New
#1
Unable to view screen after trying to enable graphics card driver
I have a Dell M6500 Workstation, with Win 7 Pro, which includes a NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M graphics card in addition to integrated graphics (never have been able to determine what I have in that regard). The graphics card has a history of over-heating and blu-screening. The Dell Pros told me to reset back to factory settings to resolve the issue but that is only a temporary fix and the factory reset would take me back to a 10 year old version of Win 7 and I would have to reinstall the subsequent updates. As a result, I usually disable the cards' driver unless I'm doing something that requires the card.
Recently, I sought to re-enable the driver. However, that didn't work and now I can't see anything on the screen with either the graphics card or integrated graphics. During boot, a screen with graphics will come up for about 1 second and then disappear. Since pressing F12 normally gets me to boot options immediately after the memory check is done, I've tried repeatedly pressing it as soon as I start the system and for several minutes. Nothing. I have tried a Windows repair disc as well as other bootable discs but can't see anything on the screen. Kind of a tough position and I'm not sure where to go with it. The Dell Pros told that they had to modify the card to fit it on the mobo and I also can't use any driver later than the original. I thought about burning a boot disc with the driver on it and setting the driver to run at boot but haven't found the correct software to do that. Even if I did, one has to answer a number of questions when the driver executes and that's tough to do when you can't see anything on the screen.
Anyone have any ideas?