beloved Dell studio 1745 gone a little crazy

dear forum,

would be great if anyone can advise:

- my Dell was working perfectly one moment yesterday, then visited a website, (presumed non-suspect). The screen instantly changed resolution, and Chrome crashed and reported a ' Rats Web GL hit a snag' error. This produced the screen with a black border on all sides, as the reduced resolution didn't fill the pixels on my screen.

- then, the reduced resolution stretched to the width of the screen. This produces an unpleasant blurred horizonally stretched picture.

- I checked all my available resolutions, the options are
1152 x 864
1024 x 768
800 x 600

I believe the correct res or one I previously had running was WXGA++ 1600 x 900.

- I deduced the display driver was corrupted somehow. I visited Dell UK and d/l + installed 'AMD ATI mobility HD 4570 [cont ...]' latest, which was 2012. This ended in 'no relevant hardware available' message.

I then tried device manager, then display adapter (ATI mobility Radeon HD 4500 series', right click, update driver software, search automatically. result = 'windows determined the driver software for your device is up to date'.

- So am stuck for ideas now. Returning to prev restore point didn't help much either (in fact failed, and now apparently in loop).

Is this possibly:
a) hardware failure
b) hard disk failure, affecting the driver
c) somehow connected to website I visited
(pitchfork.com see https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/12-m...classical-label-finally-on-streaming-services)

My Dell is perhaps 10 yrs old, not sure, but it beens running win 10 fine and does me very well so would be shame not to get it back in shape.

thanks for any pointers.

 

Hi same problem same make and model happened Friday when I was saving a MS Word doc.

I ran the same checks as you with same results (driver check - restore point etc).

Have restored from backup in August - all back to normal, but a real pain updating everything.

I am no great pc expert but am looking at the ATI mobility Radeon HD 4500 series files in Windows on restored version and will compare versions with those on the install that went wrong. I am suspicious that Windows could not find the latest drivers but....)

All the web advice so far just says to check settings re resolution (as you did) but I reckon that is not the problem.

I'd say that your pc is fine and that the cause was not a b or c. I noticed there was a Windows update (I am on Windows 10) the day before, so I reversed that - no change.

Sorry not to be able to help but I reckon your pc is fine.

 

Hi, actually that helps quite a bit. thanks very much.

Unfortunately I haven't got a backup available since it's my 'just' my personal pc, but that suggests resetting the whole system might work if as a nuclear option if there's no other way.

Yeah if any way way you're able to pass back any findings on the ATI mobility Radeon HD files that worked/failed that would be hugely appreciated. Yes, my hunch is that windows update is the culprit. Actually, I took a look on update history and there's something display-related named 'advanced micro devices' that installed at about the right time (23/11). I wonder if this by any chance affected your system as well.. maybe you received the same update around the same time, (last Friday?) .

thanks.
Tom

edit: just to detail a little further, am also attaching the pop up info available on the micro devices update, and the website you reach via 'more info'. It's not too helpful! Have also tried just removing it, but it isn't listed when you click 'uninstall updates'. avoiding temptation to 'Reset PC' for now!

 

Hi Tom

Sorry I have found the ATI files are exactly the same version and date.

Can't now see update history as I only have access to the files (backed up the dodgy version before restoring), but can confirm I saw it had done a Windows update a very short time before - same day Friday.

Frustrating because I know there is a fairly simple solution somewhere, but had spent hours on it, which never goes down well with other people, let alone me!

Don't forget there is a Windows reinstall option which does not overwrite your own files. Sorry if you knew this already, but might help as a semi-nuclear option. I use Macrium backup - free and so much better than Windows backup - easy to restore image or just grab the odd file.

I love my 1745 - big screen, spare hard drive. Replaced hard drive and other bits over time. Guess I will have to give up if motherboard goes, but not till then....

Good luck

Patrick

 

yeah, it's been so reliable. is a tank .. have bought other laptops then since which it's outlived and this aside is seems pretty stable. I guess you have added a SSD as the primary drive if you've been upgrading .. I did this and boot up and app launching was greatly improved, and I used the old drive as a 2nd 'archiving' drive for media.

The windows semi-nuclear reinstall sounds a good idea .. thanks. Yeah, no doubt there's a simple option.. I mean I wonder if just uninstalling the last update would do the trick. I haven't yet seen a way to do that though, given the one I noted doesn't seem to be available for uninstalling.

cheers.

 

Well I did put in SSD plus top up memory before moving to W10. Performance much slower and takes 20 minutes after boot before performance improves a bit. I suspect that is because of all the junk running but knocking it all out has not made much difference. There are some commentators who say migration to W10 with existing programs may not work well. Plan is to partition disk and install clean W10 and gradually install programs until I can use that version. However that is not a 10 minute job and I spend long enough on the wretched thing as it is.

Take care

 

ah. well, if it's any motivation mine seemed to work just fine after adding the ssd. It does run noticabely slower when a windows process starts up, such as a background update or malware scan. But otherwise it's pretty much fine - not as snappy as a new laptop but quick enough not to get in the way of doing anything.

 

hi, Patrick

I found a thread that addressed the issue.

In case it's useful, here it is. The thing seems sorted now; the trick was to...

Right click on Start > Device Manager > Click on Display adapter > Right click on the ATI Display adapter & Select Properties

Click on Driver tab > Update driver > Select "Browse my computer for driver software"

Then the latest ATI driver the works correctly, is apparently the one dated 13.01.15. The 2017 one is causing the glitch.

just in case it's needed!
here's the full thread, with numerous others posting in the last few days:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...n/bd2db58e-6635-4e2d-be3b-2f2933a3a7ab?auth=1

 

Hi All,

I had exact the same problem with my dell 1745 last week. I think it is caused by the fall creators update from Microsoft.
The update it selve won't finish it keeps saying that I must restart the pc. But when I do it doesn't change.
The resolution problem remains also.

Marco

 

Sounds like two separate issues to me. Did you follow the link I gave to sort out the resolution problem?