I picked up a Dell Inspiron 5000e laptop that had a bad hard drive. I replaced the hard drive and proceeded to install Windows 2000 on it, using a Dell W2k CD I had from a desktop PC.
Everything except the video works fine. I cannot get anything more than VGA graphics out of this PC. It has an ATI Rage Mobility 128 display adapter in it. I know the hardware works fine because I installed Linux on a second partition and can get 1280x1024 graphics with 24-bit color. In Windows all I can get is 640x480 with 16 colors.
I tried to set the display resolution by right-clicking on the desktop. It only lists 640x480 and 800x600, and won't even let me set the higher resolution - it always resets itself to 640x480. When I click 'Advanced' and select the Adapter tab it shows the adapter type as VGA, with Adapter Information listed as <unavailable> for Chip Type, DAC Type, Memory Size, Adapter String, and Bios Information.
When I click on Properties, on the General tab it shows the Device type as "Non-Plug and Play Drivers", with Manufacturer and Location as Unknown. Device status shows it is working properly, whatever that means. The Driver tab shows the Service and Display name as VgaSave. The status is Started, and Startup Type is System. The Resources tab shows the I/O and Memory Ranges, and shows that they are in conflict with the Intel 82443Bx Pentium II Processor to AGP Controller. It seems to me that the VgaSave driver isn't the right driver to be running. I don't know why W2k has it there.
I bought the Dell Inspiron 5000 System Software CD on ebay to see if the drivers on the official CD were any better. They failed to install with a "The display driver is not compatible with the display adapters installed in your system" error message. On a positive note, the video diagnostics on that disk ran without a problem. I tried downloading drivers from the ATI site (
http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/2k/legacy-2k.html). They ran into the same error as did the CD when trying to install them.
I tried looking on the Device Manager. I didn't see an entry for Display adapters. Under 'Other devices' I did see 'Video Controller (VGA Compatible)' listed with a big yellow question mark/exclamation point. When I clicked on that, it took me to the Video Controler (VGA Compatible) Properties pop-up. On the General tab it the Device status showed that "The drivers for this device are not installed (Code 28)" I tried reinstalling the driver as it suggests. It walked me thru the "Upgrade Device Driver Wizard". I searched for a suitable driver for the Video Controller (VGA Compatible), but it was unable to find a driver. I tried to Display a list of the known drivers and it couldn't find any. I tried loading the drivers from the Dell drivers disk I bought on eBay. After system restart it was still the same, still in VGA mode.
One last thing I tried was to disable the VgaSave driver. After I did that and rebooted, I got the blue screen of death. The system refused to boot. I ended up reinstalling Windows.
All these gyrations have lead me to the conclusion that there is some sort of drivers issue between the PC and W2k. I can't get it to recognize the display adapter. I've done a bunch of Google searches trying to find a resolution. I did get some hits on this site, as well as the tips to download ATI drivers and buy the Dell CD. Nothing I've found has gotten me anywhere. I'd rather not have this PC as a Linux only box, but if nobody else has any ideas, that may be all I can do.
Thanks in advance for any help you may have.
Linear Mode
