Inspiron 8500 ATI Radeon 9000 No Video

Addendum:

You can view an external display attached to the Inspiron 8500. It lists the external display as "1" and contains the ATI Drivers and Control Panel.  If you look under display types, the internal LCD of the laptop is greyed out, cannot be selected.

I had mostly the same problem here with my i8500. In my case, it seems that the suspend pin ( the little gray plastic stick near the speaker silencing button ) got stuck, and the machine though I had the lid closed, thus, no video. And I too connected an external monitor to see what was happening in the system's registry.

Also, it does not seem to be a driver issue as I first suspected, since I installed the ATI generic Catalyst drivers 9.7 (though, the chipset driver has to be manually specified as Radeon 9000 series ).

Anyway, consider that possibility, since it had me wondering what happened for about 5 days ;)

Thank you for taking time to reply. Do you have a URL for the generic ATI driver?  In my case, it is not the grey nub, the display simply crashes when the ATI 9000 driver loads. It does not crash if you disable the driver, but then the refresh rate is not correct for the LCD display.

Again, thank you for taking time to reply.

You can get the driver for the Radeon card family at ATI’s website ( http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html ).

Specifically, you might be targeting the multi language edition of the Catalyst 3.9 driver set for Windows XP:

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/wxp-w2k-catalyst-7-95-031028m-011774c.exe

Bear in mind that this drivers have to be manually installed as the setup program might or might not recognize the adapter on the i8500.

If you’re out of luck, try using the default drivers from dell:

http://support.dell.com/FileLib/Format.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&Category=6&OS=WW1&OSL=EN&SvcTag=&SysID=INS_PNT_P4_8500&DeviceID=3083&Type=&ReleaseID=R65159

In either case, there is a useful program included ( AtiCimUn.exe ) which removes all traces of previous ATI driver instances.

By the way, you mention in your message that you screen “crashes” every time the system boots. What exactly do you mean with this? In my case, every time the system booted, my screen went completely black ( meaning that the panel’s backlight turned off ) and simply displayed nothing. Is this the same with your system? Or does the backlight stay on with no video display? Or it might be something else?

Such details are of most importance, specially when dealing with these machines! ;)
Good luck.

Thanks once again.

To clarify:  The screen goes black as did yours, after the WinXP splash screen.  Pgms run in the background (you can hear ICQ loading, etc).   If you disable the ATI driver, the system boots as normal but the video is (refresh rate) wrong for business type viewing.

If ATI driver loads, you must go into safe mode in order to see the screen.

(Also, when you are able to see Video Settings with ATI drivers loaded, it defines Monitor 1 as the external monitor which would mean that Monitor 2 is the laptops LCD. However, when you go further into settings, laptop LCD is greyed out and cannot be selected.- this may not be part of the problem)

Emily R.,

Are you changing the refresh rate?  LCDs operate at 60mhz, and the refresh rate should not be changed.  I have not seen this particular problem caused by a refresh rate change, but it is something to check.

 

I really couldn’t tell what else might be causing you trouble with you display, but from what you’re saying, I still think you could be having a power or suspension state problem with your machine’s display. Either:

-The panel’s controller is defective and will refuse to display higher resolutions than the standard 640 x 480 or 800 x 600.
-Or the video adapter has an issue as well and won’t enter into higher resolution and color depth modes.

Did this issue occur since you got the machine? Or did it stop working recently? How much time has passed since you acquired it? If you are confident, why not check some bios settings?

As proof on my initial point, I’ve sent some images of my machine to your hotmail account at the time when the suspend stick got stuck, and after I got it out. It should swiftly slide down and up again. Chances could be that the internal switch could have gotten stuck or broke as well. Anyway, if you’re not considering a refund or replacement or something similar, then I hope this helps.

Emily,

I have the exact same problem. Dell support while helpful has run out of ideas. I have updated the Bios to A05, reinstalled the lateset driver, reinstalled my system, and still when I restart with the video driver (ATI Mobility 9000) enabled, the screen goes black after the dell logo. If I add on an external monitor, my desktop is there, and on the ATI control panel the monitor is selected and the panel is greyed out with a red x through it. I tried reseating the cable connection, and when I did the close pin fell out. The technician walking me through that said if I had the power setting set to do nothing, I didn't need to put the pin back. Could the pin not being there be a problem.  I have read through dozens of posts from people with the same issues, and haven;t found one where it was corrected. This issue came out of the blue, no new hardware/ software installs, just started up one day and voila no screen after logo.  Can anyone please help

 

Inspiron 85oo

Win XPPro

ATI MobilityRadeon 9000 driver

Has anyone ocme with a solution to this problem. I purchased my Inpiron 8500 recently fresh out of the box and I've tried reinstalling everything from the OS to the drivers to the apps. I can only get 640 X 480 resolution and the only way to get that is ti enable VGA mode. I'm open tot any suggestions

 

Thanks, Phil