Video card dead on the notebook. Need to emulate native screen resolution.

[fuzzybabybunny]

My video card on my laptop is dead. It won't boot if I have the video card enabled, so I disable it in device manager and the system can boot, but it only displays at 1024 x 768 instead of the native 1280 x 768.

Is there any way to force Win 7 to do this resolution while the video card is disabled?

Right now it is running on VGASave

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VGASAVE

 

[Absolution75]

how can you disable the video card in device manager if you can't see? do you remote desktop into the laptop?

if you can see the bios/startup/it works in VGASave mode, then its highly unlikely that the chip is dead. a more likely senario is that you're drivers are corrupt/need to be installed/updated

have you tried running driver cleaner & installing the latest drivers?

 

[Fox5]

Yeah, this is most likely just a driver issue, not failed hardware. Go into device manager and uninstall the graphics driver completely. Reboot and hopefully windows will reinstall the correct driver. If not, disable it again, but this time manually update it (by going through device manager and manually pointing to the correct driver file you've extracted, not just doubling clicking on an install package and hoping it works, but try that too if you haven't).

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

how can you disable the video card in device manager if you can't see? do you remote desktop into the laptop?

if you can see the bios/startup/it works in VGASave mode, then its highly unlikely that the chip is dead. a more likely senario is that you're drivers are corrupt/need to be installed/updated

have you tried running driver cleaner & installing the latest drivers?

I boot into Safe Mode which doesn't load the video card drivers, then I disabled the video card, then boot into regular mode and VGASave takes over.

There are a few of issues that make me think it's hardware:

1. The lappy has been overheating a lot.

2. It would periodically lock up with tons of screen artifacts (things would turn negative, areas of the screen would turn green, etc)

3. Right at the CMOS screen on startup I get a grid of dots on top of the regular text.

4. I tried re-installing / updating the driver, and it worked once, but the next day it locked up with #2 and now re-installing doesn't work.

 

[Fox5]

On laptops, installing driver updates from packages doesn't always work. You often have to do it manually (by browsing to the driver location from device manager and choosing the correct inf file).

Also, get a can of compressed air and try cleaning dust out of the laptop.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Sounds like faulty GPU cooling. When the video driver loads, there are extra burdens placed on the GPU, such as 3D effects for Aero, ramped up clock speed and other features. This does not occur in VGA mode, and hence the GPU runs cooler.

Try disassembling the laptop and, as Fox5 suggested, cleaning with compressed air.

There's also a chance that some of the memory for the GPU failed, and is causing your problem.

Laptop specs?

 

[tweakboy]

I believe your notebook is gone. RMA the mofu and get one back. What company you got it from.. thx,, let me know more thx,,