I've realized that this is a O/S problem and not solely a laptop problem. I'm gonna move this thread into the O/S section.
My neighbor gave me an old laptop of hers. It's a Dell 5150 2.66Ghz CPU, 40 GB HD, 512MB Ram, Win XP Home (SP2), and FX5200go Video card.. She hadn't used it in years since the LCD screen was broken. She couldn't even find the power brick.
I took it and was able to buy a new power brick and used SXGA LCD. I got the brick yesterday and charged it up. I plugged the laptop into an Analog cable for a 20" display I have for testing PC's on my workbench. After a few tries, I was able to get it to boot and see the display. It seemed that it wouldn't show the display the first few times, but it worked fine after that.
Well, the used LCD screen came today and I installed it. The thing is, it is a SXGA vs. the XGA screen that was in there. I didn't know what resolution the original screen was, but I figured it was XGA. I figured that I'd probably like the SXGA better, and wouldn't be happy 'stepping down' to an XGA screen if it did have a SXGA. Well, when I finished the swap I booted it up only to see the Win XP logo during load, then it went black (backlight still lit though).
Remembering the problem I had with getting the second screen to work, I tried rebooting it a few times, but still no luck. So, I once again plugged it into the 20" display, and figured that I had messed things up when I set the screen to 1600x1200 while messing with the laptop and it probably couldn't boot because the resolution was set too high. The laptop worked on the second display and I noticed that the primary LCD was set for the XGA resolution, so the 1600x1200 resolution shouldn't have been the problem. XP saw the new screen and gave me options to raise the resolution. I set the display for the max. res. (1440x900?) and rebooted. Now the 20" display showed the desktop with no icons (I'm guessing it was an 'extended desktop'). The laptop screen still shows blank. I disconnected the 20" screen and rebooted a few more times. No good.
Getting aggravated, I booted into safe mode and the screen worked fine. I rebooted and nothing. I rebooted into safe mode and cranked the resolution, rebooted: nothing... I rebooted into safe mode and lowered the resolution to 800x600, rebooted: nothing.
I don't know what I am doing wrong. So, I came here. If anyone can suggest what I need to do in order to get the screen to work normally in Windows, it would be GREATLY appreciated. Could it be that the FX5200Go isn't strong enough to power two displays and it still is outputting to the aux. analog output? Maybe I need to tap a key to get back to the regular display as the primary output? I doubt it, since I don't remember tapping any key in order to get it to the second display the first time (although, as I said, it did take a few reboots to get it to work). Maybe I should download the latest drivers and install them (from the second display, while using a USB drive)? I admit it, I don't know what to try at this point.
UPDATE: It seems that I can use the laptop with the external monitor fine. The problem is that I still can't get the screen to display anything after the WinXP loading screen. While using the external monitor, I see that the external monitor is 'Number 1' when I hit 'identify'. I don't know how to swap it. Also, when I look at the extend my desktop, I can move my mouse way off the right side of the screen (where it won't show back up unless I move quite a bit to the left), and yet nothing gets displayed on the Laptop LCD.
UPDATE II: Ugh... Since I was unable to uncheck 'activate' on the external monitor, I disabled the external monitor and set the laptop monitor as default. Now, I still don't see anything on the laptop LCD (after the boot / O/S loading screen, other then a backlight) and the external no longer finds any signal from the laptop. While safemode works fine, it only shows the one monitor and there are no adjustments to it other then resolution and color depth (16 or 32 bit).
UPDATE III: I learned about Fn+F8 and was able to get both monitors working again. I have also learned that if I go to Display Properties > Advanced > Nvidia properties: I can set the displays to 'clone' each other. I still can't get the Laptop LCD to work though. I know that it must be an O/S problem because I ran Knoppix on it and it worked fine. I'm ready to see if I can order the recovery disks.
-Thanks, Ken
My neighbor gave me an old laptop of hers. It's a Dell 5150 2.66Ghz CPU, 40 GB HD, 512MB Ram, Win XP Home (SP2), and FX5200go Video card.. She hadn't used it in years since the LCD screen was broken. She couldn't even find the power brick.
I took it and was able to buy a new power brick and used SXGA LCD. I got the brick yesterday and charged it up. I plugged the laptop into an Analog cable for a 20" display I have for testing PC's on my workbench. After a few tries, I was able to get it to boot and see the display. It seemed that it wouldn't show the display the first few times, but it worked fine after that.
Well, the used LCD screen came today and I installed it. The thing is, it is a SXGA vs. the XGA screen that was in there. I didn't know what resolution the original screen was, but I figured it was XGA. I figured that I'd probably like the SXGA better, and wouldn't be happy 'stepping down' to an XGA screen if it did have a SXGA. Well, when I finished the swap I booted it up only to see the Win XP logo during load, then it went black (backlight still lit though).
Remembering the problem I had with getting the second screen to work, I tried rebooting it a few times, but still no luck. So, I once again plugged it into the 20" display, and figured that I had messed things up when I set the screen to 1600x1200 while messing with the laptop and it probably couldn't boot because the resolution was set too high. The laptop worked on the second display and I noticed that the primary LCD was set for the XGA resolution, so the 1600x1200 resolution shouldn't have been the problem. XP saw the new screen and gave me options to raise the resolution. I set the display for the max. res. (1440x900?) and rebooted. Now the 20" display showed the desktop with no icons (I'm guessing it was an 'extended desktop'). The laptop screen still shows blank. I disconnected the 20" screen and rebooted a few more times. No good.
Getting aggravated, I booted into safe mode and the screen worked fine. I rebooted and nothing. I rebooted into safe mode and cranked the resolution, rebooted: nothing... I rebooted into safe mode and lowered the resolution to 800x600, rebooted: nothing.
I don't know what I am doing wrong. So, I came here. If anyone can suggest what I need to do in order to get the screen to work normally in Windows, it would be GREATLY appreciated. Could it be that the FX5200Go isn't strong enough to power two displays and it still is outputting to the aux. analog output? Maybe I need to tap a key to get back to the regular display as the primary output? I doubt it, since I don't remember tapping any key in order to get it to the second display the first time (although, as I said, it did take a few reboots to get it to work). Maybe I should download the latest drivers and install them (from the second display, while using a USB drive)? I admit it, I don't know what to try at this point.
UPDATE: It seems that I can use the laptop with the external monitor fine. The problem is that I still can't get the screen to display anything after the WinXP loading screen. While using the external monitor, I see that the external monitor is 'Number 1' when I hit 'identify'. I don't know how to swap it. Also, when I look at the extend my desktop, I can move my mouse way off the right side of the screen (where it won't show back up unless I move quite a bit to the left), and yet nothing gets displayed on the Laptop LCD.
UPDATE II: Ugh... Since I was unable to uncheck 'activate' on the external monitor, I disabled the external monitor and set the laptop monitor as default. Now, I still don't see anything on the laptop LCD (after the boot / O/S loading screen, other then a backlight) and the external no longer finds any signal from the laptop. While safemode works fine, it only shows the one monitor and there are no adjustments to it other then resolution and color depth (16 or 32 bit).
UPDATE III: I learned about Fn+F8 and was able to get both monitors working again. I have also learned that if I go to Display Properties > Advanced > Nvidia properties: I can set the displays to 'clone' each other. I still can't get the Laptop LCD to work though. I know that it must be an O/S problem because I ran Knoppix on it and it worked fine. I'm ready to see if I can order the recovery disks.
-Thanks, Ken
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