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M90, FX2500M and Display instability

post #1 of 12
5/7/07 at 5:42pm
Thread Starter 
I've been searching the site for about an hour now, but haven't been able to find my issue (that is known to Dell).

I run dual Dell 2001FP monitors off a D-Dock. Analog is monitor 1, DVI is monitor 2.

Computer BIOS - A06
Video BIOS - 5.71.122.16.16
Video Driver - 8.4.2.9
OS - XP SP2

The following problems seemed to get worse after installing 4GB of RAM, although going back to 2GB of RAM didn't make them better.

Docked:

I can't always set the DVI connected monitor to 1600x1200, the resolution keeps defaulting back to 640x480. Half the time I can get 1600x1200 the other half I'm stuck at 1280x1024.

I can always expect to have to set the display back up for monitor #1. Two scenarios play out either monitor #1 is "off" or it's displaying a duplicate of monitor #2.

I also have to constantly switch monitor 1 w/ monitor 2. Monitor 2 likes to think it's on the left hand side. The easy solution is to swap the cables around, but I shouldn't have to do this.

Undocked:

Sometimes after shutting down and undocking or just a plain old reboot the display reverts back to 640x480 and refuses to run at 1920x1200. The highest it will go is 1440x900(IIRC). If I reboot a half dozen times it'll work right letting me set the display to 1920x1200.

Thanks,
Travis
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post #2 of 12
5/7/07 at 5:52pm
Have you tried different drivers?
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post #3 of 12
5/7/07 at 5:57pm
well the first thing I would attempt would be to uninstall the drivers & remove the display adapter from device manager, run driver cleaner, reboot, do not allow windows to try & find the drivers & reinstall the original driver set.

reboot, configure your display(s) as you want them & then apply, reboot & see if the changes stick.

You might also want to look into flashing to the GTX BIOS (not sure if the 2500M is compatible with the XG driver set) and installing the more recent modded drivers.

Dell rarely updates their video divers & that is even more s for the FX series.

If the 1st solution does not work get back to us for some more troubleshooting.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745
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post #4 of 12
5/7/07 at 6:01pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ACHlLLES
Have you tried different drivers?
Yes - no luck.
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post #5 of 12
5/7/07 at 6:04pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolApathy
well the first thing I would attempt would be to uninstall the drivers & remove the display adapter from device manager, run driver cleaner, reboot, do not allow windows to try & find the drivers & reinstall the original driver set. reboot, configure your display(s) as you want them & then apply, reboot & see if the changes stick. You might also want to look into flashing to the GTX BIOS (not sure if the 2500M is compatible with the XG driver set) and installing the more recent modded drivers. Dell rarely updates their video divers & that is even more s for the FX series. If the 1st solution does not work get back to us for some more troubleshooting. http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745
I've done that minus the driver cleaner. When my company dell rep admitted they knew of a problem with these things and the engineers were "working on it". I figured I'de do some more research which lead me to here. Also, going form BIOS A04 to A05 and finally A06 seems to be making the problems occur more frequently. I've been looking at the GTX BIOS flash, after a little more reading I may just try that.
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post #6 of 12
5/7/07 at 6:13pm
-Driver cleaner may solve your problem. Removing video drivers in XP always leaves crumbs...
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post #7 of 12
5/8/07 at 1:47pm
Thread Starter 
Well, after a day of using it, I can say drive clean + reload drivers failed. Problem still exists.

I'll have to look in to reflashing for GTX.
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post #8 of 12
5/8/07 at 6:45pm
Have you tried using 16bit color depth for the two screens? (I found with my desktop PC that I can run my two screens together at their native resolutions - 1600x1200 and 1920x1200 - only if I set the color depth to 16bit.)

Flashing the GPU bios seems a bit drastic to me

Ginga
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post #9 of 12
5/8/07 at 7:03pm
GPU BIOS flashing is a simple process & offers many advantages including increased performance, driver support, and stability.
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post #10 of 12
5/8/07 at 7:37pm
Thread Starter 
Before I consider reflashing the BIOS, I loaded the 165.01 drivers.

I'll see how things go the next day or two, so far things seem to work minus a screen hiccup that lasts less than 1 second every couple hours.
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post #11 of 12
5/8/07 at 9:32pm
Yup, I've had that problem before on a couple of machines. It was always drivers
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post #12 of 12
5/9/07 at 1:05pm
Thread Starter 
Well, that didn't fix it.

I also, still have issues with the screen not refreshing when Excel 2007 VBA editor is up. I can move another window or mouse over the area and it'll refresh but not until then.

Considering there is a lot of different versions to try, can anyone point me to a version that has been stable for them?

I'm also wondering if I just have a video card problem.
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