Pretty Great

The model is an Advent 9915W. I recently got a MacBook and so had no use for my old Advent, so decided to wall mount my old Advent as a digital photo frame. I've done the procedure several times before, but this time something went wrong. I'm fairly certain the connector broke as the image on the display doesn't show properly. I also managed to break the wireless antenna, though I see no physical signs of damage on it.

Anywho, I was running Ubuntu 9 at the time on the Advent and so when I plugged my laptop in to my external display, it functioned fine. Windows 7 RC1 came out, so I decided I'd put that on instead of Ubuntu, so I formatted the HD. Now when I try to install W7 (or even XP), I can't because nothing appears on the external display, most likely due to lack of drivers. I reinstalled Ubuntu on it as a temporary measure since Ubuntu can deal with the driver issues.

Basically I would very much like to put Windows 7 on this machine, but can't do so because it won't show anything on the external display. I tried putting the HD in my sister's laptop, and I installed W7 on there fine, but it wouldn't let me install the drivers for my Advent on it because her laptop wasn't the same. When I put the HD back in mine it still wouldn't show on the external display.

TL;DR: Laptop display broken, want to install Windows, can't because it doesn't have the video drivers to show on external display.

Any ideas how I could install the appropriate drivers on to this laptop? Thanks.

flipbooks

I would say it's a driver problem. In windows Vista Microsoft introduced the concept of "WDDM" compliant video hardware. I'm assuming they've continued with "WDDM" in Windows 7 and I'm betting that your video hardware isn't "WDDM" compliant. See this Microsoft article.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480220.aspx

And this from Wikipedia :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows...y_Driver_Model

Also, google "WDDM download" and Windows 7 Video Driver".

Pretty Great

I tried the same thing with Windows XP and had the same result, despite XP not using WDDM, so I don't think that's the problem. Even when I use ubuntu, I don't get anything on the display until after login. Driver issues methinks.

flipbooks

Well, I'm stumped !

Madcatz

you said even on ubuntu that you have no display until the login screen comes on?

have you gone into the BIOS and checked to see if you have a display output setting? usually on the advance tab, check to see if you have that setting and see what its set too.

Pretty Great

That's the problem; I reckon I would have a display output setting, but because it's probably set to the internal display by default (which I've actually completely removed now), I can't see the BIOS because the display only gets an input once it boots into Ubuntu. Any way of editing the BIOS from within Ubuntu?

Madcatz

can you see the bios when you power the computer on with a external display hooked up?

and from Ubuntu no, if you could get it into windows, then you could try doing a bios update, sometimes they copy over the settings but sometimes they don't. Only other way would be to clear the CMOS out, usually there is a jumper to short out on laptops that resets the bios. But I couldn't honestly say where it is on an Advent, they are usually under the memory or under the keyboard.

Edit: Just thought of another thing to try, remove the battery and unplug the ac adapter from the unit, hold the power down for 30 seconds, put the battery back in and plug in the ac adapter. This does a hard reset on most laptops, which resets a corrupted bios usually.

Pretty Great

I don't see anything on the external display until Ubuntu logs in. Been looking around my motherboard and unable to find the jumper. Will try the reset.