Display driver install probs

[Fruss Tray Ted]

I just received a used laptop yesterday with 98SE freshly preinstalled onto it and a driver cdr disk with Lan, modem and video drivers plus more. It is a Toshiba Tecra 8200 with a PIII 750mhz CPU and 256 megs ram.

Everything works fine, wireless access to wireless router, Cat5 to router and dial-up modem has an excellent connection (53,333mb/s). The problem in only with the video driver install.

I tried running the self extracting Zip file to install them and it seems to go well (as screen reports success) until I am, prompted to reboot. When I do the BIOS screens are fine but when Windows loads up to Desktop the screen is all pixelated, like squares as if there was a zoom setting set to max. The barely visible pointer is nearly an inch long or near 10x the size it should be. It's impossible to maneuver to video settings or anywhere for that matter to be able to adjust a possible setting to bring it back to normal.

Anyone seen this behavior before? And what may I possibly do to remedy?

The drivers tried are from the supplied disk AND one of same that I d/led from Toshiba's website and it is the only one available for the video for that laptop. The Zip file is named t820vid8.

Currently in Display Properties Settings I read "Display Toshiba Internal 1064x768 Panel on Trident Super VGA" and I have a choice of 16 or 256 colors. Setting it to 256 and rebooting leads to the above problems. I also tried removing all instances relating to video in Safe Mode and rebooting/reinstalling drivers to no avail.

In Device Manager I currently have 2 video entries:
1: Trident Super VGA
2: Trident Cyberblade XP [22] with yellow exclamation

There is an I/O conflict with the second device and status states:
This device cannot find any free Input/Output Range [I/O] resources to use [Code 12] Is this driver for an external monitor or is it the one I need for the LCD screen? I went to Hardware Troubleshooter but the pc freezes on me and I need to End Task or reboot.

Should I wipe and reinstall? How about entering BIOS? And with that one, how do I get into BIOS? I have a manual (cd) on order through eBay and I don't see a prompt on reboot as to what key to press. Delete does not work and F2 gives me a boot selection of 7 choices but no BIOS in them.

Thanks a bunch for any ideas you may have...

Well, Freecell is ok at 16 colors anyway... :(

Edit: Found setup with F1 key. Am browsing that for solution for now. /edit

[david eaton]

Have you had a look here (http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su/su_sc_modelLanding.jsp?ProductMenu_0=Portables&ProductMenu_1=Tecra&ProductMenu_2=1073794567&x=18&y=14&BV_SessionID=%40%40%40%400003915699.1113160441%40% 40%40%40&BV_EngineID=cccjaddegeeegddcgfkceghdgngdgnn.0&moid=1073794567&smoid=true&ct=MH&ListType=Model)

[Steve]

At this point I would boot into safe mode and remove both of those video devices in device manager and try that driver again. If that doesn't work, junk that driver and find another.

Going thru the Toshiba site and driverguide.com, I find a few different display adaptors for the Tecra. I know it's a basic question and I certainly know you're careful about these things but are you sure it's an 8200 and not an 8100? Is there a way you can determine the exact display adapter you have?

Either way you might want to try the t810vid9.exe (http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su/su_sc_dtlViewDL.jsp?soid=106461&moid=1073769806&BV_SessionID=@@@@0538420271.1113162644@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccciaddegdfifdgcgfkceghdgngdgmm.0&ct=DL) driver and see what happens.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

David,
I'm all over that site already.

Steve,
Been there, done that. Repeatedly. Haven't made any headway yet. I'm under the assumption that the second set of drivers are for the PCMCIA (sp?) card, of which there is none? or for an external monitor or the tv out RCA jack. There is acommodating ports for expansion cards, but there are none far as I can tell, other than the usb floppy drive. And, whenever I remove the items in Device Manager, they are detected on reboot and automatically reinstalled. There's no other choice but to select 'ok' and reboot to finish the install. That ain't fun enough for me... ;)

I will try the 8100 drivers first because I was just about to do a full format and reinstall anyway, so if it 'goes south' ;), I'll just wipe the slate and start fresh with my own build and not their install of Windows. The screen and 2 other places on the underside of the pc states 8200 so I don't think that will get me where I need to go. I'm hoping there is something wrong with the fresh install of 98 at this point.

But the confusion remains as to why the Trident Cyberblade XP (which is automatically detected and installed if I remove it from DM) has the yellow mark and mentions a Input/Output error due to 'no resources to use'? The BIOS setup is totally foreign to me so I don't know how to free anything up if needed. There must be someone out there who knows a bit more about Notebook BIOS'es than I do. Hopefully a Toshiba as well.

And here's the real kicker.
If I enter Windows 98 Troubleshooter through the problematic device driver properties 'Hardware Troubleshooter' button, sometimes the pc freezes and other times, just the top window does and 3 finger salute works. When the latter, I can click the 'x' upper right and move on. So this leans me towards a 'repair' or better yet, 'total' reinstall, yes?

Mee-thinks I'll be checking in 'Checkdisk' for a moment, to see if the HDD is faring well... ;) Until I do reinstall, I'll never know if the couple of 'glitches' aren't from the HDD itself or any step along the way. Who makes the HDD's for laptops?

What worries me most is a BIOS flash. Would I ruin my warranty if I tried and rendered the mobo useless? I'm not going to for now, even though it seems there is some BIOS upgrades available. At least not until I've had time to check them out..

I'm not complaining too much, it's the challenge of the problem is what's fun...

[PrntRhd]

Who makes the HDD's for laptops
Toshiba makes HDDs for laptops so I would assume they used one of theirs.
:)

[malcore]

I think the problem driver is the Super VGA entry. This driver is included with win9x installs, only supports 256 colours and does not support DirectX. You need to somehow get rid of this and replace it with the Cyberblade driver.

I would try uninstalling both in safemode. Reboot, and cancel out of 98 detecting and trying to install anything. Go to device manager, see what is listed for Display adapters (are there two entries?) If you have just one, either yellow exclamation or Super VGA, click on change or update driver and use either the show all manufacturers/devices or have disk option to install the Cyberblade driver. Don't have a 98 system in front of me to give exact procedure, but you get the idea I'm sure. ;)

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y135/malcor/tvga_win9x_driver.gif

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Windows usually reports that the install was successful but it does not fix the problem. Whenever I try to increase resolution to anything but 16 colors, the display goes to pot.

In this case, upon reboot, there is no choice. The drivers are all autoinstallers downloaded and burned to cd-r's and only 'doable' from within Windows.. :rolleyes:

[malcore]

Uninstall the cyberblade driver through Add/Remove programs. Get it off the system completely.

Reboot. Upon reboot, go to device manager and see what is listed. If just Super VGA is listed, right click it and update driver, use Have Disk option and point to file on cd-r.

If that doesn't work. Do again what I said in first paragraph. Upon reboot, go to device manager, right click Super VGA and uninstall, DO NOT REBOOT. Install Cyberblade driver from cdr.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

YEEHAW!!!

Malcore,
So good to hear from you! And with that, you deserve a kiss [on the cheek :rolleyes: ] or a big hug [that's a lil better], your choice...

There was no option in Add/Remove at all. The devices just weren't there but your advice worked anyway. The key was to not allow the reboot and rediscovery, but to force the install to see the Trident drivers prior to reboot!

Awesome!
Now in Display Properties is not only the color in 16 bit, but there's icons for 2 displays! If I want to hook up 2 monitors or one lead to a tv, it's there and waiting!

Thank you, thank you, thank you profusely.

There's even the option to go to 32bit but I ain't pressin my luck tonight... :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:

[Sylvander]

What exactly did you do to "force the install" prior to reboot?

[Fruss Tray Ted]

This post brought to you ala my 'new' notebook :)

When I removed the Trident Super VGA in Device Manager, there's a popup window that states that you need to reboot for settings to take effect. This is where the 'forced' comes in. Clicking 'no', then double clicking on the video drivers on cd-r from Toshiba, the install completes and the results were right there even before rebooting. I was a little leary about rebooting after this but crossed my fingers and rebooted anyway. The settings stuck! With dual monitor icons in Display properties even!

[Sylvander]

I thought it was necessary to right-click on the ".inf" file [one of the driver file set] and click "Install".
If you double-click on the ".inf" file the default is "Open". :confused:

Just lately I've discovered that if a less than perfect driver is installed and you point the driver installation wizard at a CD it can fail to find the better driver. Even if you point it at a folder further up the higherarchy it can fail to find it. To guarrantee it finds it, you need to point it at the folder holding the files.
Better still, you copy the files to a floppy and point it at that.

[malcore]

FTT did not have the .inf file available for the Cyberblade driver. What he had was an .exe file.

Windows 98 being plug and play was automatically installing a suitable (although inferior) driver from it's default driver archives. This driver was being installed upon reboot after removing it in device manager. When the Cyberblade driver was installed Windows was not replacing the Super VGA driver with the Cyberblade driver but was installing it alongside the Super VGA driver, thus a conflict arose (reason for the inability to find I/O range resources).

So, removing the Super VGA driver in Device Manager, not rebooting (thus not allowing Windows to install the Super VGA driver) and installing the Cyberblade driver using the executable was the ONLY way to "replace" the Super VGA driver with the more desirable Cyberblade driver.

Great that it worked out FTT, but I'll pass on the hugs and kisses and wait for a time when you can take me to your fishing hole and supply me with a few American pijos.;)

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Malcore,
You seem to prefer fewer colors (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y135/malcor/home.jpg). I like just a couple more crayons (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/M99ER/3b95374f.jpg)... :D

[Sylvander]

I'm struggling with a problem that may be the same or similar.
See http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=36519
Any chance of helping out?

[Fruss Tray Ted]

I'm almost late for work but I just read that thread and think it's because of a setting in BIOS. Try there for something that isn't enabled and I'll check on the thread later today when I return.