Cant find any official drivers but you can try one from Toshiba? (first one I found)
https://download.cnet.com/NVIDIA-GeForce4-420 … 8_4-193574.html

Use MemTest86 or similar RAM testing software to check the health of your RAM.

My personal experience: Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

dormcat wrote on 2021-10-15, 04:54:

bjwil1991 wrote on 2021-10-15, 03:25:

Learnt the hard way with my SIMM-30 RAM on my 3/486WB board that had faults (either didn't POST or would boot, but everything crashed).

Similar situation here: the two PC133 256 MB sticks could boot into "Safe mode command prompt only" of Win98SE, but entering GUI would crash. OTOH the PC100 64 MB stick tested on Gigabyte GA-6VXC7-4X-P with AMI BIOS would give me a strange 6-beep Gate A20 error code (yet the keyboard is perfectly fine, of course); wouldn't POST anyway.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-11-02, 10:47:

Cant find any official drivers but you can try one from Toshiba? (first one I found)
https://download.cnet.com/NVIDIA-GeForce4-420 … 8_4-193574.html

This is a different file than the one I tried before that didn't work, I'll give it a shot.

EDIT:

It didn't install a driver at all but at least the computer didn't blue screen. This is what happens, either the installer installs nothing or the computer blue screens during an install attempt.

Hmm Did you completely remove the old driver ? Some drivers require a special tool to completely remove them (Nvidia and Creative do come to mind)....
Also there are 2 different PCI Device ID's to the Nvidia 420 Go, here is the common 420 GO ones:
NVIDIA_NV17.DEV_0175.1 = "GeForce4 420 Go "
NVIDIA_NV17.DEV_0176.1 = "GeForce4 420 Go 32M"

The Toshiba driver is only for the DEV_0175.1 = "GeForce4 420 Go ", think that is the 16mb version.
Can you click on Device Manager Details tab and then drop box to Hardware ID and tell us what Dev _ xxx.x is ?
added: read in in old forum that the MX 420 driver versions may work but is driver version specific (below 70.xx) and for those curious where I got that Dev ID is here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050306000538/htt … /gpusupport.htm

I tried running a XP compatible version of DDU but it would just crash upon trying to run, maybe I needed an older version.

My hardware ID is DEV_0175, so that would be the 16MB version. I also have a mystery device labeled "JGD-U01" with hardware ID "Vid_054c&Pid_0096" but I can't begin to know what that is.

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-11-03, 23:02:

I also have a mystery device labeled "JGD-U01" with hardware ID "Vid_054c&Pid_0096" but I can't begin to know what that is.

Just googling for "Vid_054c&Pid_0096" gives me "Sony USB Jog Dial"...

Stiletto wrote on 2021-11-03, 23:09:

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-11-03, 23:02:

I also have a mystery device labeled "JGD-U01" with hardware ID "Vid_054c&Pid_0096" but I can't begin to know what that is.

Just googling for "Vid_054c&Pid_0096" gives me "Sony USB Jog Dial"...

There is this weird roller and "Back" button on the trackpad but thanks to Sony nuking their old downloads, I have no idea what they're supposed to do.

Roller is usually scrolling the website up and down, "back" button simply what it means is back to previous page.

See if you can try it as is with a suitable browser?

Cheers,

Anyway, I've tried again to install video drivers after finding a version of DDU that DOESN'T crash but I still can't seem to get video drivers to actually install, the installer finishes but then after a reboot I have Code 28 in Device Manager telling me no video driver is installed.

I found some files for the Video and Jog Dial. Not sure if they will work but the internal .inf's give:
[NVidia.Mfg]
%NVidia.Nv17M.2% = nv4, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0175&SUBSYS_8110104D

; Localizable Strings
;
NVidia = "NVIDIA"
NVidia.Nv17M.2 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 420 Go (Sony)"

**AND**
[Strings]
SONYCORP="Sony Corporation"
USB\VID_054C&PID_0096.DeviceDesc="Sony USB Jog Dial"
SJUSB.SvcDesc="Sony USB Jog Dial (sjusb.sys)"
SJUSBDiskName="Sony USB Jog Dial Install Disk"

Will post them to Vogons drivers. Tried to upload the video driver to Archive org but it was rejected as "copyright material" seems no Nvidia drivers are allowed there...

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-11-04, 01:45:

Anyway, I've tried again to install video drivers after finding a version of DDU that DOESN'T crash but I still can't seem to get video drivers to actually install, the installer finishes but then after a reboot I have Code 28 in Device Manager telling me no video driver is installed.

One possibility is you could try re-installing windows XP after wiping the drive. Do you have the VAIO XP rescue disc? Either way XP iso's are pretty easy to find.

You could also try slipstreaming the nvidia drivers you've found into the XP install via nlite if you elect to try a re-install.

jfarms wrote on 2021-11-04, 15:59:

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-11-04, 01:45:

Anyway, I've tried again to install video drivers after finding a version of DDU that DOESN'T crash but I still can't seem to get video drivers to actually install, the installer finishes but then after a reboot I have Code 28 in Device Manager telling me no video driver is installed.

One possibility is you could try re-installing windows XP after wiping the drive. Do you have the VAIO XP rescue disc? Either way XP iso's are pretty easy to find.

You could also try slipstreaming the nvidia drivers you've found into the XP install via nlite if you elect to try a re-install.

I actually did have to reinstall XP as I somehow broke my install. I wish I had the Vaio rescue disc but unless it's been uploaded to Archive.org, I doubt it's out there anywhere.

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-11-04, 23:12:

I actually did have to reinstall XP as I somehow broke my install. I wish I had the Vaio rescue disc but unless it's been uploaded to Archive.org, I doubt it's out there anywhere.

Which version of XP did you install ? If it includes SP3 that could be why the Graphics driver fails to install.
XP and XP SP1 can use graphics drivers which support DirectX 8, as of Sp2 and Sp3 they need to support DirectX 9.0 iirc.
Here is the Sony Jog Wheel XP driver: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 1&menustate=0,0
will upload and attach link to the 420 Go in a few, still have to double check some stuff...
Ok is here: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 2&menustate=0,0

will add another driver that should support DirectX 9 AND support many Laptops with Nvidia Mobile GPU shortly..

Horun wrote on 2021-11-05, 00:50:

Which version of XP did you install ? If it includes SP3 that could be why the Graphics driver fails to install. XP and XP SP1 c […]
Show full quote

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-11-04, 23:12:

I actually did have to reinstall XP as I somehow broke my install. I wish I had the Vaio rescue disc but unless it's been uploaded to Archive.org, I doubt it's out there anywhere.

Which version of XP did you install ? If it includes SP3 that could be why the Graphics driver fails to install.
XP and XP SP1 can use graphics drivers which support DirectX 8, as of Sp2 and Sp3 they need to support DirectX 9.0 iirc.
Here is the Sony Jog Wheel XP driver: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 1&menustate=0,0
will upload and attach link to the 420 Go in a few, still have to double check some stuff...
Ok is here: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 2&menustate=0,0

will add another driver that should support DirectX 9 AND support many Laptops with Nvidia Mobile GPU shortly..

It is SP3, I generally only install SP3 when doing fresh XP installs because I figured there was no reason to go back to SP1 or SP2.

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-11-05, 01:43:

It is SP3, I generally only install SP3 when doing fresh XP installs because I figured there was no reason to go back to SP1 or SP2.

No problem ! One quirk is that some older OEM stuff was never designed to support newer OS versions than the OEM intended.
The driver chinny22 pointed to will not work under Sp3 but most likely would if original XP or Sp1 (maybe even SP2).
Same probably with that driver from Sony I posted to the library for your exact Laptop and video, but is dated 2002 for XP and XP Sp1.
So you need a XP SP3 compatible driver for GF 420 Go. Am working on one but it may not work with a Sony....
added try this one for video:
try this for Video: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 853&menustate=0

Horun wrote on 2021-11-05, 02:50:

No problem ! One quirk is that some older OEM stuff was never designed to support newer OS versions than the OEM intended. The d […]
Show full quote

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-11-05, 01:43:

It is SP3, I generally only install SP3 when doing fresh XP installs because I figured there was no reason to go back to SP1 or SP2.

No problem ! One quirk is that some older OEM stuff was never designed to support newer OS versions than the OEM intended.
The driver chinny22 pointed to will not work under Sp3 but most likely would if original XP or Sp1 (maybe even SP2).
Same probably with that driver from Sony I posted to the library for your exact Laptop and video, but is dated 2002 for XP and XP Sp1.
So you need a XP SP3 compatible driver for GF 420 Go. Am working on one but it may not work with a Sony....
added try this one for video:
try this for Video: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 853&menustate=0

Thank you so much, that one finally worked when all the previous ones didn't!

Has any one mentioned that this is an XP fetcher yet 😉

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-11-06, 00:37:

Horun wrote on 2021-11-05, 02:50:

try this for Video: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 853&menustate=0

Thank you so much, that one finally worked when all the previous ones didn't!

Great ! Made a note on the two drivers in the library about XP.

Did the Jog wheel driver work ??

Horun wrote on 2021-11-06, 16:10:

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-11-06, 00:37:

Horun wrote on 2021-11-05, 02:50:

try this for Video: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 853&menustate=0

Thank you so much, that one finally worked when all the previous ones didn't!

Great ! Made a note on the two drivers in the library about XP.

Did the Jog wheel driver work ??

It seems to work? It installed a driver, but I don't know how to actually use the thing software-wise.