Driver/hdmi black screen/lag issues - all intertwined - pls read notes

hello everyone,

here are the pertinent details:

windows 7 pro
alienware 17
64-bit/16 GB

current stats:
C: 114 GB free of 921 GB
D: 10.4 GB free og 10.5 GB

reason for archaic OS: the laptop came from dell brand new, loaded w/windows 10 pro/ultimate/etc.

this was years ago and windows 10 had just come out, bugs and all.

i downgraded as there were too many conflicts w/chrome and i rely on that browser + apps for my work and day-to-day.

now, i cannot upgrade to 11 as i'm on 7 and not 10.

=============

a couple of weeks ago, an HDMI cable, already plugged into the TV, was then

plugged into laptop.

the laptop screen went black.

this has happened before a handful of times.

each time, it takes several reboots for the laptop to show the normal

screen again.

it seems that if i plug the cable in very quickly, the screen blinks once,

and it all comes back.

if the cable is plugged in at normal speed, the black screen happens.

after booting in safe mode and running CHKDSK as admin and SCAN NOW
commands, the laptop was back in working order.

i tried the HDMI hookup again.

this time was different.

the HDMI cable was functioning and the TV displayed images yet no sound.

i was getting an error message re: the NVIDIA Virtual Audio Device (Wave

Extensible) (WDM).

i ran a full check using PC Matic Super Shield to see what it could find.

nothing major.

the virtual audio device message persisted.

i was able to locate an older driver on NVIDIA's site for the GeForce GTX

880M, found in alienware 17 laptops.

first, i uninstalled the driver (yes, i realize this was an error).

i did a clean install of the GeForce GTX 880M driver from NVIDIA's site.

everything was back on track.

the next time i went to hook up the HDMI cable from the TV, i got the black

screen.

i got the laptop up and running yet each time, the screen was magnified.

after multiple reboots, i looked into the display properties.

somehow, the screen size had been reset to a much smaller px size.

it was corrected.

since then, everything visual has slowed.

when clicking/dragging a window, see tracks as it moves.

simple tasks like hovering over trash icon/clicking to delete a message in

gmail or hotmail taking multiple clicks at times.

videos appear in slo-mo (except for youtube and ads).

mouse movement is fine.

attempting to update the driver results in a MMC.EXE STOPPED WORKING error

message.

i cannot rollback the driver as i had uninstalled before having installed

the one from NVIDIA's site.

i do see original NVIDIA files by going into C/NVIDIA/DisplayDriver/391.35/Win8_Win7_64/International/Display.Driver although i'm not sure which .dll could help or if there's much more from the file i should use to resolve the issue.

this is extremely frustrating.

pls. advise.

many thanks.

Welcome to the forum when you connect to the tv is it set to hdmi or a station make sure its set to hdmi before connecting I had same problem with NVIDIA but if tv set to hdmi before you connect it worked.
If it cam with 10 you can put that back on as it should be register with MS or the bios then update to 11 if you want

If it is a laptop it almost certainly has a key in the firmware MSDM table which will activate either win10 or win11.

If it came with downgrade rights to win7 it probably also has a SLIC table in the bios.

you can check easily with nirsofers firmwaretables view or with rweverything.
FirmwareTablesView

thank you for your replies.

interesting hookup procedure, samuria.
i'll try that.

yes, it did come pre-loaded w/windows 10 (superlative).

yes, i was able to downgrade without any issues.

i'll reach out to MS in the event SIW2's solution was unsuccessful.

first things first...

is there no way of correcting the lag/NVIDIA issue while remaining on 7 ?

you both suggested that i revert back to 10, then upgrade to 11.

thanks again.

souz72 said:

... i cannot upgrade to 11 as i'm on 7 and not 10.

Click to expand...

No, you cannot upgrade from 7 to 11.

But you can upgrade from 7 to 10, then you can upgrade from 10 to 11.

thanks bree.

what i meant was...is there a way of resolving the lag issue without going back to 10, and then onto 11 ?

i prefer to keep the laptop at 7 for now as i'm in the middle of a couple of projects and am very short on time.

many thanks.