Pavilion Dv7 - windows 10 - video driver

[rvan]

Client got this machine back after spending $300 to upgrade to W10. Turns out small shop screwed them. Wants more money to troubleshoot. Looking in device manager, video driver not so good. No MS native match. Hp site only supports up to w7. Surely there must be a solution. Anyone have ideas towards finding matching driver so client can plug in second monitor and extend the display? Sticker on laptop reads “ultimate vision amd”. - part of radeon family. Someone already tried Amd app. Any belp appreciated.
thanks much! 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

That's a shame.

You can upgrade to W10 for free.

If the PC has an Intel processor and the Intel/AMD switchable graphics, I'm afraid that your client is out of luck.

No one can get that kind of graphics configuration to work on W10 because custom drivers were developed by Intel/AMD specifically for that graphics setup.

Please post the full model number or product number of the notebook so I can see if there is any hope.

How to Find Your HP Laptop Model Number (Video) | HP® Tech Takes

[rvan]

Hi Paul,  your response was great and it does make sense.

>>>> because custom drivers were developed by Intel/AMD specifically for that graphics setup.

It seems that Windows 10 , cannot determine a proper driver, it tries to install two.

- AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5000 Series - with an exclamation!

- ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series - with an error - no driver loaded.

The Product number of this laptop is:

XZ291UA#ABC

The Serial number is:

[Personal Information Removed]

The end result I'm after is to be able to extend the display to an external monitor.

I'm sensing we may be out of luck on that with this particular piece of hardware.

I'm wondering if I might have success with a USB attached video adapter, that has its own proprietary driver, if there is even such a thing.

Any ideas appreciated and thank you very much  for your time!  It'd be nice to give this client some good news after wasting this money, or at least having some sort of long game solution form HP's client satisfaction team. Hate to throw aside a perfectly good piece of equipment and have a user feel bad about buying HP.

Thanks for your help!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

I'm not sure what you mean by a long game solution form HP's client satisfaction team.

This is a peer-to-peer forum.

We do not work for or represent HP.

I find it very disappointing that an IT shop would charge someone for upgrading the notebook when it didn't work.

How does someone let the PC out of the shop without checking the device manager for the basics?  Audio, graphics, wifi...?

IMHO, the fault lies with that shop, not HP.

According to the product number you posted, the notebook is a HP Pavilion dv7-4260ca Entertainment Notebook PC.

The parts list indicates that it came with an AMD HD 6550 GPU, so I don't know why W10 is not identifying the discrete GPU correctly.

HP PartSurfer

Since it was manufactured prior to August of 2013, HP does not support the PC for W10.

HP products tested with Windows 10 | HP® Customer Support

The PC comes with the dual AMD switchable graphics configuration.

AMD did not develop any W10 drivers for the onboard Radeon HD 4250 GPU as indicated from the list of available drivers on the AMD website.  Support up to Windows 8 only.

ATI Radeon™ HD 4250 Drivers & Support | AMD

There is a Legacy W10 driver for the HD 6550.

AMD Radeon™ HD 6550M Drivers & Support | AMD

Perhaps you can force install the W8 driver for the 4250.

Use the 7-Zip file utility to extract the exe file into a folder, and manually install the W8 inf from the driver folder and do the same for the HD 6550 if the exe file doesn't install the driver.

Personally, I think the best thing you can do if you can't get the drivers to install somehow, and the person wants to continue using the PC, would be to reinstall W7 64 bit, because right now they have a $300 paperweight.

Even though it is no longer supported, all the hardware should function normally with the W7 drivers installed, and you can download Microsoft Edge for W7 as well as Microsoft Security Essentials for W7 and still have a perfectly good notebook.

Once in a blue moon I run W7 on an old PC and those apps still work (at least they did in December 2022).

[rvan]

Ok, I think I found a solution.

I was able to install the W8 driver, and then after that, there was still a strange detection in device manager where a Microsoft Adapter tried to get installed. I disabled that driver. And no more errors.

Next , when trying to get dual monitor extended display, I could Not get output on HDMI. When I changed to VGA, I was able to get Video output for the external monitor.

So.. I think I'm ok now. Sent the machine back to client, should have full review tomorrow. If you don't hear from me again,

We're good using W8 driver from HP site and VGA output. 

Thanks very much for helping us sort this one out. I feel a little better seeing that this user now has benefit from spending the extra money.

Cheers!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.