I bought a Samsung 226BW montior and hooked it up to my A8Js. Everything was fine, the 226BW was just a clone of my laptop display. Then I did something that I can't remember (could be set the resolution to 1680x1050, which is higher than the laptop LCD's native resolution 1440x900), now my laptop display is just black, my 226BW display is fine.

The laptop is black in Windows, and on reboot, it looks like a bar code with white and color strips vertically across the screen. Once Windows loads, the laptop display goes black.

I've tried to uninstall nVidia driver and reinstall it, didn't work...

My resolution is set to 1680x1050 right now, and my laptop display should be 1440x900.

Can someone help me getting my laptop display back

Laptop: Asus A8Js
Video card: nVidia 7700GO
External Monitor: Samsung 226BW

Thank you.

Goto the website for the manufacturer of the laptop, and look for the default setting for your unit. It may be in your manual also. THen, reset the video display to the original default. You can do this by entering SETUP when you first turn on your laptop. You can also reload all defaults while in setup, I commonly do this to a quirky system to insure tha all settings are within the parameters of the hardware. Good luck, and please repost with results.

Well you could reattach the monitor, open the nvidia control panel and set the display as a clone of your laptop display. Then you could ensure that your resolution is 1440x900 simply by going to display settings and changing it. Once it's changed you SHOULD have a working laptop screen again as it's being told to output at the correct resolution.

That should put the resolution back surely?

Hey guys thank you very much for the response.

I tried to find if there's a manual hardware reset for the laptop but couldn't. The only hole on the laptop is the manual eject for the DVD tray.

Is there a common way of resetting a laptop?

About the nVidia setting, I can't get it to work no matter what. Right now when I right click on the desktop -> Property -> Settings, I see 2 montiors, the left one "1" is the primary and is set to 1600x1050@60Hz, when I set it to something like 1024x768@75Hz, it changes on the external monitor, but still the same for the laptop display; even after reboots.

As for the right one "2", I can only make it "extend my desktop to this monitor", I can't make it the primary.

And the wierd thing is, when I go one step furthur to Advanced -> Monitor, I see "1" uses "default PnP monitor" while 2 uses the "samsung 226bw monitor". But when I hit "identify" "1" comes on in the 226bw external monitor. I've tried to remove the monitor drivers etc and also no worky.

The laptop is under warranty and I can send it in for repair, though I don't want the downtime.

Sorry about the long post, any help is greatly appreiciated!

p.s. If I do have to send it in, do you guys know where I can go buy those tiny screw drivers for taking laptop apart?

Thank you.

If you mean just small screwdrivers (as most laptops just have normal screws) then they are available at almost all tool/DIY shops - On Sony, HP and Dell laptops in particular you can use a normal screwdriver set - but I don't have experience of Asus.

Just a quick question, do you have a nVidia Control Panel installed? Maybe under all programs? Also, have you tried hitting Fn+F7 a couple of times to see whether that clears it?

That's what I meant, thank you.

I have the nVidia Control Panel, though that didn't seem to help. I've also tried Fn+F6/F7 a few times, I can turn the laptop LCD off and on, switch between LCD only/External/ LCD+External, but none make the laptop LCD display correctly.

I think it just need a hardware reset somewhere but I can't find it anywhere.

when you find that one please let me know where you found it !

just did a quick re-read of all post ,didn't see this ,re boot laptop hitting f8 to go into safe mode and see if it displays ,if yes ,then right click on the desktop /properties /advance and see if you can make changes to display settings

Will your BIOS let you reset the display to Default? If so, do it. That is the first thing I do with buggy upgrades or mods.

I tried all of the above, none worked though. When I try to go into BIOS on bootup, the external monitor just displays a cursor blinking and is stuck there.

I think I'll have to send this in for repair.

Thank you for your help