No Graphics Card Detected

Hey there guys.

Background story: trying to get my brother's old computer working. It's a 2009 Falcon Northwest and the graphics card in it is an Nvidia GTX 280M.

I formatted the HD and installed a clean version of Windows 7 on it.

The graphics card that appears in the dxdiag and display device, etc. was a "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter".

From what I read up on it, it seems like Windows 7 defaults to this when it cannot recognize the card. I attempted to download and install the appropriate drivers from the Nvidia site but upon running the installer it gives me a "No compatible hardware found".

I read that I would first have to uninstall the "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" in order to properly install the correct drivers, so I went ahead and did that.

However, instead of listing the standard vga, now it just lists "n/a". No card shows up anywhere, really.

The Nvidia installer is still unable to install the drivers, still doesn't find compatible hardware.



The computer is either a 2008 or 2009 Falcon Northwest DRX. If you have an suggestions on something I haven't tried yet please let me know. Basically everything I've found is "install the proper video card drivers" but that doesn't seem like it's gonna fly.

Boozad said:

duen said:

I read that I would first have to uninstall the "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" in order to properly install the correct drivers, so I went ahead and did that.

No, you don't have to do that.

duen said:

However, instead of listing the standard vga, now it just lists "n/a". No card shows up anywhere, really.

It will if you uninstalled the standard VGA driver.

Was this card with this machine from day one, so it was a known working card with the original set up?

Yes, it's the card that came with the machine and it was working with that setup. It hasn't be replaced.

Yeah, the posts available on this problem are pretty limited and from what I've seen have never ended with an actual fix, but the standard answer I kept seeing was to uninstall those drivers and then install the proper ones, however that didn't allow me to install the right ones either way.

pebbly said:

Hi duen, Welcome to the forums ,Are these the drivers you downloaded ? NVIDIA DRIVERS 320.49WHQL With laptops it's always advisable to obtain them from the manufacturer DRX Laptops for Gaming and Business | Falcon Northwest There is a possibility you have a dead gfx card

Yep, those are the ones. I asked my brother more about what was happening with the laptop before he decided to order a new one and he said it had been crashing during games, etc. So I'm under the impression that the graphics card was dying then, and now completely dead. Thanks for your time, guys.

Hello Duen,

We would be glad to provide some help with the problem. You can find our support contact information here-
Customer Support for Custom Computer Systems | Falcon Northwest

Kind regards,

Matt
Falcon Northwest Technical Support