Windows 7 beta with Radeon 7500 video

[macdunn]

You may have already read my threads on testing hardware and applications with the Windows 7 public beta (downloaded on Jan. 11). Here is an important update regarding a video driver.First, my hardware --

Compaq EVO N620c laptop

1.5-GHz Intel Pentium-M Processor with 400-MHz Front Side Bus and 1024-KB L2 cache2-GB 266-MHz SDRAM DDR SDRAM (1024-MB SODIMMs in slots 1 and 2)ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 4X AGP graphics controller with 32-MB DDR VRAMSoundMax Integrated Digital AudioBroadcom NetExtreme Gigabit Ethernet adapterCompaq WLAN Multiport W200 (WiFi 802.11b standard)SMC IrCC - Fast Infrared PortTwo Type II/One Type III PC Card Slots which support

both 32-bit CardBus and 16-bit PC Cards

Two USB Ports (specified by Compaq as

USB 2.0

) (one port can power the External MultiBay option)Fujitsu 100GB HDD (again, turn on the wayback machine and remember using cassette players to store programs)

I have two more of these that are running XP Professional that I have used to get drivers from for Win7 when possible.When Windows 7 installs on my N620c, it installs the VGA Standard Graphics Adapter driver. So, this evening I decided that I would install the Compaq driver for Windows XP for the ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 adapter. The driver installed fine, was identified as the Radeon 7500 in the Device Manager. I made sure that it was set to 32-bit.I then rebooted the laptop.It went through the reboot routine and opened the Logon dialog box. Within a few seconds, it crashed out to the 'blue screen of death' and did a memory dump. Then, it restarted again, and repeated the routine. I took a digital photo of the memory dumps if anyone wants to see them. I then had to reinstall the Windows 7 beta. Because I had been installing a bunch of other drivers, I decided to try the video driver installation as my first driver update/upgrade. Same routine, installed the XP driver from Compaq for the Radeon 7500. Rebooted. Blue screen of death.So, do NOT install the XP driver from Compaq for the ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 adapter for the Compaq EVO N620c. Other video cards and laptop models, take your chances.Got to go, the Windows 7 installation is asking me for my User Name.-Mac-

[Frank Golden]

I have the ATi Mobility Radeon X1400 card in my Acer laptop. In XP I use the Omega drivers (not yet available for Vista) so I can't install in Win 7. But there is a component of the Omega drivers call the ATi Tray Tools that is available stand alone for Vista that installs and runs under Win 7. ATT adds a lot of functionality to the Win 7 drivers installed with a typical Win 7 install. The drivers that "come" with Win 7 don't include the ATi control panel so the ATT app is a great replacement for the ATi control panel.