste and hope he can make out the info on the chip. Now what does he do, if he has no thermal paste to replace it? Not everyone keeps that around the house.

Then after he gets all the (hopefully correct) model numbers written down, he can spend hours searching different variations on the net.

SiSoft works well and will tell you a lot more about the PC than Dell will. But I'm sure you noticed that I did tell him to go to the website too.

Post by **YourGrandpa** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 5:15 am

riddla wrote: *Removed*.

He's clearly looking to find out what display adapter he has so he can D/L drivers. SiSoft will tell him the display adapter. With that info, he can look up the most current driver on the web.

Post by **Oeloe** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 5:34 am

You chose not to read the part about sandra reading the vga bios though. :icon29:

Post by **R00k** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 6:54 am

With a Dell, first step is to go to the website. Between the model number, serial number, and service tag number (if it has one) you should be able to find out what hardware was installed in that particular PC.

If the system is old or the info isn't on the website for some other reason, it's easier for PC building noobs to use something like Sandra to get the model number of the card, then google it for drivers. Because if you opened up the case you might not know what to look for anyway. If you do know what to look for, it can be faster and easier way to get the model number - you'd still need to google it to get the drivers.

In either case, before you Google, try Dell's website again with the model number because they probably have a driver for it somewhere. If you can't find an official driver there, then try the vid card manufacturer's website for one. Then if all else fails, just Google it and take what you can find.

You probably don't need to read the dozen or so flaming and bitching posts above.

Post by **Underpants?** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 7:00 am

P-studdy, iirc Dell has a service tag lookup tool on the support site that will lead you to driver success, if the video card came with the original box.

Post by **Doombrain** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:39 am

*Removed*

Post by **Oeloe** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:30 pm

riddla wrote:because taking off the cover and looking at the card is the way to be positive.

If you're unlucky it's a card with a passive heatsink 'glued' to the GPU, revealing no information at all about which card it is.

Post by **HM-PuFFNSTuFF** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 11:28 pm

google saved me

a physical inspection provided no info (onboard graphics on a motherboard with no make or model no.) but the dell model name and number did the trick

the sandra program needed sp2 installed and i've only just installed windows 2000 on this machine.

it was the intel extreme graphics driver

keep arguing now please

Post by **Tormentius** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:37 am

This thread has been pruned to keep it on topic.

Post by **YourGrandpa** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 3:32 am

Tormentius wrote:This thread has been pruned to keep riddla from looking like a complete ass.

He should thank you torm.

Post by **Underpants?** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 6:15 am

HM-PuFFNSTuFF wrote:google saved me

a physical inspection provided no info (onboard graphics on a motherboard with no make or model no.) but the dell model name and number did the trick

the sandra program needed sp2 installed and i've only just installed windows 2000 on this machine.

it was the intel extreme graphics driver

keep arguing now please

glad it worked out hmpuffastiff

Post by **R00k** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 4:08 pm

riddla wrote:ahh, onboard graphics. another typical stumper for sandra (even though you never got that far).

oh well, I was wrong which I'll always gladly admit

Oh that's fucking rich. You mean as soon as you have no other choice?

Why does it seem like a majority of the bitter, petty grudges that pull discussions off track on these forums contain you as a principle element?

Let go of your inter-bitterness, or the dark side of the forums will consume you!