On Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:58:11 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:

> Darren New wrote:
>> Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>>> Darren New wrote:
>>>
>>>> Yep!  And you wonder why video drivers under Windows crash the system
>>>> so often.
>>>
>>> Uh... do they?
>> 
>> Well, relatively often, yes, compared to most other stuff.
> 
> Not a phenominon I've ever experienced, but anyway...

In one set of equipment we used to deliver courses on, we had Dell C610 
laptops and Dell C640 laptops.  Video cards were identical in the 
systems, according to the specs (same chipset, same amount of memory, 
same everything).  For non-Windows OSes, they worked just great - you 
could use an image developed on a 610 on a 640 and vice version.

For Windows, you had to install a *different* video driver, even though 
the card was identical - even at the BIOS and firmware level (I checked 
everything I could to find out what was different).

Yet consistently, if you used the 610's driver on the 640 (or vice-
versa), the video came up 16-colour 640x480 VGA, refused to change, and 
left alone long enough, the driver would apparently eat itself and blow 
the machine up - to the point a reimage was often needed.

One of the more bizzare problems I ever saw.  A Dell IT technician in one 
of my classes couldn't even tell me why the driver was different or why 
it didn't do what it was supposed to do (ie, work).

Jim

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