Video driver problem (I think)

saint2e

So I'm at my parents' place getting ready for my wedding tomorrow, just in time for their laptop to start acting up. As I'm the family tech guy, I'm the only one who can fix this.

Basically the problem is that the screen goes blank where the windows logo should appear. If I start in Safe Mode, and look at the devices in device manager, I see 2 Display Adapters. If I uninstall one and reboot everything, the display works.... for a while. It then finds another device and the display turns black again. If I uninstall BOTH it does the same thing.

Same thing occurs when you replace the word "Uninstall" with "Disable" in the above paragraph. SEems like every time I boot up in Safe Mode after getting the display going blank, there's 2 devices in device manager, which I'm pretty sure is the problem.

How can I get Windows Vista 64-bit to stop installing 2 devices for the display? I'm pretty sure I've had this problem before, but the above fixed it.

Halp!

embrik

It's a laptop, eh? Something causing it to try to use the external display? Like the lid switch stuck down or a cable connected to the VGA/DVI/DisplayPort/Whatever connection?

Since it is a laptop, the second display in device manager is (almost) definitely the secondary display connection. It shouldn't matter if it's enabled or not.

The other thing to try is to use the laptop's display toggle (Like Fn+F7 or whatever) the next time it goes blank to see if it starts displaying on screen again. Additionally, if you have one, connect an external monitor the next time it blanks out.

saint2e

Yeah it's a laptop... I've tried the Function+F4 thing before, as that was my initial thought... Didn't do anything.

I'm gonna try and get a monitor or hook up the laptop to one of the TV's here and see if that makes a difference.

embrik

saint2e wrote: »

Yeah it's a laptop... I've tried the Function+F4 thing before, as that was my initial thought... Didn't do anything.

I'm gonna try and get a monitor or hook up the laptop to one of the TV's here and see if that makes a difference.

Also, it probably couldn't hurt to grab the latest display adapter drivers as well.

Primesghost

You might have gotten an updated driver from Windows Update that wasn't right for your machine. Instead of booting into safe mode, try selecting "Last Known Good Configuration".

If that works, go straight to Windows Update and hide any driver updates that are listed.

saint2e

So I'm pretty sure that its a bad driver from Windows UPdate. I cannot, for the life of me, remove it... I've tried the "gpedit.msc" method that I found online, but Windows Vista doesn't recognize it as a valid program....

Can anyone help me uninstall this driver from Windows Update for good?

Primesghost

I'm assuming that you can't do anything at all in normal boot mode (and that you've already tried "Last Know Good Configuration"). If you CAN work in normal mode, then skip the next part entirely and try opening Device Manager and rolling back your display driver (it could be another driver too by the way, try rolling back others as well). For the record, I don't THINK you can roll back drivers in safe mode, but I'm not sure you might want to check it.

Try checking to see if there are any recent system restore points. You may be able to restore it to within a few days. If that works you can then disable the update. Be aware that going too far back can cause other very serious issues with Windows. Normally I wouldn't ever advise using System Restore but in your case I think you might not be able to do anything else. Windows Update might have created a system restore point before installing the update.

EDIT: I've got a Vista computer on one of the benches here so I jumped on it and checked. You CAN roll back drivers in safe mode. So, the first thing you should try is to boot to safe mode, open device manager and open your display properties. Under the driver tab click on roll back driver. Again, it may not be the display driver causing this problem. If the Roll Back option isn't available for the display driver then try the audio driver and ethernet as well since I've seen them both cause this issue as well.