Can't find graphics card

[tcoopersmith]

Hi guys, there is probably a really simple answer to this s bare with me! I am having trouble playing games on my laptop. My 'graphics rating' in windows rating is only 1.0 therefore suggesting that I have no graphics card on board. I recently upgraded to Windows 7 and now have this problem whereas when I had vista my graphics were much better. My question is this - how do I find out if I have a graphics card and if it is just a driver problem. I find it hard to believe that my laptop (a Hi-Grade laptop) came without a video card. I cannot even play the most simple of games and even the text in windows 7 is bad quality! I have attached a picture of my device manager to help. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks

 

[mpcrsc562]

Hi guys, there is probably a really simple answer to this s bare with me! I am having trouble playing games on my laptop. My 'graphics rating' in windows rating is only 1.0 therefore suggesting that I have no graphics card on board. I recently upgraded to Windows 7 and now have this problem whereas when I had vista my graphics were much better. My question is this - how do I find out if I have a graphics card and if it is just a driver problem. I find it hard to believe that my laptop (a Hi-Grade laptop) came without a video card. I cannot even play the most simple of games and even the text in windows 7 is bad quality! I have attached a picture of my device manager to help. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks

You have a graphics adapter, but it appears that you don't have the drivers installed for it. Go to your pc manufacturer's website and see if there are available Windows 7 drivers for it. If not, see if there is a Vista driver for it and see if you can run it via Compatibility Mode. Lastly, if either way does not work, go to the graphics adapter's website (AMD/ATi or nVidia) and download the appropriate driver.

(Your specs say "Radeon X1600," so you know that at least you'll need a driver from AMD.)

 

[tcoopersmith]

Thanks for the reply. I thought that was the graphics card I had. That brings me onto another problem. I am aware that the driver I need for it is actually a vista one as I have read around. However, when I try and install the ATI Catalyst driver it freezes at the stage where it tries to install Microsoft Visual Re distributable C++ 2005. I have subsequently tried to install this by itself and it does not work. I have included a screen shot of the error I get when I try and install C++ 2005.

 

[stormy13]

What is the make and model number of your laptop? From your Device Manager screen shot you're missing more than just the video card driver.

 

[tcoopersmith]

I was given the laptop as part of a grant from the government for university studies (bloody students) so it I am unaware of the EXACT model. However, I am 99% sure that it is a Hi-Grade Ultinote A9900. I have included a link of it too. The only difference is that my laptop has dual 2.16ghz processors and slightly more memory....but the graphics card is exactly the same.

Hi-Grade Ultinote A9900R budget laptop - PC Advisor

 

[tcoopersmith]

Hi, sorry this is the official make and model!

Hi-Grade Ultinote A9900R specifications | Expert Reviews

 

[stormy13]

One thing with it being the mobility version of the video card is that the regular desktop drivers won't install. To get them to install you're going to have to use this first,

ATI MobilityModder

on the regular Catalyst Suite.

P.S. Any chance there might be a different model number as shown here,

ftp://ftp.higrade.com/Drivers/Notebook/WARNING. Identify your Model Number.htm

as I had a look on the Hi Grade site (and through their FTP site) and can't find anything to do with the A9900R.

 

[tcoopersmith]

Unfortunately thats all the info I can give. The compnay which sold me the laptop must have taken that serial code off because I cannot find it (I have even taken off all the back covers to see if it was located elsewhere). I installed the modder but the issue is still the same as ATI Catalyst will not install due to the problem with Microsoft Visual 2005 C++. It still freezes/crashes as it attempts to install it....