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Graphics card not seen by Windows 7
After a few unfruitful days of searching various forums attempting to solve my problem, I've decided to make an account and post the problem to see if I can get some answers!
Let me introduce you to my system and current configuration:
I have a Dell XPS M1530 that I bought about 2 years ago. At that time, it came with Vista Home Premium (32bit) and a 250GB hard drive. I dropped it while it was on about 6 months ago and the hard drive got messed up so I bought a new 500GB hard drive. I reloaded Vista with my old CD that came with the computer and then decided to buy (through my university) Windows 7 Ultimate x64. I did a clean sweep upgrade. I really haven't used my laptop for anything other than word processing and internet since then. A few days ago, however, I was attempting to play a game that would actually require some graphics power. I got an error about pixel shading or some nonsense. Anyways, I realized that my computer never recognized my graphics card after the clean sweep install of 7. My graphics card is an nVidia GeForce 8600M GT. So I went to the nVidia website to download the driver and I eventually had to use a third party site to download the correct driver (due to corrupted files from nVidia). The driver will go through the initial install sequence and then once the nVidia program pops up to actually install the driver, it gives me an error that says "This graphics driver could not find compatible graphics hardware". I am suspicious that there is some issue with Windows 7 not being able to see my hardware or something.
Any help?? Thanks in advance. I'll be checking back periodically to answer any questions.