How do I determine what hardware is in my laptop?

Question

I've bought an HP Envy 15 laptop, used, from Amazon. It had Windows 8 installed, so I tried installing Windows 7 instead. There were a lot of problems with that installation (the screen flickered, wireless wouldn't work regardless of what drivers I used, etc), so I installed Windows 8.1 instead. However, a lot of the drivers that came pre-installed on my laptop appear to be gone now.

For example, although there's a sticker on my laptop that says Nvidia GeForce, and I remember seeing GeForce as my graphics adapter in the dxdiag when I ran it on the original Windows installation, right now it says Intel HD 4600 for the graphics adapter. A downloaded Nvidia graphical driver doesn't install, because it says it doesn't recognize my video card. How can I find out what my graphics card is without opening my laptop up?

Solution

you have two cards., the intel card runs the monitor. you have to go into the GeForce settings with their software and set the NVidia card as the primary for all applications. the intel will still run your laptop screen

Comments

[joeqwerty]

Speccy, HWInfo, Belarc, etc., etc., etc., blah, blah, blah...

[and31415]

You need to find out the exact model. Then go to the official HP support page, look for your laptop, and download the required drivers.

[root]

Another great alternative I use frequently for this is cpu-z

[Matthew Williams]

@root | I've also used that work. Work very well.

[sg.cc]

Both dxdiag and speccy list my device as Intel HD 4600. Do these methods look at the hardware itself, or just the driver running on it?

[DavidPostill]

Please read the question again carefully. Your answer does not answer the original question. The OP is unable to install the Nvidia software as it doesn't recognize his card.

[Asanka Indrajith]

The Intel video is part of the main CPU. Googling shows that this HP came with a Nvidia card as the main video so there should be TWO video cards. As others have stated, look at your sticker, get the exact model number and go do HP's site to get the correct driver.