Suchy

Hello !

I have an Asus A3G notebook, which has a Radeon Mobility 9700 Pro in it. The driver support by Asus ended many years ago, and the official ATI mobility drivers are not supproted for Asus products.

Therefore my question is : does using third parity drivers (such as Omega) can be of any harm to the hardware ? Specifically, the ability of handling all the mobility-like options ie : throttling down etc. Plus, I guess many that I do not know of, that are the reason and need for company-dedicated drivers ...


Regards ,
TS

Dyre Straits

Greetings and welcome to Driverheaven!

First, let me ask you this question: Is there something you feel your video card should be able to do that you also feel it isn't doing now with the 'official' and older drivers?

Is the answer to that is, Yes, then explain in what way you feel the card is not performing as expected.

If the answer is, No, then the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" kicks in.

While newer drivers can often work wonders, the fact is that a 9700 of anything is becoming quite dated. Therefore, any of the newer drivers, whether official or third party varieties, may not actually give the card any better performance because the newer drivers are being focused on the more recent hardware and, in relation to that, the newer games and apps.

Now, to answer the main question you asked: Third party drivers can't harm your unit unless somehow you, the user, misconfigure things on your end. That is, by overclocking, under cooling, under volting, etc. The ability to "tweak" the drivers more easily with the third party drivers and apps allow the user a lot more flexibility to do what the user wishes. So, they become a two-edged sword giving experienced users the tools they desire, while the inexperienced user may overshoot and cause harm.

But, 'out of the box' and using the 'default' settings, these drivers won't cause harm. I've been using, such as, Omegadrivers and NGO ATI Optimized Drivers for quite sometime now and have never destroyed or harmed a video card.

That said, third party drivers come with the disclaimer: Use at your own risk. There is no guarantee that you won't have some problem and the developers will not be responsible should you do irreparable damage to your card by using them.

So, whether you use them or not, it is completely at your own discretion. Should you proceed, I suggest you check out the Mobility Modder forum for some further guidance regarding using these drivers in your own system.

Good luck and let us know what you decide.

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Suchy

Whoa ! Now thats what I call a comprehensive answear ! Thank You a lot !

You have clarified the issue to me. The reason why I wanted new drivers is, in an outward manner, prepare the machine for some gaming. The computer belongs to my fiancee, and she does not play games at all. We are planning, in a couple of months, a huge trip from our homeland to the UK in search of a good job opportunity, since she will have finished her MSc degree by then. But enough of the boring stuff.

Either way, the notebook will land in my hands, and I do like to have everything of the top notch and performance - considering I have little room to fiddle with its hardware, my 'having-everything-tip-top-madness' corresponds to software as well.

Why the hasitation and therefore my question on the forum ? Well, thats quite other story, so let me put it as brief as it gets :

Once I had a high-end notebook made by a very crappy company MEDION. It had GF5200 go in it, and the story with the drivers was the same. So after a quick search I found the www.laptopvideo2go.com site, where one can find modified .inf files that allow You to install all the Forceware releases on unsupported chipsets, such as mobility ones. As I found out, all the companys do, making these drivers mobility dedicated, is mostly adding a support to the .inf file. Other modifications are supposed to be very rare...

Anyway, I have been using it for over 3 months, having an excellent, for the time beeing, performance, using the latest drivers.
And then, one morning after powering notebook up, I found that there was no content on the LCD screen, besides that everything worked fine : TV-out, D-SUB out, 3D acceleration... After a thorough investigation, in which another model of the same notebook has been involved, I found that the video card broke (good for me it was detachable). Cause of this, of course, might have been totally elsewhere, but even if it was just a terrible coincidence, I want to be careful this time and ask about it some serious specialists, such as You.

Once again, thank You for a great explanation. Concidering what You wrote : nothings is broken, so I will pass installing other drivers.

Regards,
TS

Dyre Straits

You are quite welcome! I want to invite you to come often and become a part of our 'family' here. It's been a pleasure.

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