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I have an old Dell Inspiron 3000 which came with Windows XP. It's still quite decent, 3 GHz P4, 2 GB RAM.

I've installed Windows 7 RTM (x86) and the best resolution it will do is 640x480 with a generic driver.

It has an integrated Intel 8265G graphics card, and only PCI slots on the motherboard. I cannot stick another graphics card on it.

Can I get a working driver for Windows 7? Official Dell website only lists Windows XP drivers

Am I destined to have the suckiness of Windows XP on this computer forever?

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3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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I am putting this out there in case someone else runs into this issue.

The Intel chipset is on-board. I discovered the reason for the crappy resolution in Windows 7 was that the memory to share with the video card was set to 1 MB in the BIOS. I changed this to 8 MB (the maximum) and after the PC rebooted I was able to select a higher resolution.

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  • Fantastic answer! This worked for my Dimension B110 as well. I had all but given up on getting Win7 video working until finding this tip.
    – Roger
    Dec 28, 2009 at 22:50
  • oooh 8mb! can you overclock it, too? ;)
    – bobobobo
    Aug 16, 2010 at 19:57
  • worked for my old gx260 ~ +1:cheers dudeman :)
    – violet313
    Jul 26, 2012 at 16:26
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I was about to suggest to check Intel's site for drivers, but they don't have any Vista or Windows 7 driver neither, the latest driver dates back to 2005.

Your best bet is to use a graphics card with PCI connection.

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Download the latest Windows XP driver for the intel 865 graphic card. (I used the XP Professional version) download

  1. After extracting the driver (I recommend the .zip file over the .exe), go to "Device Manager" in Vista or Windows 7.

Easiest way to get there is "Win key + pause/break" -> "Device Manager"... Second easiest way is to click "Start", right click "Computer" -> "Properties" -> "Device Manager" Third way is to fumble around in the control panel until you find it... good luck... 3. Click on the arrow to the left of "Display Adapters" and you should see the "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" drop down.

  1. Right click on the "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" and choose "Update Driver Software"

  2. Choose "Browse my computer for driver software"

  3. Choose "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer"

  4. Find the "Have Disk" button (lower right corner) and click on it

  5. Browse to the location where you extracted the Intel 865 XP driver zip file and go into the win2000 folder, then choose "Open"

  6. You should see a driver in the main box now, that says it's for the Intel 865 Graphic Adapter. Choose "Next" and it will begin the driver installation.

  7. Once the driver is installed, reboot and you are all done!

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  • I tried installing generic Windows Vista drivers and the installer told me that the operating system wasn't supported.
    – jjnguy
    Aug 31, 2009 at 2:44

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