foeofthelance Posted August 15, 2006 Report Share Posted August 15, 2006 Does anyone know how to get an HP Pavilion dv4000 to spill the info on whats in its guts? I need to reinstall a whole bunch of drivers, but don't know which video card I have inside of it to do so! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest yamsham Posted August 15, 2006 Report Share Posted August 15, 2006 Have you tried device manager? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi Posted August 15, 2006 Report Share Posted August 15, 2006 In your star menu there should be a program called "Run..." Hit that and input "dxdiag" in the "Open" text box. Hit "ok" and a window should appear. Hit the tab "Display." Viola! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Melody Fate Posted August 15, 2006 Report Share Posted August 15, 2006 You can right click on the desktop, hit properties, then go to setting and look under display. The problem though, is if the correct drive isn't installed that might not be right. I'm betting your video card is built onto the motherboard. (All the HP computers I've ever worked with that's the case) Check your crash and burn disks, they should at least have the older drivers on there, then you can update from there. (Crash and burn = Backup disks that came with the system) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foeofthelance Posted August 15, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 15, 2006 For the sad fact of today: THis is more help then Hewlett Packard was. All i got from them was. "Buy this. Oh you already have it? Well we can't help you then because you got a custom to order Laptop, which means we don't know what we put in it. It could be made of wood and mud for all we know." NOTE: Not an exact quote, but just as good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Melody Fate Posted August 15, 2006 Report Share Posted August 15, 2006 Is it still in warrentee? I'd call and ask to talk to a supervisor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foeofthelance Posted August 17, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 17, 2006 Thanks, though this still hasn't been much help. The problem is that I can't find out what video card is installed inside my machine. When I contacted HP they said they couldn't help, as my machine was custom to order, instead of an off the shelf model. Thus, they apparently don't have any idea what they put in it. Which means I can't figure out which drivers to install for my machine. I tried the three disks that came with it. One was a media set up (which doesn't even work), one installs the printer, and the one marked Applications Restore, is of all things, a Linux setup disk as far as I can tell. Yes it is under warranty, as it will be only a year old on saturday. Unfortunately, I don't have the paperwork. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Melody Fate Posted August 17, 2006 Report Share Posted August 17, 2006 Okay, so this is a custom made HP computer? One you ordered off a website or a store, from a select number of options? I can't imagine that they don't have any clue at all. That's stupid. If you bought it online, there should be records of when you bought it, with all the information they'll need. If you bought it in a store, go talk to the store. Yes, I understand, you're supposed to keep your paperwork, but things happen. Fires happen. Piddling dogs happen. Destructive children happen. I've lost so many warentees for so many things and I've always been able to get where I bought it to pull up the records, sometimes it just takes some persistance. Also, I mentioned the back up disks. Do you have them and have you checked them? And, what is the problem why you need the drivers? I know a couple geeks I might be able to toss this problem at and they might have something more useful to say. EDIT 1: Does the computer boot up? 2: When you had the proper drivers and all such, in your task bar, did you have a small green icon or a small red icon to represent the video card? If it was a green you had Invidea (sp) if it was red, you had an ATI. No, that isn't much help, but at least you can narrow down which company made it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foeofthelance Posted August 17, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 17, 2006 Yes the computer boots up. Other then the missing rivers it works fine. They don't affect anything other then my ability to play games on my computer. How do I know what's wrong? Games that worked before the crash won't work, citing video card problems. As for HP, when I initially contacted them with the problem, they tried running through a few things, but the technician told me that since the machine was a custom job (online I believe, I didn't order it, it was a birthday/college present) that there wasn't anything they could do. The only disk I have marked Restore has several files the computer couldn't open, and Linux set up files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Melody Fate Posted August 17, 2006 Report Share Posted August 17, 2006 Hm... printing this out to show to geek 1 who I'll see later. In the meantime, did you try checking the computer to see what it said you had for a video card? Also, do you have the latest version of Direct X installed? You're probably right that it's the video card driver, but I did have a game barf on me once and claim my video card was the problem, my husband installed the latest Direct X and suddenly the video card was fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foeofthelance Posted August 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2006 Currently running Direct X 9.C which is I believe the most current. I may be wrong. I tried to get the computer to tell me using the DXdia trick, but all it gave me was unknown, using base system due to card error Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Melody Fate Posted August 19, 2006 Report Share Posted August 19, 2006 Okay, according to Geek 1. . . Check your Hard Drive. Every HP he's ever worked with has partitioned part of the Hard Drive and that is really where the backup is. The disks are designed to access various things in the backup. You might be able to find the drivers there. His recommendation if you can't get HP to look up your records (even if the computer was a gift, as long as you know who gave it to you, they can look up the records. If they're refusing, they're just being dicks.) is to back up everything you want to save and do a full restore. The drivers for your video card must be somewhere in the restoration files. The reason why your computer was probably unable to open the files on the disk is that they're most likely compressed. Hope this helps. Geek 1 says sorry he's not more help, but it's hard when you play, "He says, she says." Best of luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foeofthelance Posted August 19, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 19, 2006 Actualy, that might just do the trick. When windows was reinstalled, it mentioned a partition with about 203 megs worth of info on it. Not sure what it was, I didn't touch it, just reformatted the main partitition. Can you ask your friend if there is anyway to access the partition from the desktop? Detailed instructions preferable. ::Humbley Bows Down In Honor Of Melody Fate:: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Melody Fate Posted August 19, 2006 Report Share Posted August 19, 2006 I'll ask him the next time I see him, which should be this evening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Melody Fate Posted August 20, 2006 Report Share Posted August 20, 2006 You should be able to access this drive by clicking on your start button and then going to the "My computer." It should be listed as a hard drive disk, most likely letter "d." Click on that and see what it contains. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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