video card or something else?
 

I am using an HP laptop purchased about 6 months ago. About 2 weeks ago I added a docking station for it (easier to hook up to my external monitor).

Before I got the docking station I would periodically get a blank screen and then a message than my video card driver failed but recovered. Now that I have the docking station it is much worse. Four out of the last five times I have booted my laptop it boots other than screen - this does not matter if I use the docking station or just boot it on its own (battery or AC power).

Is my video card defective or is my video driver defective? I am heading out next week and want to take this with me; the last thing I want is a failure when I am out of the country.

Any ideas?

(if it helps the laptop is an HP dv 2000 series - AMD x2)

Could be a memory issue. Most video cards nowadays use shared memory. Try unscrewing the memory cover on the bottom, removing and reseating the memory. Sometimes dust gets in there and messes things up.

Be sure to ground yourself before touching the modules.

Have you tried installing the latest video driver from their website? If it's later then the one you are using they may have found a problem and fixed it.

The video card is probably on the motherboard, so it may be a warantee job to get it fixed.

What OS are you running? If it's Vista, my first thought would be either video driver or hardware incompatibility, or just poor integration on the part of HP. If it's XP, I would think the driver is probably writing over a memory boundary. Try uninstalling it in Device Manager, and then let it re-install automatically.

Does the problem occur consistently, or does it only happen after the computer has been on for awhile? If so, that would strongly suggest some form of hardware error, either memory as ScottC suggested, or the graphics hardware itself.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have been on the run all day today, tomorrow I will take out the memory and "blow off the dust". If that doesn't improve things, then I will check out the video drivers.

This may be too simple for a solution but did you press your LCD-external monitor key on your laptop's keyboard when docking - usually f6, f7, f8, etc.

Ok I took out the memory and re-installed it to ensure there was no dust, no effect. In fact after I put the memory back in it took at least 6x of booting the computer to get a video screen.

I tried options with battery only, AC only (battery removed), docking station etc. It finally gave me a screen when it decided to give me a screen.

According to Windows there is no driver update available for my video card (nvidia geforce 6105), and it displays a driver date of 02/07/07.

However the nvidia website has driver updates for August and September including a rather large forceware software/driver update for the chipset. I have downloaded that driver. Do I just I just click on the update file (it is an application file) and let it do its stuff? fyi the file is called 163.69 foreceware winvista 32bit english whql.

Am I missing anything here?

As I recall, Nvidia drivers are distributed in packages that do the installation. Clicking on the update file will, probably, unpack the drivers and installation software to a temporary directory. Go to that directory, click on whichever file is an executable (either exe or com extension) and it should install.

It does, sorry to say, sound more and more like defective hardware.

As in defective video card? It is built onto the motherboard, that is what you think might be defective?

'Fraid so. Either the graphics component itself, or the bus that it sits on. If installing the latest drivers doesn't do it, you might consider re-installing the OS as fresh installation, and then putting back your programs, one at a time, in case one of them is interfering with the video driver (this is a pain, but sometimes that's the only thing that will fix it). If that fails, I can't imagine any other explanation except bad hardware.

thanks for the exciting news PT... ugh!

I don't have that much software on my computer so re-installing isn't that big a deal really, just time consuming.

Well it appears that the motherboard is defective, or at least the video chipset. HP wants the computer back for repair - I'm just waiting for the shipping package to send it to them.

One question though, they indicated that for $139 I can extend the warranty an additional year on the laptop and make my repair occur in only 3 business days versus the 10 business days it normally takes. Given I am having problems now with this 7 mos laptop, is this a wise investment or is this just a scam?

I wouldn't do anything until I'd loaded a different OS. Boot up a Linux disc (don't go past the installation screen). and see if the problem goes away.

If it does - clean your hard drive and install a fresh copy of Windows XPSP2 OEM. It's the most stable version I've seen.