Windows 7 x64 Will Not Recognize My NVIDIA 8800M GTS Graphics Card

I have a Gateway P-172S FX. I was running Vista 32bit and just switched to 7 Ultimate 64bit. Everything seems to be working great, except it doesn't see my Nvidia GeForce 8800m GTS graphics card (I printed my hardware specs right before I moved to Win 7). When I go to my Device Manager, under display adapters, all it sees is "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter."
I went to the nvidia website and found the exact driver for my situation:
Product Type: GeForce
Product Series: GeForce 8M Series (Notebooks)
Product: GeForce 8800M GTS
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit
Language: English (US)
That brought me to here:
NVIDIA DRIVERS 179.48 BETA

I downloaded this driver:
179.48_notebook_winvista_win7_64bit_beta.exe

I ran the file (I also tried "run as administrator") and the files extracted and it began to try to install. The nvidia install window came up and the after about ten seconds an error message appeared saying:
"The NVIDIA Setup program could not locate any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware. Setup will now exit."

I don't know what to do! Any help would be much appreciated!

try this site. the very latest driver didnt work on my system,so if it doesnt work on yours, just try the next newest.

download from Guru3D.com

hello258, welcome to the Seven Forums.

In a lot of cases the reference Nvidia driver (desktop and/or laptop versions) won't work with laptop GPU's due to them not being listed in the INF (the file that contains the info for what GPU's are supported). Most of the time this is due to the laptop manufacturers not allowing it for a number of reasons; different power saving options, customized for the displays used in the latops, etc (same applies with ATI/AMD mobility GPU's).

That said you can find the drivers for Nvidia laptop chips here,

Drivers | drivers for mobile cards and laptops | laptopvideo2go.com

with the INF already modded to include almost every Nvidia laptop GPU.

stormy13 said:

hello258, welcome to the Seven Forums.

In a lot of cases the reference Nvidia driver (desktop and/or laptop versions) won't work with laptop GPU's due to them not being listed in the INF (the file that contains the info for what GPU's are supported). Most of the time this is due to the laptop manufacturers not allowing it for a number of reasons; different power saving options, customized for the displays used in the latops, etc (same applies with ATI/AMD mobility GPU's).

That said you can find the drivers for Nvidia laptop chips here,

Drivers | drivers for mobile cards and laptops | laptopvideo2go.com

with the INF already modded to include almost every Nvidia laptop GPU.

kword88, the same thing happened with the file I downloaded from the site you suggested. Thanks for the try, though.

Stormy13, I went to the link you provided and clicked on the driver that I needed and it brought me to a page that said:
Driver details are temporarily down until a fix is provided. Please use the forums to find the driver details for now.
How long does it generally take for a fix to be provided? I am heavily dependent on my second monitor (among other things) and I can't run it without my video card driver. Do you know how long it will take and/or do you have any other suggestions?
I appreciate the help!

Hi Everyone,
This is my 1st Post! Good Luck! LOL Only kidding. I have unfortunately worked with computers for about 18 years now and have a little experience under my "I Love/Hate Microsoft" belt. YES, thanks Stormy13 for the Driver location info. 197.44 It will be downloaded as '19744_win7x64.exe'. PLEASE TURN OFF ALL ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE PROTECTION BEFORE executing the file (After you've downloaded the self-executing driver file). The '.INF' file should be NVAC.INF which contains the Nvidia GeForce 8800M GTS information. If you get the same lovely NVIDIA Message you need to perform the driver while in Safe Mode. FYI: I had to uninstall my current video driver and retry the driver install, Tried to execute again and got the non supported drivers NVIDIA Message. So I booted into Windows normal startup (Don't worry about the large screen font size), went into control panel and detected hardware changes. Windows re-loaded a clean version of "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter.". I made sure to Disable anti-virus software and the driver finially setup just fine. It asked for a restart to complete the installation.

I hope this helps.
Driverboost is a pretty good product as well saving a little search time, but searching manually can serve just as well in some cases.
Take Care,
John

Gateway/P173XL FX, Do we all have a system specs tab in the bottom left of our posts? Thanks for the note.

Sorry for the delay, guys. I actually ended up getting the video card working, but not through that link. That file gave me the same error message as the other ones. I went to Nvidia to send them an email and couldn't find their support email cause they just redirected me to Gateway's support page. Well, I ended up finding a driver that worked, from their site. It said the driver was for Vista x64, but I tried it anyway and it seems to be working. Thanks, though, to all who put forth the time and effort to try and help me!!!