Hi,

I have a sony vaio cw laptop with Nvidia geforce 310m chipset.
ever since i installed 2008 r2 the screen does not look as sharp as it used to in windows 7.

i tried to upgrade drivers but no help...........any idea why this happens?

It might just be the themes package that is fooling you into thinking the sharpness is worse when its really no different. I assume you have the "desktop experience" feature installed and Windows Aero enabled. If you don't have the Windows 7 themes package try installing that on the home page and then pick a default theme you used in Windows 7. I have used different theme packages on Server 2008 R2 for example 1080p wallpaper and my screen looks a lot more clearer than the default windows 7 theme. Your eyes are fooled into thinking the quality is worse when really its not.

thanks for your reply hallady

exactly my thoughts initially. i did think it was my eyes playing tricks on me... i have had r2 for 3 months now and tried all kinds of themes, refresh rates , wallpapers and other stuff.

I noticed that the screen is much more readable and crisper with a resolution of 1280*768
than the nvidia recommended 1366*768.

i tried the latest drivers from laptopvideo2go but they don't install on R2.

i have tried all kinds of things and am at wit's end.

Have you downloaded the latest Windows 7 64-bit driver build from Nvidia's website (257.21)?

Download

I tried installing the drivers from nvidia site. none of the drivers on the site work ( i get a device not found error when trying to install them).

the only nvidia drivers that work are the one i get from the sony website....

it's become so much of an issue that i am thiking of going back to windows 7

It doesn't appear to be a Server-specific problem. Nvidia Windows 7 64-bit drivers work with Server 2008 R2. It's Nvidia that is giving you the fits. I can bet those Nvidia.com drivers don't work on Windows 7 as well.

http://windows.bigresource.com/Win7-Nvi ... EpknI.html

Someone mentioned a problem similar to yours. They had to go into Device Manager and grab the Hardware ID and "whitelist" it to the INF file so Nvidia would properly detect and install the latest driver. Sounds more like an Nvidia bug if anything.

Sony is also the biggest proprietary company i have ever seen. Not saying that they are crap but they have a reputation of being proprietary.

Download the "257.21" version Nvidia driver from the link I posted above. After that open it up and let it extract the file. Hit cancel and close out of the installation process (do not begin install). Go to the extracted folder (C:\NVIDIA) locate NV_DISP.inf and delete it. I have modded the INF file to include your mobile GeForce 310M chipset. Replace the original NV_DISP.inf file with mine and try to run installation. I have attached the file in the post below. I had to zip it because .inf extension isn't allowed.

Nvidia usually excludes OEM versions of their graphics cards from their drivers. The release notes for 257.21 even suggest to, quote, "contact Sony for driver support for Sony VAIO notebooks". Some time ago they wouldn't directly support Dell and Lenovo laptops either.

Usually this is because the OEM doesn't want to have to support the latest drivers without testing them on their notebooks, so they encourage people to only use the drivers they supply. In some cases, though, the OEM might have customised the driver and/or hardware to include features that the vanilla nVidia drivers don't support. So just to be on the safe side you might want to have the latest driver from Sony at hand, so you can roll back to it in case the new one doesn't work.

I can't say I don't blame Sony for hardware testing the latest nvidia builds before making them public to ensure quality assurance but they shouldn't blacklist the chipset all together so it cannot be installed from Nvidia's website. The company could release what they call the latest "stable" build and that installing a newer driver might cause instability, a warning sort to speak. Sony has had problems with faulty nvidia chipsets before and not to mention Nvidia is the number one cause of Vista-related blue screens. They should realize though that forcing people to use only their product will discourage them from using them. Only the fanboys wouldn't mind. Know any Sony fanboys? LOL

wow....that let me install the latest drivers. i think my screen looks much better now ..
thanks a lot...