Windows 7 - Install fails full retail Vista 64bit ver on new Dell Precision M6

Asked By tye

23-Sep-07 05:36 PM

The new system was delivered with Vista 32 bit Buisness about a week ago. I
attempted to install Vista Ultimate x64 on the 64 bit system and would get a
blue screen at the final installation point where Widows is starting up for
the first time. At that point the installation would keep cycling from a
reboot screen to a flash of a bluee screen. I terminated the installation,
attempte a 32 bit Ultimate installation and that failed. I then used the Dell
Vista 32bit Buisness disk and reinstalled the operating system.

I called Dell and they told me it is probably a graphics driver problem,
such that the microsoft software does not know how to install a driver that
will work with the unrecognizeable new graphics card (quadro FX 1600M). The
Nvidia quadro FX 1600M Vista x64 driver is not available from Dell or Nvidia
yet, but the quadro FX 360M should work temporarily. They told me they don't
support non standard installation procedures.

I don't know how to get the critical 64 bit drivers installed during the
Vista X64 installation so the installation won't fail. Can anyone direct me
to a procedure for this? Ideally, I'd like an updated Vista Ultimate disk
from microsoft that will work with this computer.

23-Sep-07 10:11 PM

Hi,

The retail OS disk isn't updated just because there is new hardware out
there. In fact, the OS disk will likely not be updated until the first
Service Pack is released, and that may or may not contain an updated driver
cache.

As to why it fails, it could be the new video card, but it could also be any
of the proprietary components Dell uses in building their systems. Quite
often, drivers need to support these components are not found in a retail
disk, but only in the system specific OS build supplied by the manufacturer.
In short, until Dell decides to build and release a 64-bit proprietary
version of Vista for this system hardware, there is likely little that can
be done.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

24-Sep-07 12:44 AM

Putting it simply, it is up to Nvidia to write a 64-bit Vista compatible
driver; not Microsoft.

24-Sep-07 11:12 AM

That sounds like a very bad buisness model. There must be a way to load dell
system software during a retail Vista installation, otherwise both Microsoft
and Dell would lose sales. If there is not a way to do this with my retail
disk, or Dell won't appease me with a copy of their 'proprietary' OS disk,
I'm returning the computer.

26-Sep-07 10:07 PM

Most computer buyers are better off with 32-bit and the manufacturers of
machines that do not have the need for 64-bit computing only do drivers for
32-bit.  The demand for 64-bit for home computers is too small to
accommodate them. This is particularly a problem with laptops which have
mostly proprietary internals.
If you don't have more than 4gig of ram or specifically run 64-bit programs,
and you have older software you want to run, you should just stick with
32-bit.

26-Sep-07 10:09 PM

You can use F8 for the last boot and select safe mode or low resolution mode
to see if the problem is video driver related.

03-Oct-07 03:27 AM

I too recieved my M6300 expecting to install Vista Ultimate x64 and keep my
old configuration of Windows XP Pro.  I first started with XP and couldn't
find 3 drivers and used Dell's chat system.  Dell's support showed me that
the audio driver was named differently in the installation and the other two
(bluetooth and embassy control chip) were available if you looked under
another product with the same features.

I just recieved my Ultimate Vista DVD today and started tackling the
problems.  I first download all available drivers from Dell for Vista 64-bit
platform.  Note that the Audio is both 32/64 bit installer.  I then
downloaded the Intel Wireless ProSet from Intel.  They have a 64-bit version
available for download.  By default Vista used the default generic driver,
ugh no DirectX support, but it did work.  I then googled for NVidia 1600M
Vista 64-bit driver and found a generic driver on NVidia's site for Quadro FX
1500.  From what i know the drivers are compatible, so i added the 1600M to
the nv_disp.inf file in the installer and it worked!  Interesting enough it
appears that 1MB Turbo Memory is used by the Video as well?  Is this true?
The driver says i have 256MB dedicated with an additional 766MB Shared System
Memory.  Or is this a driver error reading the part of that extra dynamic
256MB?   In either case, my simple test of using the DirectX Screen Savers
worked.

Final note...I tried to install the Broadcom Gigabit but it wouldn't
install.  I used the Broadcom 570x one in the Vista driver database, it
complained about maybe not being compatible but installed.  I haven't tried
the ethernet port yet, but it boot ok.

I think Dell released this system so quickly without spending anytime
gathering and posting the correct drivers.  This is not only for Vista
64-bit, but for XP Pro and i'm guessing for every other platform.  They'll
probably show up in the next few months when enough people complain that they
purchased a 64-bit machine with 4GB of memory for no reason...