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scottbjones wrote:

Went to the Navidia website tonight and had the site auto-analyze my machine and install the latest for my card which has the date of 2/11/2009 which is noted to be the latest. I also checked this manually and got the same match and date. I have not contacted the company. So I am definitely up to date as far as that GPU goes.

Ouch.  That places you kind of into the category of "computer is too old to run the things you want to run".

This particular issue,  with nVidia, is one that frustrated me a while back, and because it cost me money I recount the story.  NVidia WILL pay for their lack of support...  I had a $1,000+ workstation video card (a Quadro FX 3400) that was 1.5 years old when I first went to upgrade to Vista x64 from XP x64, back some years ago.  Vista came with drivers that "sort of" worked, but never properly.  Updating to their latest drivers (and every version in between) did NOT help.  It became painfully clear that nVidia was not putting any serious effort into supporting "older" video cards, however expensive they might have been.  I fought with the constant problems for months, then gave up in desperation and bought an ATI card that was 1/8 the cost and worked PERFECTLY out of the box, stabilizing Vista and turning my compute experience from nightmarish to wonderful.

I've never bought another nVidia product.

On the one hand you might say that a hardware company makes little money by updating their driver software for hardware that's already been sold.  On the other hand, I say that such a decision, leaving current customers out in the cold, DEFINITELY is stupid from a less tangible perspective.  I've been avoiding nVidia for years, and I've been advising other people to do so as well.

Did nVidia save money by not funding the development of driver software for an older video card?  Maybe, if it was just me who got left in the dust.  However, given the nature of this thread, it's clear I'm not alone.

I'm guessing your next laptop will have an ATI video interface in it.

Best of luck to you.

-Noel

Oh, I'm sure they have some nice products that actually work; they wouldn't survive if they didn't.  And chances are nVidia isn't even the same company as they were just a few years ago, but my point is this:  Burn a customer once and that customer is GONE.  Take care of a customer and the customer will return.

Computers are built in a given year, and outfitted with parts and software that all work together.  However, it's a given that new software will become available every few years.  It just bothers me that the hardware/software compatibility barely lasts the warranty period.

The quest for lowest-cost computing has led to this, I suppose.  Computers as commodities.  Sheesh.

-Noel

I also use a laptop with an nVidia chip that isn't well supported for updates (Sony VAIO) but I've upgraded my video driver using the laptopvideo2go.com website. They have hacked drivers that will install on almost any system.

Just be careful in choosing, read the forum notes, etc, and be aware that the driver may effect your computer going into or out of sleep mode. It took me a few tries but I found one that plays well with my Vaio.