Dell Inspiron 2500 Screen Issues

I have a Dell Inspiron 2500 which I had to run an XP Home repair on. Obviously, none of the drivers which were installed were removed - however i'm having problems with the screen now.

Initially, I was able to get 16 bit 640x480 mode, but now that i've 'updated driver' I get a black screen once Windows is logged in. In Safe Mode I can get the 640x480 16 bit mode back, but any attempts to get a better driver have proved useless. If i boot it into VGA Mode, I'm able to get up to 1024x768 in True Colour - but this of course isn't convenient considering it's a customer's laptop.

Ideas please? Thanks in advance.

 

Dell uses several different video cards - even within the same models. Have you verified that the correct model is being used?

I'd check the repair install integrity using SFC.EXE /SCANNOW, then I'd start looking to see if the driver was corrupted or if there's some issues with the hardware.

It's been my experience that you can spend a lot of time troubleshooting this, or you can backup the data and then do a clean install with the Dell CD's. If the clean install doesn't fix it - then it's likely a hardware issue.

 

If you enter the Service Tag number at Support it will tell you the make and model of the graphics adapter in your machine:
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen

The problem might not be the drivers though, it may be the graphics "Control Panel" that cannot run the drivers correctly (the control panel usually has an icon in the System Tray). When you have downloaded the new drivers or even if you want to reinstall the drivers from the Dell CD, uninstall any graphics listing in Add/Remove Programs first, then try installing/reinstalling the new drivers.

If you get to a point where you have uninstalled the program and drivers, then reboot, the New Hardware wizard will run. If you cannot direct the wizard to the driver's folder, click Cancel, then run the driver installation program when you get to the desktop.

Matt