system information lost

Hi and hello, first time user and hopefully with a problem you can help me with.

My son has just done a clean install of windows xp home edition. Everything seemed to go well. He then reinstalled Steam and two of his steam games counter strike source and garrys mod. Both worked perfectly before the reinstall. Anyway now all he gets is eg counter strike is launching then that box disappears and nothing. So we have been doing some research.

On looking at the system information or in dxdiag there is nothing coming up in the display tabs. His graphics card? was an integrated one. Shouldnt this have been part of the reinstall. We presume this is why the games are not working.

So How do we get it back? Can we get it back? Any ideas or help will result im me having fewer grey hears.

oh and steam is ok as far as we can tell, because he has an older game the original half life and that works.

 

When Windows reinstalls, it loads default drivers for eveything to begin with. You must then locate and install the hardware specific drivers for your system. For the most part, this includes:

motherboard chipset driver (sometimes packaged and includes onboard LAN, video and audio, if applicable)
Graphics Driver
Sound driver
monitor driver (not required in many cases, but works slightly better if installed)

and then any other specialty hardware drivers (keyboard with many extra buttons, tv card, etc..)

If you have trouble locating the drivers for your machine, let us know as much as you can about it and we'll try to help you out. Brand and model number, if it is a Dell, the service tag is very useful.

 

Thanks for reply, stuck at work and not infront of machine. The service tag is CQTJM1S DELL Dimension 3100 pentium 4 processor. I have the packing slip it came with.. Intel(R) 915gv Chipset, Integrated intel (r) Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (VGA analog connection only). Are these the drivers I need to install? If/when the drivers are installed would something then show on the display tab of dxdiag?
I have to admit my ignorance in chip sets and graphics cards...ok ok with everything lol so bear with me.

thanks again, if any extra infor is needed I will gladly supply it when home.

 

ok we have some success...graphic driver installed and boys' game works. Thank you for that info, I guess to some it is run of the mill,'preciate the help.
Not quite out of the woods yet we have no sound ( yes i did install the sound driver also). Any ideas about what I have missed to get the sound back?

 

cancel my last post worked it out woo hoo, im quite proud actually. thank you 'mr in years to come' you made me put my brain into gear. Now I want another problem to work on lol

thanks thanks thanks again

 

glad to help. Seems like you worked things out nicely. Congrats!