I need a driver - GeForce2 Go & Windows 98

I am fixing up an old Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop. The owner of this computer has been using Windows XP but I am replacing it with Windows 98 so they can actually get some work done instead of waiting for things to load all day and night.

The "upgrade" is almost complete, I just lack one thing. I cannot find a driver for the GeForce2 Go VGA for Windows 98. The Dell support page for this laptop contains one nVidia driver and it does not work for Windows 98. I've checked nVidia's site for drivers, but in their words "GeForce2 Go and Quadro2 Go are not supported in the NVIDIA reference drivers. Please consult your notebook's manufacturer for the latest driver."

I realize there may not be a driver out there that suits my needs, but if anyone can find one I will be very grateful. I have tried and failed.

Alternatively, maybe somebody can help me solve this problem without that driver. The issue is that with the screen resolution set at 640x480 only a very small portion of the center of the monitor actually displays anything, 84% of the monitor is blank. The native resolution of this monitor is 1600x1200 so if there is some trick or hack I can use to get Windows to use that resolution the problem should disappear and all will be right with this computer. Does anybody know if this is possible?

 

For Video Drivers I normally use Guru3D:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/
Searching for GeForce2 gives, but you still need the 98 Driver!!:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/WDM-driver---GeForce2-to-GeForce-FX-GPUs_d1061.html
http://downloads.guru3d.com/GeForceAASet_d216.html

But from the Dell site for Dell Inspiron 8000:

http://supportapj.dell.com/support/...INS_PNT_P3CG_8000&os=WW1&osl=en&catid=&impid=
Video GeForce2 GO :
http://supportapj.dell.com/support/...&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&fileid=86162

Doesn't mention flavour of OS but hopefully that gets you sorted. If that doesn't work I would search nVidia.

 

you might get lucky with omega's drivers for win 9x/ME
http://www.omegadrivers.net/nvidia_win9x.php

 

Thanks for the replies. Bold Eagle, I already explained that the Dell provided driver for this laptop is not for Windows 98, unfortunately. As you pointed out, the driver you linked to is not even for Windows 98 and I don't know how the second thing you linked to is any more helpful. As I pointed out, nVidia does not support the GeForce2 Go with their reference drivers so...

I'll see if I can get lucky with that Omega driver, although I already tried and failed with the Forceware 45.23 so this will be a miracle of god if it works.

At this point I have very little hope of finding a driver to work with this. I don't know if it's possible to change the screen resolution through some trick or hack without a good video driver, but that's really what I need to do. Does nobody have any idea of how I could go about this? Maybe by hex editing the default Windows driver it's using now or something...?

 

also stumbled onto this:
http://www.driverheaven.net/nvmodtool.php

seems to mod a driver file to allow it to work with mobile chips, including yours. My guess is you will still need to find a version that works with win 98. but it says that 45.23 is for 98/ME. good luck.

 

My bad I didn't read the post thoroughly.

Going to:
http://download.cnet.com/windows/drivers/
Searching for "GeForce2 Go Win98"
http://download.cnet.com/1770-20_4-...ndows,Webware&filter=platform=Windows,Webware

The fourth one down looks very promising hopefully that will help.

 

Thank you both for your continued effort. Unfortunately, we have still not resolved this issue. Smoking gun, the driver modifier program you found does not seem to be designed with this purpose in mind. I've tried it on six or seven different Win9x nVidia drivers and it doesn't do a thing to any of them, it just runs and notifies me that it made zero modifications.

Bold Eagle, none of the drivers on that page work. :^(

I have found something extremely interesting at the Dell support forum - http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/6397874.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=&s=gen

The trouble is, I cannot seem to find the driver the thread author indicates he got working *and* I have no idea how to edit the INF file to recognize my GPU as the second poster explains. Are there any tech lords on this forum who would know how to do that? Or would anybody else please try their hand at finding that 14.70 driver?

 

Problem solved. I finally found the driver I needed at laptopvideo2go.com

 

Good to hear you got it sorted and posted results. Anyone with a similar problem may find this in the future.