Hi,

I'm using a Sony PCG-K13 laptop. It uses the Radeon IGP 345M chipset, for
video display, I guess. That terminology might not be quite right.

Trying to use Google Earth causes a severe system crash, forcing Windows to
quit altogether. The error message says there is a problem with the driver, I
think.

At first, I thought there might be a driver corruption problem, or a hard
disk directory error, or something. But now that I've googled around, it
looks like the driver for the video display is obsolete. It also looks like
neither Sony nor ATI has updated the driver, and probably never will.

I guess Sony wants me to buy a new Sony laptop. That isn't going to happen.
If I knew then what I know now, I would not have bought a Sony.

So, maybe Google Earth just won't work on my computer.

On some forums, users have suggested an independently developed (hacked,
apparently) driver update on

http://www.omegadrivers.net/

I don't know if this is a good idea. I don't know if this is a trustworthy
site.

Advice? Suggestions?

Thanks,


Tim

The site is OK

Its not neccessarily a Sony thing, since Laptop manu. supply the drivers
they may not update them after a certain period

"Sensitive New Age Thug" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote in message news:36A9C951-C91C-4FAF-BBA4-(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> I'm using a Sony PCG-K13 laptop. It uses the Radeon IGP 345M chipset, for
> video display, I guess. That terminology might not be quite right.
>
> Trying to use Google Earth causes a severe system crash, forcing Windows
> to
> quit altogether. The error message says there is a problem with the
> driver, I
> think.
>
> At first, I thought there might be a driver corruption problem, or a hard
> disk directory error, or something. But now that I've googled around, it
> looks like the driver for the video display is obsolete. It also looks
> like
> neither Sony nor ATI has updated the driver, and probably never will.
>
> I guess Sony wants me to buy a new Sony laptop. That isn't going to
> happen.
> If I knew then what I know now, I would not have bought a Sony.
>
> So, maybe Google Earth just won't work on my computer.
>
> On some forums, users have suggested an independently developed (hacked,
> apparently) driver update on
>
> http://www.omegadrivers.net/
>
> I don't know if this is a good idea. I don't know if this is a trustworthy
> site.
>
> Advice? Suggestions?
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> Tim

It's me, the OP, replying to myself.

I've solved the problem, without touching the video driver. If anyone else
is having a similar issue, try this first.

Partly by accident, partly from ignorance, I was launching Google Earth in
DirectX mode. This causes a severe crash, memory dump and shutdown, followed
by an error message indicating there's a problem with my video card driver.

It goes away if I launch Goggle Earth in OpenGL mode. These are two
different options in Start:All Programs:Google Earth:

I hope this might be helpful to someone.

Tim