Fun with Windows Display Drivers

In order to enhance the learning process, the lessons learned will come first:

1. Using the “Hibernate” feature will eventually bite you in the ass
2. Hibernating while using an external monitor as the primary display is a bad idea if that display will not be around when Windows re-animates
3. Doing step (2) while attached to a display that is rotated 90 degrees is a sure-fire way to see things in Windows XP you haven’t seen since Windows 3.1.

In order to begin a rip-roaring rollercoaster of an evening with Windows, you have to unwittingly do things that Windows rather sternly disapproves of—but doesn’t show—until it explodes in a paroxysm of error messages and bizarre behavior that will have even the strongest quaking in terror or righteous rage. One of these things is, as mentioned above, using the relatively well-hidden “Hibernate” feature. Hibernate writes the current state of the computer to the hard drive before shutting down so that it can take you back where you were when you left off. The feature sounds cool, but Windows has some problems with it.

Sometimes it gets stuck during the hibernation phase. That is, it doesn’t fully shut down and stays in some kind of limbo—forever. Sometimes this is related to Windows getting confused about which display is the one to which it should be sending its video signals. In these cases, madly smashing on the “cycle display” button brings the display back to show you the “Hibernating…” message—forever. Clearly, it’s confusing when there are two displays defined and one’s been uplugged—it’s unfair to expect Windows to automatically switch to the other one—that’s permanently attached to the laptop.

At any rate, when Windows gets stuck like this, it really puts its heart into it. The processor locks out at what must be 100% (no display, no proof), which gets all its little fans roaring. Needless to say, this is a somewhat bizarre state in which to find a notebook, particularly when it’s closed and stuffed inside a notebook bag.

Though the hibernate crash is a relatively normal occurence—without the overheating problems—it’s exacerbated by one other detail. When rudely wrenching a hibernated laptop from an attached display, it’s best not to have the display driver be in a resolution that Windows considers an “odd” match for the attached display.

That’s when the fun begins.

A hibernate crash that cannot be rescued by using the “mash on the switch display keys” trick must be put out of its misery by a good, long, prolonged push of the power button. A cold, hard boot. Good for the soul. Windows is so offended by this that it restarts in the 16-color, 640X480 display mode. Though it’s a lot of fun to bash Windows (and it really is fun), it’s far more likely that this user-friendly resolution is brought to you by the ATI driver. This is somewhat unclear since Windows offers to fix the resolution for you—it seems Windows takes pity on those trapped in this resolution—but then fails silently to do anything of the sort. At the same time, the ATI control panel pops up with a message saying that the ATI driver is damaged or not installed or has been kidnapped.

It’s just a quick fix to reset the resolution and get back to work. A bizarre happenstance, but essentially just another wacky day using the world’s most popular operating system. Pop open the display control panel and check the settings … well, that’s strange.

Everything’s grayed out. Apparently, 16-color, 640X480 is the only supported mode using the current driver. Which driver is it? Windows proudly proclaims the ATI 9700 Catalyst driver. ATI, on the other hand is all, “dude, my driver’s not even loaded, you can’t load my control panel” and Windows is all “nuh-uh, you’re loaded all right, it says so right there”. And ATI’s like, “No way, dude, you totally just wrote my name on there when I wasn’t looking.” And Windows is all “tough shit”.

Ok, so the driver is kind of loaded – what to do? What follows are a logical set of steps one might take to address this problem. For those without the emotional stamina for a long, harrowing story, there is a happy ending.[1]

1. The first step is to avoid wasting any time wondering how a machine that was functioning perfectly well just a few hours ago is now almost completely unusable.
2. Go to advanced display settings and check out what there is under the driver tab—fingers crossed for “reinstall driver”—alas, no. There is “rollback driver”, which should do nicely.
3. Rollback driver works as expected; it churns the hard drive for a while, then asks you to tell it where it put the backup copy of the driver. This won’t be the last time that Windows asks for a “little help” in finding files that it has clearly misplaced and which you have zero chance of finding.
4. Cancel the rollback.
5. How about “update driver”? That looks pretty good.
6. Answer all the questions about where Windows is allowed to look for drivers—tell it that looking online is not only allowed, it’s great—wait for it to retrieve a list of drivers and, select one of the two identical drivers that look good and click Ok.
7. Some churning and file progress and then Windows gets confused, can’t find the files it’s clearly supposed to be downloading and asks for help: “Please indicate the location of the following file: C:\.\B_13529”. Lovely.
8. Abort this attempt and drop back to lovey 4-bit color. Hey, doesn’t Windows XP have some sort of vaunted restore capabilities? Sure it does … where could that be? Control panels? No. Administrative Tools? No. Computer Management? Strike three. How about Start Menu/Accessories/System Tools/System Restore? That’s the ticket. Select that morning’s restore point and bring it back to life.
9. …Churn, churn, reboot, churn, churn…
10. Hey, the startup sound is back on! Windows must have done something! But the startup sound wasn’t on this morning … Windows must have just reset some stuff on general principle … but the driver is still at 4-bit color, which it most certainly was not this morning. The recently-downloaded driver files have been wiped from the “downloads” folder, but the expanded versions are still on the C:\ drive. What the hell does a system restore actually do? List some files and roll a set of fucking dice?
11. Ok, fine. Start installing the ATI video driver … but the version from their web site—which is a joy to navigate at 640x480—isn’t compatible with this laptop. Neither the standard nor the mobile driver will install. Even the standard driver combined with the handy hack, DH Mod tool V3, results in either a “Video Not Found” or “Cannot Install Driver” error. No shit, “Video not Found” … that’s why you should install it. “Install a VGA driver first …” is the recommendation from ATI, but Windows XP doesn’t offer that as an option anymore.
12. Fine. Last resort. Delete the display adaptor directly from the list of hardware and reboot. Hope that Windows will install the VGA driver from it’s secret, magical pile of drivers.
13. It does. Back at 16-bit color and 800x600, which is a definite improvement. But now the ATI installation has magically started again and can’t find the files it needs. Redirect the hapless setup to the extracted files on the C:\ drive and hope for the best. Reboot.
14. 4-bit. 640x480.
15. Delete the display adaptor. Reboot.
16. 16-bit. 800x600. Ignore and cancel all messages from ATI. Computer is stable and the resolution can be increased to 1400 × 1050. Watching the default VGA driver react to the mouse wheel is marginally more exciting than watching paint dry.
17. Start the ATI installer again. Mobile driver is not compatible. Standard driver is not compatible. Hacked installation proceeds much farther, but the installer can’t remove the current driver because Windows won’t let it.
18. Ok. Fine. With a little more screen space, it’s now possible to navigate the manufacturer’s web site—Acer—and find the original driver. Download that and start the installation. Against all odds, it works and installs itself, granting full resolution at a non-laughable speed. However, the ATI icon tray utility to quickly switch resolutions is not installed.
19. On a lark, try the hacked installation again … and it works too. One tiny little reboot later and the laptop is back where it was these many, many hours ago.