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Video Card Issue

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by pjcannon 2 views

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Dell Inspiron 8500 laptop, Radeon 7000 Video Card, Windows XP Home SP2. The Video card does not recognize the notebook LCD screen as being connected when booted to the desktop. The FN/F8 key will not switch to the laptop LCD from The attached monitor. Under display settings, the attached LCD Monitor is shown as attached and checked off as the primary monitor as well as extend my desktop to this monitor is checked off. Both these options are greyed out & cannot be unchecked. Device manager shows 4 default monitors. I can boot into safe mode & laptop monitor is then active. I uninstalled the the ATI Video Driver and installed the latest driver posted by Dell, no change. I deleted the 4 default monitors from device manager and uninstalled the video driver and on reboot XP reinstalls the previous settings. I am thinking there must be a registry setting that keeps the attached monitor set as the primary and is keeping it greyed out. If anyone knows how to change this or has any other ideas I would appreciate suggestions.

4 replies

by hal 9000

More likely this is a Hardware Feature that disabled the LCD screen whenever there is a external Monitor plugged into the SVGA Socket. Most NB's that went into Docking Stations did this and would ignore the fitted monitor when inserted into the Docking station.

You might find the answer to your question here as there are both the Service Manual & Owners Manual listed here for download

http://tinyurl.com/e84kl

Col

by w2ktechman

I have had this problem before, and you are looking in the wrong place. Download the ATI desktop manager (I think thats what it is called) and set preferences there.
I have worked on dozens of the same model notebook that worked fine, with a few that would only work with the desktop manager. I spent many hours trying to figure it out first, and finally went with this instead.

by pjcannon

If I disconnect the external monitor & boot I get no display(black screen) unless I go to safe mode. Safe mode boot comes up on the laptop screen wether or not an external monitor is connected. If I connect the monitor after allowing time for boot up, I get the windows dekstop which is why I was thinking a software issue. There is just one hardware profile no docking station hardware profile I will try the ATI Desktop & see what happens thanks.

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