Windows 7 Won't Detect My Primary Monitor

[Coda]

I'm using a Sager 3790 notebook with 2 GB of memory, a Centrino 1.7 Ghz and a Mobility Radeon 9700.

Installation went perfectly. The card was detected by Windows Update and drivers were isntalled for it. They're from December 2008. Okay, that's fine and dandy... BUT...

As soon as the drivers install the highest resolution available on the primary display is 640x480. Why? Because Windows won't/can't detect my primary monitor. It shows up as an "Unknown display device."

I can attach an external monitor and adjust its resolution all day. I can also remote into the laptop and that works fine.

I am nearly 100% confident that I cannot change the display resolution because the monitor won't detect correctly. I can't manually force an install of a monitor or change the "Unknown display device" driver because that section is grayed out in the "Advanced Settings" under the Display Resolution tab.

Any ideas?

 

[limneos]

Under Device Manager, can you uninstall the monitor and reboot so it's re-detected again?

 

[Coda]

The laptop's monitor doesn't actually show up under the Device Manager so there is nothing to remove or configure. If I uninstall the video drivers then the monitor shows up as "default monitor." If the display drivers are installed it disappears and any reference to a monitor is called "Unknown display device."

 

[angryman]

Just to clarify, are your video card drivers installed correctly?

I get the same issue as you are when I was on XP installing new nvidia drivers, they installed into the wrong directory, but once I pointed windows to the correct location it resolved itself.

If it is the monitor for sure, you might try manually pointing windows to the "windows" dir, it should find the base driver for the OS and fix the issue.

Side note: what monitor model is it?

 

[Coda]

Just to clarify, are your video card drivers installed correctly?

I get the same issue as you are when I was on XP installing new nvidia drivers, they installed into the wrong directory, but once I pointed windows to the correct location it resolved itself.

If it is the monitor for sure, you might try manually pointing windows to the "windows" dir, it should find the base driver for the OS and fix the issue.

Side note: what monitor model is it?

The video card drivers are installed correctly.

Let me clarify. We're talking about the LCD on the laptop. The LCD is not incorrectly getting identified. It's not getting detected at all. There is no wrong monitor to force a driver change to. There's no monitor at all. It is acting like Windows doesn't know it exists when the graphics drivers are installed.

If I uninstall the video drivers then Windows detects the video card as a default display adapter with up to 1440 x 1050 display resolution or something like that; the generic driver with no acceleration. At that point the monitor is then also detected as a "default monitor" and I can change the resolution. As a side note, I'm not able to change the driver of "default monitor" either. Those setting tabs are grayed out.

 

[angryman]

Ah, I see now!

You are not alone with this issue, try this:

Hook up your external monitor, then hit your mode switch button, it should bring your LCD back.... in your bios, change the default monitor setting.

See if that works... your LCD might go blank again if you reboot, so you might have to access your bios with the external.

 

[Coda]

Ah, I see now!

You are not alone with this issue, try this:

Hook up your external monitor, then hit your mode switch button, it should bring your LCD back.... in your bios, change the default monitor setting.

See if that works... your LCD might go blank again if you reboot, so you might have to access your bios with the external.

Hitting my switch mode button doesn't do anything. The external monitor is identified (when you hit the "Identify" button) as "1." With an external monitor hooked up, only one monitor is recognized at all to exist; just the external one. I can change its resolution, it is accelerated; everything works.

Changing the BIOS settings from LCD/CRT/LCD+CRT are the only options I have. I've tried all three extensively with different combinations of drivers and external monitors.

 

[angryman]

Sorry, I am half asleep, I was looking to solve a "blank" or dead LCD off your laptop, but I re-read that its displaying at 640x480 at least.

I've been checking around and does not seem to be a common issue, it's obviously the drivers, even though you say they are correctly installed (I thought mine were when it was stuck in 640x480, but redirecting fixed it, but I guess if you are sure?), if you have not resolved this by the time I wake up I will take a look before work, with a fresh mind.

 

[Coda]

Sorry, I am half asleep, I was looking to solve a "blank" or dead LCD off your laptop, but I re-read that its displaying at 640x480 at least.

I've been checking around and does not seem to be a common issue, it's obviously the drivers, even though you say they are correctly installed (I thought mine were when it was stuck in 640x480, but redirecting fixed it, but I guess if you are sure?), if you have not resolved this by the time I wake up I will take a look before work, with a fresh mind.

I haven't solved it yet.

Here's what I've found out at this point. It's almost certainly a driver issue and I have a feeling there isn't going to be a solution for this. In Windows XP, the only way I could get this notebook to show the correct resolution was to hard install a monitor driver and then uncheck "show compatible modes." It wouldn't detect the correct highest resolution as compatible even though it was.

I don't think I have that option. As far as I can tell, there's no way in Windows 7 to install a device that doesn't exist.

I'll be watching this post for a few more days if anybody comes up with any other ideas. If not I'll just drop XP on there again and call it good enough.

 

[angryman]

Make sure you send a feedback report (top right of current open window, including IE8), microsoft does listen.

Radeon should be listen as well, do they not have beta drivers for windows 7 yet? I know nvidia does.

 

[Coda]

Make sure you send a feedback report (top right of current open window, including IE8), microsoft does listen.

Radeon should be listen as well, do they not have beta drivers for windows 7 yet? I know nvidia does.

I've left feedback twice on the matter. The first time I installed Windows 7 about two months ago and just a couple of days ago when I tried again. ATI does have drivers for Windows 7 but not for this card. I was just using the last release of drivers for Vista that I could find.

As another sidenote... this has been a problem with this laptop in every Windows released I've ever tried. It was a problem in 2000 and XP but in those operating systems I could just manually change the monitor driver. In Windows 7 I cannot. I never tried Vista on this laptop. At any rate, hopefully the feedback will get something resolved.

Do beta testers also get access to RC1? (release candidate 1)

 

[davehc]

I found this. It seems, whilst it does not make technical sense, that your screen needs a 75 refresh rate, rather than the default 60?
New NP3790 drivers - Page 10 - NotebookForums.com

 

[Coda]

I found this. It seems, whilst it does not make technical sense, that your screen needs a 75 refresh rate, rather than the default 60?
New NP3790 drivers - Page 10 - NotebookForums.com

Oh my gosh, Davehc. You might be a freaking genius. I'm going to try this tomorrow. This hits on all the problems I've run into and even though it isn't a fix to my problem, it sheds light on a program that will help me (hopefully) force a registry change.

It totally makes sense that my monitor is non-PNP. I didn't know that but now everything makes sense. I'm gonna go play with this and I'll let you know how it goes. You are amazing.

 

[Coda]

Well, it didn't work out. That program recognizes four different monitors that I was able to add modes to but unfortunately none of them were the active monitor. I think Windows truly believes it has no monitor attached to the system so I was adding modes to inactive monitors.

I also found another article on how to run the add hardware wizard in Vista/7 from the command line.

hdwwiz

It runs but you can't add monitors. How weird is that. I'm stumped again. I need a registry editor that allows me to add a monitor to the current/active hardware profile.

 

[whest]

drivers

Remove the external monitor go to the ati site and download the latest ati mobile vista drivers and install them - whatever update loaded isn't the latest driver because your card isn't supported by the windows 7 beta drivers and as you said it is a 2008 driver - the only drivers that will work are the ati vista drivers - install the latest and reconnect your monitor - thats all i would do and if they wont install - use compatibity mode to install :
To install a driver in compatibility mode - right click the setup.exe file - click properties - click compatibility - check run in compatibility with vista - check run as admimistrator - leave the rest blank. Start setup.exe and install.

 

[Coda]

Remove the external monitor go to the ati site and download the latest ati mobile vista drivers and install them - whatever update loaded isn't the latest driver because your card isn't supported by the windows 7 beta drivers and as you said it is a 2008 driver - the only drivers that will work are the ati vista drivers - install the latest and reconnect your monitor - thats all i would do and if they wont install - use compatibity mode to install :
To install a driver in compatibility mode - right click the setup.exe file - click properties - click compatibility - check run in compatibility with vista - check run as admimistrator - leave the rest blank. Start setup.exe and install.

Not to be a jerk, Whest, but I can't help feeling you didn't read any of the previous posts. I've done all of that and it's not the external monitor I'm having a hard time with. It's the primary monitor.

I officially gave up on it two days ago. I am now running Windows XP dual booted with Ubuntu.

 

[whest]

Sorry mate i afraid i missread yo first POST - i did read all the replys though - however, you should of tried the latest ati drivers i feel for your card or even backtracked before giving up - good luck with ubunta and xp sometimes i miss vital details as in hurry.

 

[Alguien]

Sorry for reviving this topic, but i found it by googleing because i had the same problem.

I found by myself a fix which should work.

The primary problem is that Windows, both Vista and 7 have the same issue with some laptop screens.
The problem is driver related, since it always shows up after installing the display driver (both ATI or nVidia). The monitor suddenly disappears or shows wrong information about itself on the Device Manager (doesnt show for me).

The best way to re-enable the monitor is to close laptop's lid and reopen it. It will re-enable the monitor and now it shows again on Device Manager with the corresponding display information and of course, it works properly.

 

[G2gCya]

if none works, maybe u can try to do a clean install again

 

[dusk]

I found this thread also through google. You seem to have the same problem as me.
I don't get an drivers officially from Samsung for my Samsung R50, but I managed to install all the necessary drivers. Only the GPU stuff was a little difficult because I had to mod the driver or it wouldn't install but now I have full functionality (Powerplay, Acceleration) and at least one display. This was an automatic mod tool for the ATI Catalyst suite.

The problem is, while everything works fine with the primary laptop display, once I plugin the external LG Flatron the laptop display goes black and there seems to be nothing I can do about it. If I reboot the logon screen sometimes is already on the external screen even when I remove the cabel.
The only way I could change that was through a removal of the GPU driver. The Generic Windows driver does recognise the internal display again but only as described (meaning it shows a picture but doesn't necessarily show up in the device manager nor anywhere else). Doesn't show up in the device manager and it in the change resolution menu you can access the prefernces sometimes but even than there is no way of changing the driver.

The thing is it works fine with one of the displays but both together work only at the very beginning even with extending and both in the perfect resolution. One reboot and the laptop display seemed to have disappeared into nirvana.

They only thing I think necessary would be to prefent windows form changing any driver settings to the notebooks display once it works. And after this is done I should be able to savely use the external monitor without problems.
When they both worked they only used Generic PnP monitor.sys drivers and I think if I could get the laptop display to use a special cloned one, one the os thinks is newer than any other, saved a different folder, it should work.

I have no Idea how this is doable. Any suggestions. I once managed to be at a point where I could update the driver and hoped to replace it, but I didn't really now what to change in order for Windows 7 to replace it. It was always saying the current driver is the newest one. That was true I only saved the very same monitor.sys in a different folder and tried to change release dates and version numbers.

DriverVer=06/21/2006,6.1.7100.0
to
DriverVer=06/22/2006,6.1.7101.0

Any suggestions. I will also try this close and open lid but I expect it to be as useful as pressing FN+F4. The latter only detects the external display. It really is the same as in this thread after you press detect it if at all it detects the external display. Only difference is that the generic pnp driver works fine until the "preffered" external display is attached.

FYI I don't know how to get a real driver for my internal display in XP which was the shipped OS there is also only the generic driver running.