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willhandley

4 Posts

14929

February 9th, 2005 16:00

Cannot switch to external monitor

Laptop is an Inspiron 8500 with NVIDIA GeForce4 4200 Go card 64mb, WUXGA display.

After reinstalling XP Pro (and all drivers)  I can no longer switch to an external monitor or to a projector using Fn-F8.  I did this every day before reinstalling XP; and this is the only change I've made. I'm sure this is some configuration issue, but three days with Dell Support has not gotten me any further.

When I do Fn-F8, the laptop monitor goes blank, the green "signal present" indicator on the external monitor comes on briefly, than goes back out. The external monitor remains blank. When I push Fn-F8 again, the laptop monitor comes back on.

Any help appreciated.

 

   

TDunn

379 Posts

February 9th, 2005 16:00

Sound like the resolution is out of range for the CRT.
 
.................TD

mudder4

6 Posts

February 9th, 2005 16:00

Sounds like the same problem I got. I got a inspiron 1000 and when I toggle fn+f3 on my system the srceen on the laptop goes blank and the image appears on the projector. Heres the kicker, the image windows xp and the blue line that goes across the srceen show up but as soon as that screen is done thats it goes blank, then I can't get my laptop back. Go figure

willhandley

4 Posts

February 9th, 2005 17:00

Thank you, you're right, my laptop was at 1920x1200; once I dropped back to 1024x768, it works.
 
Now that you mentioned that, I remember that before reinstalling XP, the laptop would _automatically_ switch to a lower resolution when I switched to the exernal monitor. Apparently it no longer automatically switches, just refuses to switch. 
 
This gets me going again, and I can live it, but just out of curiosity, does anyone know why the laptop no longer automatically changes the laptop resolution when I switch to an external monitor that won't support the laptop's resolution?  This is the same external monitor, same resolution that I was using before reinstalling XP.  Must be some configuration setting somewhere.

mudder4

6 Posts

February 9th, 2005 19:00

It's an older sharpvision, I'm toggling before windows start.  I'm going to check what kind of resolution this thing has.

TDunn

379 Posts

February 9th, 2005 19:00

willhandley,
 
Try this....connect the monitor and power on before booting your system.
Windows should detect the external display and start up in the correct
resolution to work properly for you.
 
mudder4,
 
I'm not clear on your "kicker" description.  Are you toggling Fn+F3 after Windows starts?
What kind of projector are you using.  Make sure it is XGA (1024x768).  Many low end
models are only SVGA (800x600) and don't scale up very well if at all.
 
........................TD

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