Display Problem

[Help_Confused]

Hi guys, new user hoping someone can help me? I have a Toshiba Satellite 1800, on Windows ME & whilst I was using it recently the screen suddenly blacked out. After several attempts at restarting, the colour came back but the screen had shrunk & the colour & quality was awful.

An error msg came up telling me my Display Driver wasnt working properly & to fix the problem I should install a new one, so I did and it went back to normal & everything seemed to be ok again. It worked fine for a few days but now when I turn it on after the Toshiba logo appears it goes all black again forcing me to shut it down by the power button!

Anyone got any idea's on whats causing this and what I can do to fix the problem? Im useless when it comes to computers, so any help would be great. Thanks.

[Percy]

Well, since the problem could be either hardware or software based, the first thing I'd recommend (assuming you don't want to spend time dinking around trying to manually repair a software issue) would be to restore the system (backing up your personal files first) and then NOT install any other software for a few days and see if the problem recurs. If it does, you've most likely got a hardware issue with the onboard video/motherboard. If the problem doesn't recur then you've got a piece of software on your machine that's dinking with your display drivers.

[DARKSIDE]

Hi, and welcome. I was wondering, the computer is a laptop (notebook)? If so, when the screen has blacked out, have you tried connecting it to another screen, eg. from a desktop computer. I have looked around alittle for you, and have come up with this link. http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/13841

The model is slightly different, but in replied posts, a user has said that his computer (same model as yours) has been experiancing the problems. As for the graphics being 'awful' that would be because the computer had run into an unexpected error and would have to start over again (graphics wise). Anyhow read the first post on the link, and try what it says, you never know, could be your problem. Also the lumination on your computer might not be operational 8-D