Unidentified video chipset...

[Ichinisan]

My supervisor recently formatted his computer and I'm trying to finish up his Windows 98 installation. Sisoft Sandra can't tell me any more about the video chipset than the Windows Device Manager ("Standard PCI Display Adapter"). The card is AGP, not "PCI", and there is no integrated video. The GPU is covered with a passive heatsink.

How can I identify this card so that I can download/install the correct driver?

 

[stevty2889]

Look closely at the card, there is usualy a part number, or another number on the card that can help you identify it, so you don't have to look directly at the gpu to identify the card. If you find any numbers on the card, do a google search, and see what it turns up.

 

[DaFinn]

EVEREST IS YOUR FRIEND!!!

 

[Ichinisan]

I didn't get to try Everest The next time I came to the office, XP Home had been installed.

XP Home Edition identified the video chipset as an NVIDIA TNT Vanta.

There must be some kind of ID for Windows XP to have recognized it and installed the correct driver. Is there a public database of hardware ID's? I know that some PnP devices have an adequate description, but "Standard PCI Display Adapter" is not good enough. How can I view the hardware ID that Win XP used to identify the card?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Matrox offers a "PCISPY.EXE" program in their DOS driver utilities. All you really need is a way to dump the PCI class/device/subdevice vendor/subvendor IDs, and then you can find out what chipset it is. WCPUID and PowerStrip can do that too, I think, in Windows.

Oh yeah, for pre-GeForce cards, you need to force the NVidia driver install manually. Install the drivers, they will say no supported device detected, then go to Device Manager, navigate to the video card, and then "Update Drivers", point it at the NV4_DISP.INF, and then manually select the closest card on the list to your device. For my PCI TNT1 cards, I usually pick TNT2 Pro, and after the drivers install, the binaries properly identify it as a TNT1.