Driver issue?

Hey guys,

My Dad uses a very old program called Lotus, so he loves this really old computer. I am pushing him to get on Excel. This is what his computer looks like one day after just opening it. Is it a driver issue? Please help!

I attached some pics to help. Hopefully they will help.

Thank you!

 

There are some very smart geeks who will read your post and you need to help them help you. You can do that by providing a bunch of important information about your computer, the programs you're running, hardware settings, etc. To do this, just follow along and I'll walk you through it.

OK, first I need you to download a program called Speccy from the following page:

http://majorgeeks.com/Speccy_d6358.html

Install the program and don't change any of the settings. Just leave them at their default settings
Run the program and let it analyze your system (takes less than 30 seconds). When it finishes click FILE >>Save As Text
Save the text file to your desktop.
Go to your desktop and open the text file with notepad (just double click on it). Edit out any personal information including serial numbers, then save it.
If you know how to archive files using the ZIP or RAR format then go ahead and archive the text file. If not, then don't worry about it, just leave the text file as it is.

Then go to http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=86880 to learn how to attach a file to your post.

Post another message in this thread with the aforementioned text file attached.

That will give people here something to work with in diagnosing your problem.

 

I see that it's a Dell Latitude D810. I run a Precision M70 which is identical except for the BIOS.

Go to the Dell Support site. On the left, under Support for home, click Start here. On the next screen, enter the Service Tag number (a combination of numbers and letters located on a tag on the bottom of the laptop). Note that any letters must be capitalized. If the Service Tag sticker is missing, you can let Dell determine the Service Tag by clicking on Detect my product. An app called Dell System Detect will download and install. Allow it to do so.

On the next screen that comes up, click on Get Drivers. You can then let Dell Analyze the computer or View all drivers for the Latitude (in case there are some that are missing) and go from there.

If there are no updates available for the Graphics driver at the Dell site, you may need to get an updated driver from the Graphics card manufacturer (in my case, it would be for an nVidia Quadro FX Go 1400 graphics card but, in your dad's case it may be an ATI Radeon — Dell used both in their laptops/mobile work stations).

 

Great.. I will give this a shot.

As for Mdonah's suggestion, I did try that. It is very hard to get to the site with the computer under this condition.. however, it was able to do a test and it said all drivers were ok. I just don't believe it.

Keep you guys posted.

Thank you.

 

ok! See attached Speccy check list. I hope this helps!

Thank you.

 

I read through the Speccy report and as I thought, your dad's Latitude has an ATI Radeon graphics card. If, as you say, the driver is OK, you should be able to go into Control Panel and change the resolution back to what it was using the ATI Radeon applet.

The Latitude can support up to 2GB (2x1GB) of PC-2 5300 RAM as well which will increase the laptops performance and would be necesssary if your dad needed to install Vista or 7 because Microsoft support for XP ends April 8th of this year. If you need instructions to do that, I can help. I "upgraded" the RAM on my Precision M70 to PC-2 6400S.

 

Something else I noticed in the Speccy report but forgot to mention. The CPU temp is running a bit high (62°C or 144°F). It's probably never been done before, but the laptop should have any dust/debris removed from the inside using compressed air and make sure the fan(s) turn freely. If the temps get to 70°C or 159°F the CPU could go into thermal failure or the system board itself could fail.

 

I found out something else a short time ago. Your dad's ATI Radeon graphics card only has 64MB of RAM. In order to run Vista or 7, he'd need a graphics card with at least 128MB. I don't know if he could get a replacement card with at least that much video RAM and the necessary driver. I also don't know if his current power supply would handle the higher end graphics card — graphics cards are the biggest power consumers.

 

Hey Mdonah,

Thank you for the reply. So I looked at the computer again today. I just want to make sure I know what I am saying is correct, so please feel free to correct me. When I go to the Dell website to check to update drivers it doesn't give me a list of anything to update or reinstall. When I go to my device manager I do not see any yellow exclamation points next to anything implying there is an issue.

I went to control panel and to display settings, like you said, this notice coems up:

"-Invalid Display Settings-

The currently selected graphics display driver can not be used. It was written for a prevous version of Windows, and is no longer compatible with this version of Windows.

The system has been started using the default VGA driver.

Please contact your hardware manufacturer to get an upgraded driver, or select one of the Microsoft provided drivers."

Also, the color quality only gives me one option when I click on it "Lowest (4 bit)" and it won't let me move the resolution.

Hopefully this information helps?

Thank you.

 

There are 3 drivers here for XP
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/product/latitude-d810
Make sure you are using the proper one of the three showing.
Speecy is showing it is an X300 so either the first or 3rd drivers under video are the correct one. Try one, reboot and see if it is fixed. If not, try the other reboot and see if it is fixed.

 

Plodr,

Thank you for responding, but I need a little more babying for this. I clicked on the link but was confused on your instructions. Sorry, would you be able to explain to me a little better? I thought there would be drivers listed to download and I only saw different computers to buy?

 

I went to the link plodr provided. What shows up on my Dell Precision M70 in Firefox 26 is the Drivers and Downloads page for the Latitude D810. As plodr said, you would scroll down the list to Video for which there are 3 drivers available viewable by clicking on the arrow next to the word Video. As plodr stated, either the first or third driver would be the correct one however, the first one is the most recent and that's the one I, personally, would choose.

When you run the installation, you'll need to restart or reboot the computer for all of the features to become available.

 

Paste this into your browser window

Code:

http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/product/latitude-d810

click the + sign in front of video and you will see 3 drivers listed available to download. Download #1 and #3 in the video list and save them to the desktop.

 

I swear that link wasn't working last time I clicked on it, but it works fine now. Unfortunately we just started receiving the 'blue screen of death'. A few times we would just restart it and it would work, but not I feel we are on our last leg. Luckily I made my Dad by a flash drive to save whatever he has been doing on that computer. We will keep trying. Regardless we were just trying to get the computer to work so he could continue until he had time to buy a new laptop.

Any ideas for how to get away from the BSOD?

 

Do you recall that I mentioned the temperature as reported by Speccy? Parts could be beginning to fail — heat is the worst enemy of electronic parts.

 

Mdonah,

Yes I do remember, I was just trying to help buy him a few more weeks with it. Does the BSOD mean it's completely done? Is there another thread I can get help with? Because at this point I just want to make sure he got everything off he needs.

Any ideas?

 

There's a highly recommended program called BlueScreenView. It reads the mimidump file generated by the BSOD and will give an idea of what caused it.

As far as file recovery, if the hard drive can still be accessed and read, there are a number of programs like Unstoppable Copier to assist you.

 

How does the Blue Screen View work? I would obviously have to download it to a flashdrive, and then do what?

 

It's a stand-alone product that doesn't require installation. You'd simply run it from the flash drive on the Latitude and there will be results that show up on screen.

 

Ok, but I'm a little confused because as soon as I turn on my computer it says it was shut down improperly and when I go to start windows it goes straight to the BSOD. How would I access my flash drive?

 

Are you using another computer to post here with? At this point, because the Latitude BSODs, it looks as if you're going to have to pull the hard drive from the Latitude and connect it to the other computer as a secondary hard drive and recover the files from it to your other computer.

The hard drive caddy on the Latitude slides out of the left side of the base after removing the two screws holding it in place with a number one Philips screw driver. To remove the hard drive from the caddy, press outward on the sides of the caddy and pop it out. Once it's out, slide the black interface adapter off and you'll have a raw 2.5 inch IDE drive that can then be used in an IDE/PATA to USB enclosure, cloning kit or docking station. The IDE/PATA to USB enclosures are inexpensive and perhaps your local RadioShack or Best Buy will have them.

 

yikes.. I really appreciate all of the help guys. Luckily we were backing the absolute vital stuff. I guess we are just going to have to go purchase another one. This one is about 10 years old. Thank you!