Graphics Driver Change May have Bricked LT (N71JQ)

Sorry if I'm going against policy here since I made a post like this in another thread but I'm getting really desperate for answers to my problem real quick (given what I say in the last paragraph).

Hey guys, anybody willing to lend a hand

So recently I was having some issues with horrible lag in a lot of my games

So I decided to revert to older drivers (since I already had the latest ones) hoping that it would solve my problems because I think I recall that after installing newer drivers, the games (Bethesda ones to be specific) started lagging.

So I went through what I had hoped to be a simple process, except now for all intents and purposes my laptop seems bricked.

So here is a breakdown of the what may have lead to this along with symptoms:

1. Thing is looking back on the manufacturer's page where I got the drivers I'm not sure the drivers were actually meant for my system (but then wouldn't my system simply not have worked in the first place). Here's a link to the page

ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Drivers and Download N71Jq

open up the vga tab. You'll see one description says "ATI Graphics Driver". It is v8.692 ..etc. The other one V8.680 says graphics drivers for WIN7 64 bit which is also the one that came in the drivers and utilities CD with my laptop.

When I had installed "v8.692" I had assumed they just made a mistake in their descriptions seeing as how they ask you for the OS installed on your system when you try to navigate to this page, but now I am not so sure.

2. Anywho, regardless I decide to uninstall it. I used an entry in the control panel programs and features section labelled ATI Catalyst install manager. I choose it and it guides me through a bunch of screens. The drivers are uninstalled (screen reverts to crappy resolution). However, when I click on finish at the end it tells me something similar to "installation failed" or something. Weird. I decide to select the install manager again in the programs and features section to make a check. However, this time it tells me there are no components left to uninstall so I reboot and proceed to install the drivers from the CD.

3. Now this is probably what screwed me over because, and I don't know how, while reinstalling the drivers my computer all of a sudden reboots and lo and behold the crappy resolution remained. I had to reinstall drivers from the CD once a long time before and I remember this didn't happen that time. And just like a bad omen my computer is, for whatever, reason rebooting every 5 minutes. Worse is I don't know what is the status of the drivers, installed, uninstalled, corrupted, which version, etc.

I'm in deeper trouble now more than ever since this is mostly my main computer for now and I require it for more than just gaming, so I'd really be grateful for your help. I'm also about to lose my ability to freely use internet soon, so the faster, the better.

On a final note, my model is a N71JQ.

 

See if you can boot into Safe Mode (tap or hold down F8 at startup and select "Safe Mode w/ Networking") and uninstall the driver altogether from within Device Manager (include "delete driver software" when prompted to confirm). Once you're done, reboot as normal and try installing the driver again - Windows will most likely reinstall it's default driver for you upon first starting the system up, so you may need to reboot again before proceeding with the install.

Sometimes updating over an existing driver causes problems, but it doesn't (or shouldn't) brick anything.

 

But that's the funny thing. I checked device manager and it doesn't show my GPU in the display adapters. Just the generic/standard intel integrated GPU.

 

Either it's not physically detected, or that's because the driver is missing. HOPEFULLY there's nothing wrong with the card. Any exclamation marks/unknown devices listed in Device Manager?

 

Nope no exclamation marks or the like.