[ThatOneNutter]

Hi, I have a Dell Studio 1569 that's a few years old running Windows 7. Yesterday I had a problem I've never seen before with it, and I haven't been able to find this problem online. When I boot the computer, I see the bios load (the Dell icon screen), and then Windows starts to load as normal (the screen with the Windows Flag icon). As soon as Windows finishes loading, when I normally get a cursor and the account login screen, however, the screen shuts off, although I do still hear the normal sound it makes when it's finished booting up and displaying the login screen. The backlight is off too, it's not just blank. This first happened while I was just using the computer as normal, with an external monitor, and it affected both the built-in screen and the external monitor and has persisted on rebooting whether or not the external monitor is plugged in. If I interrupt the bios and run video diagnostics they do not report any errors; if I interrupt the boot to boot Windows in safe mode the computer works as normal (haven't been able to test the external monitor since safe mode doesn't seem to be compatible with it). This makes me suspect a software, rather than hardware problem (if it actually is a hardware problem this can be moved to the correct forum), but I'm not sure how to resolve it either in the bios or once I've booted into safe mode. I've already tried performing a Windows system restore to a time before the problem started and resetting to the last good configuration; neither has resulted in any changes. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks,

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Hello ThatOneNutter... and


So you say this occurred yesterday... was it the first time you've ever used an external display device?  If so, you may recall having pressed the F1 key or another one of the F keys maybe (while holding the Fn button at the bottom?) to toggle between the two or three various display "modes". 

If you can confirm that that what I'm suggesting is definitely not the issue, then I will need more time to research the problem unless someone else may have an idea. 

[Fusionbomb]

Hello ThatOneNutter... and


So you say this occurred yesterday... was it the first time you've ever used an external display device?  If so, you may recall having pressed the F1 key or another one of the F keys maybe (while holding the Fn button at the bottom?) to toggle between the two or three various display "modes". 

If you can confirm that that what I'm suggesting is definitely not the issue, then I will need more time to research the problem unless someone else may have an idea. 

[ThatOneNutter]

Hi, thanks for the suggestion - I've used the external monitor for quite a while and never had this issue before. I tried rebooting it and pressing the keys to change the display mode settings, to no avail.

[Fusionbomb]

ThatOneNutter,


Thank you for confirming that did not solve the issue.  Since you are able to get into Safe Mode with no problem, this very well could be a driver issue. 
Let's reinstall the driver. 

To uninstall your video driver completely, click Start > Control Panel > Programs and Features.  From there, select your video drivers (for me, there are 5-6 NVIDIA things I'd delete, not sure exactly what you may have). Then click Uninstall.

Let's reboot the laptop, normally (no Safe Mode).

This should force the laptop to reinstall the generic windows driver, which should now work past the login screen--if it was a settings issue with your old driver.

Download/Install the correct driver for your laptop video.

Please update us after you have tried this.  Good luck! 


Edit: In the case this does not resolve the issue...

TIP

To ensure that you receive notification of any reply to your topic please click on the Follow this topic tab at the upper right corner of the page.
 

Edited by Fusionbomb, 31 March 2015 - 09:09 PM.

[ThatOneNutter]

Hi, I looked into the graphics card drivers like you suggested - I couldn't find any in the add/remove programs dialogue, so I went to the device manager, where I found two: Intel® Graphics Accelerator HD and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470. I'm not sure how the two interact with each other, so I first disabled, and then uninstalled the ATI Mobility. When I did that I was able to boot normally, and, after a (much longer than usual waiting period), the display works as normal. However, when I plug in my external monitor, it isn't recognized at all - there's not an error message or anything, just no response and no display on the monitor while the laptop monitor continues to function normally. Do you think that this would be fixed if I download a driver for the ATI Mobility and reinstall it?

[Fusionbomb]

Do you think that this would be fixed if I download a driver for the ATI Mobility and reinstall it?

I believe so. 

[Edit: bad link...will post another...]

Edited by Fusionbomb, 01 April 2015 - 09:25 PM.

[ThatOneNutter]

Hmm, when I downloaded that and followed the instructions to install and rebooted, it reset my graphics to the same appearance as they have in safe mode (I assume this means to the default Windows driver?) and still doesn't recognize an external monitor.

[Fusionbomb]

TON,


I apologize that driver download didn't work. 


If noone else comes to the rescue and/or you're still willing to try my suggestions (lol), then let's try:
 

1. If it was better before the first link provided, you might want to uninstall driver again before trying this next link
    
2. Click here for Dell's website
   (Edit: download link is right under Format Description)

 

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you, TON

Edited by Fusionbomb, 01 April 2015 - 09:48 PM.

[ThatOneNutter]

Hmm, so I did uninstall that driver, but I'm still getting the default Windows driver with its not great display (wrong resolution, etc). I'm trying to repeat what I did before to uninstall the ATI Mobility driver from the device manager, but haven't gotten it to work yet...

[Fusionbomb]

Did you try just downloading the new driver (Click here for Dell's website)?  You may not even need to uninstall the old one for the new driver to replace it, the uninstallation was mainly just to get the display to keep going past the login screen.  However, you could also try rolling back the driver, for the resolution issue now.
 

To restore a driver to its previous version

You must be logged on as an administrator to perform these steps.

1. Open Device Manager by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Security, and then, under System, clicking Device Manager.  If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.‌

2. Double-click the category containing your device driver, and then double-click the name of the device that you want to restore to a previous driver version.

3. Click the Driver tab, and then click Roll Back Driver.

   If you are logged on as a standard user, the button will be dimmed, which means it's unavailable. You must be logged on as an administrator to roll back a driver.

Note

• If there's no previous version of the driver installed for the selected device, the Roll Back Driver button will be unavailable even if you are logged on as an administrator.

[Fusionbomb]

Hello TON,


Have you made any progress with the issue you were having?

[ThatOneNutter]

Sorry, I forgot I hadn't posted here - I tried the driver rollback, no change. Downloading the new driver from the Dell website just made the original problem of the black screen reappear, so I booted into safe mode and was able to uninstall it and get back to where I was before, but it's still clearly not the right driver and doesn't support the external monitor.

[Fusionbomb]

Hmmm... how frustrating.  I'm honestly not sure what else to suggest.  


I'm sorry I could not be of more assistance.  Hopefully someone else will chime in soon with a spiffy idea!

[ThatOneNutter]

I'm starting to wonder if there actually is a hardware problem with the second graphics card, and that the on-board diagnostics in the bios don't pick it up because they check basic functions, like color display, rather than things like resolution, video playback, and external monitor support that are more complicated. That would explain why every time I download a driver for that card and activate it there's a problem, no matter which driver I try.