# Display drivers for Really Old Notebook(tm)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-drivers-for-really-old-notebook-tm/168725>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 14, 2003, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-drivers-for-really-old-notebook-tm/168725 "2003-04-14T20:29:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ElJeffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2003, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-drivers-for-really-old-notebook-tm/168725/1 "2003-04-14T20:29:54Z")

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I’ve just become the proud owner of a laptop from the paleolithic era - a Compaq Presario 1220. Slapped Win98 on there, but I need to find a display driver, because as much as I love minimalism, the 16 color, 640x480 thing isn’t going to cut it. Compaq’s and MS’s respective websites didn’t offer anything that I could find, I don’t have the documentation for the computer, and my first hunt for drivers proved fruitless. Any help? Thanks in advance!

Jeff

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**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2003, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-drivers-for-really-old-notebook-tm/168725/2 "2003-04-14T20:51:21Z")

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[http://www.video-drivers.com/companies/236.htm](http://www.video-drivers.com/companies/236.htm)

Try that. I got some results by typing: “Compaq Presario 1220” and drivers into Yahoo.

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**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2003, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-drivers-for-really-old-notebook-tm/168725/3 "2003-04-14T20:56:16Z")

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On the site I linked, if you click “Win98”, your driver should be about 3/4 of the way down the page. May want to do a virus check or whatever first.

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**Author:** ![ElJeffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2003, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-drivers-for-really-old-notebook-tm/168725/4 "2003-04-14T21:28:35Z")

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Wonderful, thank you. I’ll try that out tonight, and if things go well, nobody will hear from me. 🙂

Jeff

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**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2003, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-drivers-for-really-old-notebook-tm/168725/5 "2003-04-15T04:02:32Z")

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The standard generic Microsoft SVGA driver may also work for you.

At any rate, you can only go as far as 800x600 at 16.7 million colors on the 1220’s passive matrix screen.