Need help installing XP driver for Quadro FX1600M in Win7

[nick_mm]

Hello forum,

I have a Dell M6300 with an NVidia Quadro FX1600M graphics card.

Long story as short as I can make it: some time ago, I upgraded from XP to Win7/64, and along the way I updated the NVidia drivers. When I installed Mastercam X8, I had to roll back the drivers to avoid some display issues, at which point everything worked great. I then swapped the HDD for an SDD, and in the process I did a clean install of Win7/64. This reintroduced the graphics display issues in MCX8, but I'm unable to roll back to anything but the Windows default driver. I loaded the old HDD and found that I was successfully using an XP/64 driver from 2012, so I put the SSD back in and downloaded that driver from NVidia. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it works in the upgraded Win7 environment, it won't let me install in the clean environment because it says the driver is not compatible.

Is there a way to get around this installation roadblock, perhaps by manually copying the drivers into the correct locations? I've never done so, but might booting Win7 in XP mode allow me to install the older drivers?

Thanks for your help,
Nick

 

[Math Geek]

are you trying to install it from an .exe file or are you pointing the device manager to the .ini file?

it should still let it install through the device manager driver update. it may say it's incompatible or whatever but i think you can ignore the warning and use it anyway.

 

[nick_mm]

Math Geek,

Thanks for the quick reply.

Yes - I was trying to run the installer .exe . It expanded a number of files into an "NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\296.88" directory on c:, but I don't see any .ini files; did you mean .inf? I tried manually pointing to the "...296.88" directory, but update says "Standard VGA" is already the best driver.

Nick

 

[Math Geek]

oops, yah .inf file sorry. ok so your doing what i was thinking. it won't let you install it anyway despite it saying the other is the best?

i've never had that issue with win 7 and older hardware and am not sure where to go from here if the manual install does not work.

let me tinker for a little while and i'll get back if someone else has not already posted the answer. someone out there knows what it is i am trying to remember. i will get back soon after i tinker for a few. there is just something i am forgetting but not sure what...

 

[nick_mm]

Math Geek,

Just when I thought I was doing everything right... It turns out the older XP driver still shows up because there have not been enough updates to knock it off the drivers search-results page. That driver also exists as a Win7 driver, but you can't find it by doing a driver search. You have to do a general search of the NVidia site.

I'm up and running again.

Nick

 

[Math Geek]

lol, never crossed my mind, figured that was not an option and did not look myself.

the obvious answer is usually the easiest one.

enjoy your working hardware.

 

[nick_mm]

I learned that through NVidia support chat. I was surprised that NVidia would provide such quick, free support for that 7 year old hardware. I'm ever more surprised that the Windows Experience Index is higher for the graphics card than for the new SSD. Unfortunately, the drive is limited to the MoBo's STATII interface. Still, it's better now than new.