Need help: lost the display driver on my desktop; cannot see what I'm doing

[Ina]

I had the same problem with a Toshiba Qosmio laptop. I tried the reset to factory defaults, however the graphics card was fried. I took the HDD, plugged into another laptop, booted of a USB drive with windows system on, started Windows in safe mode and retrieved all my info.

 

[Ina]

If you have not opened the PC case until now, maybe it is time to do it. When each, every and all software solutions fail there is only one solution left, physically remove the display card, if you have a display card separate from the motherboard. When you remove it, you'll be able to boot with your onboard intel display. If you do not have a separate display card, you need to buy a new motherboard, preferably the same make and type like you have now (for driver compatibility and box layout considerations), unless you want to make a hardware upgrade (for the processor mainly).
Maybe it is a blessing in disguise Mercury retrograde or not.

 

[Palinurus]

I'll be back on Saturday evening and hope to have tested my monitor one way or the other by then.

Well, here I am again and I'm happy to announce that the test was successful. The monitor is not affected by this mishap and still works as it should.

It was the first time ever that I had two displays connected simultaneously to one source, so it took me a while to fiddle with it to get the proper settings in the right order. After that, I had a visual on my monitor in low res (1920x1080, standard HD) while the monitor itself is capable of 4K UHD visuals in very high resolution (3840x2160). The laptop, however, doesn't go beyond standard HD. That's why I had to fiddle with the settings to get a proper match.

I got a standard opening screen with a nice desktop wallpaper and some icons in the taskbar. I also got my cursor on display on the monitor and could move it around. Clicking one of the icons in the taskbar (Thunderbird) resulted in promptly opening that program on my laptop, so there was two-way communication established.

I thank @IncenDiary and @Ina for their suggestions but have to make a confession: I understand what you propose and why, but my understanding is purely theoretical. I have no hands-on experience with hardware fiddling to speak of..

In fact, my computer knowledge is quite lopsided as I'm more of a computer user than a computer techie. When I started 15 years ago, I didn't know anything about computers and had to build my knowledge up from scratch. I had valuable help with that, but I'm far more acquainted with the software side than with the hardware compo's.

I have separate back-ups of all my stuff independently, so retrieving them is not that difficult.

 

[Woodsman]

Well.., Mercury Retrograde is over in a couple of days.

Your computer sounds fsked to me. -I had a look when I posted before at the model you're running; It's one of those where the graphics card is integrated into the mother board.., cheap to build and more compact than a standard PC, but when things go wrong, such configurations tend to create weird problems unique to that system, so general help forums can be less than useful. -As you're discovering.

I hate to say it, but barring complicated strategies, (like calling a tech friend and turning your kitchen table into a lab bench for the afternoon) it may be time to look at replacing the whole damned system. That sucks! But...

Personally, I've had a lot of good fortune with used Dell Latitudes off eBay. They're very affordable, quiet, reliable, easy to service, have tons of user support (there are tens or even hundreds of thousands of the things out there, off lease from corporate clients). -And you can plug your monitor into it no problem. I also like the fact that a laptop's battery serves as a UPS/power conditioner for when the neighborhood power lines go down. I switched over to using laptops exclusively after living in a building with dirty power and getting fed up with losing work at random. I have one of those instead of a tower, never leaves the desk. I just plugged a real keyboard and monitor into it. Works great.

Either way, I suspect things will straighten out in a couple of days one way or another.

Voyager is cool, btw. -Have you watched through Stargate SG-1? Now that makes for a good movie night!

Cheers!

 

[Palinurus]

Have you watched through Stargate SG-1?

Yes. Repeatedly. I own the whole franchise on DVD, including Atlantis and Universe. I enjoyed it very much from the get go, which for me was the original movie feature film that I also have on DVD.

I hate to say it, but barring complicated strategies, (like calling a tech friend and turning your kitchen table into a lab bench for the afternoon) it may be time to look at replacing the whole damned system. That sucks! But...

Calling in tech friends is no longer an option as the ones I had have died, one after the other. No proper replacements ever showed up.

About replacement: I was already leaning more and more in that direction, to be honest. However, I first want to contact the web-shop where I bought the thing, to get their opinion on this matter. They have a real shop as well, including a tech-department (the only snag is that it's located in a remote part of the country) and they might be persuaded to look into the possibilities of a repair by them if it would be judged possible and not too expensive. It's also possible there is still some warranty left active as I bought the desktop just over a year ago. I have to check-up on that.

As for the laptop/desktop issue: I always have used both versions simultaneously but my preference goes to the desktop format - although my very first computer was a Dell laptop with Windows XP on it. Ah, such nostalgia to simpler times !

 

[Ellipse]

Finally, did you manage to remove the graphic card from the PC and boot?

 

[Palinurus]

Finally, did you manage to remove the graphic card from the PC and boot?

No, I haven't for reasons already given:

I thank @IncenDiary and @Ina for their suggestions but have to make a confession: I understand what you propose and why, but my understanding is purely theoretical. I have no hands-on experience with hardware fiddling to speak of..

In fact, my computer knowledge is quite lopsided as I'm more of a computer user than a computer techie. When I started 15 years ago, I didn't know anything about computers and had to build my knowledge up from scratch. I had valuable help with that, but I'm far more acquainted with the software side than with the hardware compo's.

 

[Ellipse]

Yeah but you can push yourself a bit no? This is no so complicated.

There is a video here where she open the MSI Creator P 100:

Perhaps there is some screws to remove. The video card is the one with the two big fans.

 

[Palinurus]

Thank you for the video, Ellipse. I had to use the subtitles to understand what she was presenting. It's more a review of the machine than anything else and it doesn't help me much if I may say so. I'm already aware how to open this machine and where the video card is situated.

I'm just not keen on removing anything from the interior while I'm not certain I can put it back in again correctly, much less whether it still will be working after this exercise.

Of course I can push myself a bit but since I've never done something like this before I'm rather reluctant to have a go now. I need more time to get used to the idea and gather enough courage to effectually try it.

I know it will be a huge relief would I be able to succeed but that's far from certain in my eyes at the moment. I hope you can understand that and I thank you for your gentle nudge. Maybe I follow up on it sooner rather than later and you'll be the first to know about it after I'm done.

 

[Ellipse]

I understand .

The video was just interesting to visualise how to open the box and situate the video card. I hope you will be able to do what you have to do with the laptop. You can use it with the screen connected to it.

 

[United Gnosis]

I'm just not keen on removing anything from the interior while I'm not certain I can put it back in again correctly, much less whether it still will be working after this exercise.

Good news is, it already doesn't work, so it's not like the worst-case scenario (say, not freeing the slot clip, and ripping the PCI connector off the motherboard) would be any different from what it is right now. And it's really not as scary as I make it sound like, it's more our own overabundance of caution - for instance, if you'd seen Linus' collab with Electroboom, killing components with static electricity is actually much harder than we'd think. Also, this is what the entire build process looks like from first person:

Anyways, there are great guides all over the place, but I'd still want to understand your setup exactly. You said you have an Intel RTX 2070 chipset or something, and that doesn't fit - intel integrated graphics chipsets are built-in the processor and do not use NVidia naming schemes. So the standalone card is probably a 2070 RTX, and a second graphics output being the CPU's integrated graphics that are routed straight to motherboard's video out.

If that is the case, then the next step in the troubleshooting is indeed to open the case, remove any and all dedicated video cards and simply leaving the motherboard alone. Plug into the motherboard's video out and see if you can boot to safe mode.
If you can boot to safe mode, make sure to run a full DDU. I linked the video in a previous post, but it should be underlined, I would never give up on your graphics card as a lost cause until you've gone through that process, from the first read of your problems I thought it'd be necessary and sufficient.

 

[Palinurus]

Thanks @United Gnosis for your input. To answer you, I first quote a few earlier snippets from this thread:

The desktop has two graphic cards. An Intel UHD 630 which is the standard card used in most activities. That was the one which was updating when the process was aborted.

It also has a special dedicated graphic card for gaming, which is an Intel RTX 2070 I believe. That one is mostly used via NVIDIA drivers, AFAIK. I don't game that much, so it goes mostly unused but it's up-to-date driverwise.

Your computer sounds fsked to me. -I had a look when I posted before at the model you're running; It's one of those where the graphics card is integrated into the mother board.., cheap to build and more compact than a standard PC, but when things go wrong, such configurations tend to create weird problems unique to that system, so general help forums can be less than useful. -As you're discovering.

If you have not opened the PC case until now, maybe it is time to do it. When each, every and all software solutions fail there is only one solution left, physically remove the display card, if you have a display card separate from the motherboard. When you remove it, you'll be able to boot with your onboard intel display. If you do not have a separate display card, you need to buy a new motherboard, preferably the same make and type like you have now (for driver compatibility and box layout considerations), unless you want to make a hardware upgrade (for the processor mainly).

This is not going to be fun. You will probably have to completely uninstall the Intel Gfx drivers to get back to Microsoft Basic Display Adapter. You can also try plugging into various ports on the GFX card and try bypass the onboard display, but I have low hopes that might work. If you have a disc for your motherboard you might be able to install an earlier version of drivers, otherwise you will have to download the drivers for your motherboard intel display and try install it there. I have been in similar situations, it's a nightmare...

Something else you can try is to unplug the GFX card completely out the PC, and unplug the hard drive(s) and try boot with the monitor in the onboard slot only, because if this still results in no display, it cannot be a software problem, but some other strange hardware conflict. Normally in these situations I take the entire PC apart and try get the naked motherboard on a bench and get it working there, then put the GFX back in and see if it works, then the hard drive and boot into Windows and see if it works, before putting it back together. It's a huge mission, but I have many times had people's non-booting computers, taken it out the case, where it then mysteriously works, and put it back together, and they ask me how I did it, and I didn't really do anything.....

You'll probably understand that this array of conflicting remedies and suggestions has got me hopelessly confused as well as frightened. It may be true that it cannot get worse than it now is already, but - as I've said before - I'm not keen to embark on something I have zero experience with, certainly not for as long as I'm not completely certain which steps I have to take and in which sequence, plus what the probable snags are that I could encounter and how to avoid those or remedy them immediately when they should occur.

I'd like to be as fully prepared as possible before jumping into such an endeavor. Up until now I'm just busy gathering information both via this thread as well as beyond that, reading and watching anything that might be relevant to solving this problem. I'm not going to make haste on this one.

 

[United Gnosis]

Thanks @United Gnosis for your input. To answer you, I first quote a few earlier snippets from this thread:






You'll probably understand that this array of conflicting remedies and suggestions has got me hopelessly confused as well as frightened. It may be true that it cannot get worse than it now is already, but - as I've said before - I'm not keen to embark on something I have zero experience with, certainly not for as long as I'm not completely certain which steps I have to take and in which sequence, plus what the probable snags are that I could encounter and how to avoid those or remedy them immediately when they should occur.

I'd like to be as fully prepared as possible before jumping into such an endeavor. Up until now I'm just busy gathering information both via this thread as well as beyond that, reading and watching anything that might be relevant to solving this problem. I'm not going to make haste on this one.

Great. Thanks for quoting your initial description. So the other one is UHD 630 - that is the intel integrated GPU, so it is not a dedicated card (the 2070 is), the UHD 630 is the one outputting to the motherboard. You did mention that is the one you were upgrading when it failed - and yes, that is a bad turn of events, higher likelyhood of the motherboard being bricked. All the more reason to check it, before you chuck it.

What's good to know is that motherboards usually route graphics to their own output only if a dedicated card is not present. So if you want to test whether you are able to get graphics in the most failsafe way, you will need to unplug that 2070. It should have 2 (?) additional power connectors to unplug, and then you simply need to unclip the slot before pulling it out. Slide your left hand on top of the card's backplate, reaching to the far right edge of the PCI slot, you will feel the nub with your thumb that must be disengaged before the graphics card slides out. No need to tug it out, if it doesn't come out gently it's usually the slot clip that's not fully disengaged. The nub usually disengages with an outwards rotation, towards the front of the case.

At least, once the 2070 is removed, you can check if the mobo is truly borked, and you'll be able to see whether the 2070 works in a different system. It likely was the most precious part of your build, but I'd expect it to be fine. Wish you luck!

 

[Palinurus]

At least, once the 2070 is removed, you can check if the mobo is truly borked, and you'll be able to see whether the 2070 works in a different system. It likely was the most precious part of your build, but I'd expect it to be fine. Wish you luck!

I really appreciate your guidance and your efforts. It's priceless!

Just some explaining remarks for now: I didn't build my desktop myself but bought it ready-made, and I don't have another system available in which I could test whether the RTX 2070 still works.

As far as I'm concerned, my guess is that due to the aborted driver updating procedure (because of a Trojan) the whole or at least the substantial part of the video drivers and such have been put into quarantine by the anti-virus software (Iobit Malware Fighter) and I have to bypass all of it to have any chance of re-booting in safe mode or whatever. OSIT.

I'll study your video closely to discover whether there is a fail-safe method I could apply.

 

[Palinurus]

I'm now closing off for today and will be back tomorrow.