Best ATI Mobility RADEON 7500 driver for W7

Discussion in 'Videocards - AMD Radeon Drivers Section' started by dandreye, Jan 9, 2017.

  1. dandreye

    dandreye Guest

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    Best ATI Mobility RADEON 7500 driver for Win7

    Hi All,

    Could anyone please share what the best known ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 driver for Win7 by far is (ati2mtag_M7 I suppose), along with how to install it if it's any special (e.g. installation strictly from safe mode etc)? Been searching for it now and then over the last couple of years and have just these 2 options shortlisted so far:

    - using "ATI Mobility Radeon 7500" driver for 2k/XP, e.g. the most recent driver version 6.14.10.6547 dated 6th February 2007 from Lenovo package 1rd637ww.exe, which occasionally crashes in ati3duag.dll under Win7 (works fine under XP though), hence not an option really

    - using "ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 (Microsoft Corporation - XDDM)" driver version 6.14.10.6606 dated 15th August 2008 for Vista (ati2mtag_M9), which doesn't crash but comes w/o ATI CCC software, which would be quite desirable.

    Just learned about DNA ATi series drivers/software packages published here by KillerSneak. Some 8.x releases add support for higher adapter versions like 9600 but mine doesn't seem to be mentioned in any of them - wondering if it happens to be supported since inception and if so which version would be best to try...

    This is for a 12-year old IBM ThinkPad T42 running W7x86 (32-bit).


    Many thanks in anticipation!
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2017
  2. PrMinisterGR

    PrMinisterGR Ancient Guru

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    Have you given any thought in trying a lightweight Linux distro?
     
  3. dandreye

    dandreye Guest

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    That'd kinda be the last resort (although I was thinking about it for some other unrelated reasons): my primary goal is to achieve it in W7. In case of success I was going to share it at a ThinkPad forum where I reside, as general belief there so far has been that it's impossible 'cos ATI never released a driver for W7 for this model.

    Meanwhile yesterday I tried installing ATI Mobility RADEON 7500 driver version 8.723.0.0000 dated 04/06/2010. Installation succeeded but I'm now getting a "Device cannot start" error message in my Device Manager. Also in a minute or two I get "The screen saver can't run because it requires a newer video card or one that's compatible with Direct3D" (7500 only supports DX6).

    Do you (or anyone) happen to know which Windows version(s) this driver is for and if there's a way to make it work under W7, e.g. by means of turning those incompatible features off somehow? This is the most recent driver I've come across so far, and since my model is listed among the drivers in the CX_98765.inf file that comes with this driver pack I'd expect it to be fully supported:
    "ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7500" = ati2mtag_M7, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4C57

    Unfortunately even this driver (~15MB) comes w/o ATI CCC/CCP software although making it work for W7 would still be a step forward.


    Update: An AMD Support forum member has kindly shared a link to a "mobility modded" desktop driver/software package 10-2-legacy-xp32-64-dd-ccc.exe:
    http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop/legacy?product=Legacy1&os=Windows%20Vista
    Tested, works: no crashes or any other issues so far. This is by far the best driver/software package out of those I've ever tried on this platform. Such package can be made by means of "mobility modding" original 10-2-legacy-xp32-64-dd-ccc.exe with the same tool called DH Mobility Modder Tool. Unfortunately "mobility modding" 10-2-legacy-vista32-64-dd-ccc.exe in a similar way doesn't help, apparently since there's no 7500 driver as such in it, while the tool seems to require an existing desktop driver to modify - it must be unable to add it if it's missing.

    Hope someone finds it useful.
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2017
  4. user1

    user1 Ancient Guru

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  5. dandreye

    dandreye Guest

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    Thank you - they look older though: "Based on Catalyst 7.12 Official". Are there perhaps similar ones based on Catalyst 10.2 Official? Btw I understand they don't include CCC, do they?
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2017
  6. PrMinisterGR

    PrMinisterGR Ancient Guru

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    If you change your mind, I would recommend something like Zorin.
     
  7. dandreye

    dandreye Guest

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    Looks at least worth trying at a glance - thanks for the hint: pretty sure it'll work faster than W7 on this HW, so why not give it a try indeed. Gotta have at least one Linux machine in the household these days )
     
  8. user1

    user1 Ancient Guru

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    since ati stopped supporting ati 7000 cards with catalyst 6.11 offically (i think not 100% sure), any driver past that point will not have any improvements so it using the older 7.12 as a base driver doesn't really matter.

    CCC was pretty terrible at the time, it does have ati tray tools included as a replacement however which i believe can do the same things and more

    here is the newest version of ati tray tools aswell if you are interested http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/ati-tray-tools.html
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2017
  9. dandreye

    dandreye Guest

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    Interestingly I can see desktop version of 7500 graphics still present in the INF file(s) from 10-2-legacy-xp32-64-dd-ccc.exe while it's not present in those from 10-2-legacy-vista32-64-dd-ccc.exe. Any idea why exactly? Is it because Vista cannot interop with a driver/HW that doesn't support anything higher than DX6 for some reason? I'd expect any particular card to either be supported by both of those or none...

    Thank you: I understand it's a 3rd party app, right? At the moment I'm still using mobility modded 10-2-legacy-xp32-64-dd-ccc.exe on that platform, which has its own ATI tray icon - will they coexist?
     
  10. user1

    user1 Ancient Guru

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    Probably due to the change in the driver model from xp to vista, vista introduced wddm 1.0 , which requires a dx 9 level card as a minimum.
    though you can install xp graphics drivers on 32bit vista and windows 7.

    yes it can run along side catalyst.
     

  11. dandreye

    dandreye Guest

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    So those drivers are WDDM ones then... in such case I have another question if I may: at their download location where they show up as "Catalyst Software Suite" (95MB) there's another download below called "WDM Integrated Driver" (36.7MB). Pardon my ignorance but in case WDM is the same thing as WDDM such naming can make one think the upper (main) download is not WDM/WDDM...
    http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop/legacy?product=Legacy1&os=Windows%20Vista
    Detailed comparison of these 2 downloads reveals that besides the lack of CCC, the latter download has significantly different contents in its \Packages\Drivers directory with WDM present in the path(s) unlike in the former one. Unfortunately no Release Notes seem to come with either download no matter what the download page says.

    Fortunately I can indeed - that's exactly what I currently have and it's doing well so far. Just thought perhaps that Vista version would be a safer bet for W7.
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2017
  12. dandreye

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    Just tried booting from a USB memory key with it and got a symptom specific to an attempt to use PAE, which is not supported on ThinkPad T4[0-2] platforms. I had exactly same symptom with PAE version of CloneZilla recently: only non-PAE version of the same works fine. Tried booting my (PAE enabled) ThinkPad T43 and X61s from the same key and didn't see this error. The symptom is randomly coloured dots appearing in several lines at the very top of the screen as when data is written into videomemory by mistake, immediately followed by system halt. Would need to look for a non-PAE version of this Zorin OS, hopefully not too old one.
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2017
  13. user1

    user1 Ancient Guru

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    WDM is just the generic windows driver model(sound cards, usb cards ect) that all hardware must adhere to, wddm is Windows Display Driver Model which graphics adapters with acceleration must adhere to.

    edit:i will also add that prior to wddm1.0 xp used xddm.
     
    Last edited: Jan 25, 2017
  14. mirh

    mirh Member Guru

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    TFW you have the only PAE-flag bugged cpu on Earth and you try the only PAE enforcing distro on earth.
    You most definitively have the T42 with the Banias Pentium M @1.5 GHz.. and you just need to append forcepae parameter to the kernel command line.

    Said this, your actual problem is more likely going to be this, if any, but I always hope for the best.

    Then, back to your Windows issue, I was going to tell you about hacks and where to look for other comparable XDDM drivers.. But I see you solved it brilliantly.
    EDIT: source analysis: radeon.ru community isn't original creator. Mod was already a thing a year before. Said this, infs point out how whoever it was certainly used Mobility Modder. I wonder if DNA-l10.2.1 can even compare

    I'm not sure what you were expecting then from unofficial packages.
    One can rearrange some file, perhaps do some little modification to them and workaround phony limitations, but nothing else.

    I don't know how far from a miracle ATI writing a WDDM driver for R300 cards was..
    But anything more would really have been one, given that requires D3D9 in the first place and this hardware has nothing even short of a vertex shader.

    Last for as much I'm indeed trilled, thinking that a 2001 gpu will be functional and kind of supported until 2020, I cannot avoid to wonder what its utility will even be, with only 32MB of vram.
    I'm confident a P4 around that clock is still usable, and I'm relatively sure that with at least 1GB of ram Vista/7 enter the realm of feasibility.
    But with just basic desktop filling up ~twice your graphics buffer, tbh I would even start to consider Windows FLP.
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2017
  15. dandreye

    dandreye Guest

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    Would the following be correct interpretation of the above? (the titles in black are obtained from AMD website and my amendments in question are in red):

    Catalyst Software Suite incl XDDM driver:
    WDM Integrated XDDM driver:
    http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop/legacy?product=Legacy1&os=Windows%20XP

    Catalyst Software Suite incl WDDM driver:
    WDM Integrated WDDM driver:
    http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop/legacy?product=Legacy1&os=Windows%20Vista

    Thanks for your reply. I only tried that Zorin OS following PrMinisterGR's advice above: I was even unaware of its existence until then.

    The CPU in my T42 is actually model 745, hence non-Sonoma (400MHz FSB) Dothan - here's CPU-Z output from that platform:
    https://s27.postimg.org/45fog5uj7/CPU_Z.jpg

    According to my research, CPUs of that series do support PAE indeed, just unsure about CPU feature flag for it (Banias ones have no flag even if they also do). As soon as I get a chance I'll try adding forcepae both to the PartedMagic and CloneZilla kernels, as well as checking all the links you supplied in more detail. I'm unsure forcing PAE will help though: IIRC PAE is not supported by the (i855PM chipset based) T42 mobo anyway.

    I mostly use it for non-graphic purposes such as remote terminal into various network devices and servers I work with on a daily basis: even the lack of Windows Aero because of the low Dx version is perfectly fine. It just badly irritated me until now that the laptop would occasionally crash even with the latest Lenovo recommended driver and only some obscure driver w/o CCC software extracted from Vista was a sure way to avoid it. Now it's all perfect and I just wish AMD cared to release back in 2010 what others ended up making on their behalf: that wouldn't take AMD long for sure. A similar situation in kind was IBM/Lenovo refusing to supply BIOS update to unlock SATA II (so relevant for the SSDs) on X6x series ThinkPads, leaving them capped at SATA I despite lots of customers begging for it. An advanced thinkpadder known as Middleton kindly did that on their behalf: it turned out to be just the matter of toggling a single bit. I own several X61s's with Core 2 Duo inside and honestly cannot feel any difference whatsoever when browsing the Internet using them vs my modern corporate X1 with Core i7.

    The T42 has 2GB memory (max allowed by i855PM chipset, else I'd happily pay for more at just GBP2.5/GB) and runs fast enough under the above mentioned load not to be a pain. It has an SSD inside, hence W7. I'm sure it'll serve me equally well for years and years ahead: they were built to last.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2017

  16. mirh

    mirh Member Guru

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    Mhh, ok seems like only Dothan since C0 advertises that.
    Funnily B1 stepping isn't even mentioned on intel ark.

    It is said there may be models that won't work then, but I wouldn't know. It seems like only forums ever dared to comment this...

    ps: WDM ideally should just be understood as "driver for Windows", nothing else.
     
  17. dandreye

    dandreye Guest

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    Someone claims it to be supported on 400MHz FSB ones too, just w/o flagging it:
    http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=111740#p721298

    CoreInfo output contains "-" for both PAE and NX meaning "unsupported".

    Just tested forcepae on the T42 - no luck, hangs here:
    https://s27.postimg.org/z1x7dgprn/IMG_20170127_204704.jpg

    Meanwhile anything with PAE kernel loads up just fine on my T43 with PM750 CPU (Sonoma Dothan 533MHz FSB) and i915PM chipset even w/o forcepae:
    https://s23.postimg.org/61c2ep7pn/CPU_Z.jpg

    Strange why the contents of their Drivers folders are so different then: if it's just drivers pack alone w/o CCC software I'd expect 100% same contents... just curious.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2017
  18. mirh

    mirh Member Guru

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    Mhh.. weird. Perhaps if bootloader was a bit more verbose it could help.
    Or try some new ubuntu ISO maybe.

    Then chipset and mobo should really have nothing to do with this. Especially considering Pentium M and pentium 4 are electrically compatible.

    Last.. Direct links don't work with ati drivers. Better for you to fix that.
     
  19. dandreye

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    Just tried booting off a USB key with Ubuntu 14.04 and selecting "Try w/o installing" option (the 1st one in boot menu). No matter if I append "forcepae -- forcepae" or not behind "APPEND /isolinux" line in syslinux.cfg I get the same symptom: randomly coloured line of dots at the very top of the display and system hangs. I suppose it just tries using PAE regardless?.. No problems though: W7 feels like a perfect match for this platform anyway; also there must be a lot of non-PAE Linux versions out there should I ever consider switching.

    Well spotted: fixed now.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2017
  20. user1

    user1 Ancient Guru

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    yes the The vista driver is wddm1.0 where as the xp driver is xddm

    probably due to the change from xp to vista, nothing suprising really. all the files are pretty much the same they are just reorganized.


    Also I would like to mention that the reason there are no "mobility" drivers for older ati graphics is that ati nor nvidia had a proper notebook driver program back then , after a certain point they left the responsibility to support notebooks up to the oem, that is why sometimes you can find later drivers for mobile graphics but they are usually oem(dell,lenovo,ect.) specific. A similar fate befell the mobile geforce 6000, 7000 series gpus, while nvidia supported the desktop products till driver 309(2012/2015~), the last offical notebook driver was 179(2009)
     

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