Vista RTM - HP nw8000 display not working

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dagroove

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Wannabe Geek

#10497 25-Nov-2006 21:10

Hello all,

I installed Vista Ultimate RTM on my HP nw8000 yesterday. Finally got the login screen after a couple of reboots.

After login, Vista correctly recognized my graphic chipset as an "ATI Mobility FireGL T2" and installed a Microsoft supplied WDDM driver, asking to reboot. After reboot, the green progress bar was show, after that the screen went blank. Had to power off manually after waiting a couple of minutes and reboot "last known good".

I also tried the ATI Beta Vista drivers and the latest Omega driver, same result for all of them.

Any good ideas?

Thanks
Chris

chiefie

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#53664 26-Nov-2006 10:33

have you tried using external monitor to see the content when the lcd is blank?

I have this problem with all vista (b2, cpp, prertm) that ATI MR9200 doesn't get the right driver installed and fudged up the display on LCD, it is like the Vista thinks the LCD panel is at 1600x1200 or something, and displaying 1680x1050 into that space. Virtually unviewable.

But when plugging external monitor, it display fine on my 1680x1050 external LCD screen.

I blame both ATI and MS for not properly testing display drivers. Sure I won't get Aero stuff like that, but at least make the basic display driver works!!!

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bradstewart

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#53690 26-Nov-2006 15:18

chiefie: I blame both ATI and MS for not properly testing display drivers. Sure I won't get Aero stuff like that, but at least make the basic display driver works!!!

Microsoft do not make the drivers. They are supplied by the maufacturers and they have to make do with what they are given. They cannot force the companies to make 'better' drivers that support more or older hardware.

If Microsoft were forced to make the drivers then Vista would have been another 5 years being developed given the amount of hardware out there.

If they make a driver then generally the device in question will work. But again Microsoft can't test every driver and every device.

dagroove

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#54104 29-Nov-2006 03:19

chiefie: have you tried using external monitor to see the content when the lcd is blank?

Yes, I tested this, however only with a 1280x1024 TFT (tried both DVI and VGA). I will retry it tonight with a CRT which should probably sync to more resolutions and frequencies.

However, if a messed up resolution or sync frequency would be the problem, I would have expected to see a blank screen, but to hear the Windows "pling" sound after waiting a bit. However no sound is played and disk activity stops maybe 8-10 seconds after the screen goes blank. I checked the event logs after the reboot to "last known good" - nothing special.

dagroove

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#54109 29-Nov-2006 08:13

dagroove: I will retry it tonight with a CRT which should probably sync to more resolutions and frequencies.

However, if a messed up resolution or sync frequency would be the problem, I would have expected to see a blank screen, but to hear the Windows "pling" sound after waiting a bit. However no sound is played and disk activity stops maybe 8-10 seconds after the screen goes blank. I checked the event logs after the reboot to "last known good" - nothing special.

Just tested this with a CRT monitor, same result - blank screen after the green progress bar.

Any other ideas?

bradstewart

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#54136 29-Nov-2006 11:05

Press F8 before the loading screen and enter safe mode. Use the device manager to uninstall the driver and reboot. See if that makes a difference.

dagroove

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#54257 30-Nov-2006 05:36

bradstewart:
Press F8 before the loading screen and enter safe mode. Use the device manager to uninstall the driver and reboot. See if that makes a difference.

Made no difference, however I found the solution:

I disabled all hardware not absolutely necessary (parallel ports, infrared, ...) and the Microsoft Fire GL driver started working.

Reenabled everything step by step and found out that the problem was a PCMCIA ISDN card from Eicon (DIVA Pro). This card was also recognized by Vista and supplied with a Microsoft driver, but does not seem to work together with the Fire GL driver.

If I remove it or disable it in the device manager, everything works.

Best regards
Christian