Installed new Hard Drive, now have monitor problem

Factual Questions
#1

I installed a new hard drive last night after the old one died. Everything works fine except my display has a crazy “ripple” effect when I scroll.

I am running XP Pro sp2 with all available updates. I have been to the monitor manufacturer website and downloaded appropriate drivers. The hardware wizard doesn’t find my monitor and it is not listed in the device manager. There isn’t even a listing for monitors in the device manager tree.

It is an Optiquest flat panel LCD by viewsonic. Model number vs11201

Could it be a setting in BIOS that needs changed?
It really is annoying and gives me a headache after about 5 minutes of browsing.
I’d greatly appreciate any advice.

#2

Could you have knocked or damaged some hardware, like a video card, when you replaced the hard drive?

Actually, first: does your computer have integrated graphics, or a graphics card? If the latter, have you looked at the card’s drivers and/or settings?

#3

I have a graphics card. I’m not sure where to check the settings for that…

#4

My guess is you need to get drivers for the the graphics card.

#5

Okay I ran dxdiag and this is what it tells me about the display:

“The system is using a generic video driver. Please install video driver provided by the hardware manufacturer.”

I have no idea who the manufacturer is. This pc was built years ago for someone else and given to me about two years ago.

Would I be better off to just install a new graphics card?

#6

Pull out the card and take a look, most cards will have a manufacturer and or model number, write it down or post any numbers you find here and we can probably ID it for you.

All you need is the drivers, a free download from the manufacturer.

#7

Go to Control Panel and double-click on the **Display **icon.

When the Display Properties box open, click on the **Settings **tabs.

Then, in the bottom-right corner, click on the **Advanced **button.

When the Advanced Properties box opens, there might be a tab there for your graphics card. There is on my computer, for my nVidia GeForce card.

Even if there’s no specific tab for the graphics card, if you click on the **Adapter **tab, it should show your graphics card’s name and information. If you then click on the **Properties **button, the Properties box will open.

In the **General **tab of the Properties box, there is a **Troubleshoot **button, which you can try. Also, in the **Driver **tab, it gives you information about your graphics card driver, along with buttons for updating, rolling back, and uninstalling your driver.

Find out what sort of graphics adapter you have, go to the manufacturer website and see if you can find and download the latest driver, and see if you can update the driver for you card.

ETA:

Well, while i was typing all that, you apparently moved on a bit.

If you want to find out which graphics card you have, without opening up the box, try the Belarc Advisor. It’s a small program that will scan your computer hardware and tell you what you have. It’s not spyware or anything, and it has really helped me out a couple of times.

#8

Okay, under display adapters I found Radeon Fire GL 8800. It was disabled. I clicked enable and now I have a monitor listed in the device manager tree. All it shows is a plug & play monitor. I clicked on update driver for both the Radeon and the monitor but they both say there is no better match than what is currently installed.

I will do this but may be awhile before I report back, been messing with this all morning and really should get moving. I’ll post results later.

Thanks everyone for your input so far.

#9

:smiley: Success!! :smiley:

I went to the Fire GL Radeon site and downloaded their software suite for the display driver and monitor. Everything is running perfectly now, no more waves as I scroll :cool:

Thank you everyone!

And mhendo, special thanks for the Belarc link. I had my driver figured out by the time you gave me that, but I downloaded it anyway, that’s a pretty handy thing to have, thank you!