Do I have a graphics card?

J

jedgar

New Member
Hi, I hope someone can help me...

I recently bought a very cheap second-hand laptop on ebay (about £50). I just got it as a temporary option, it's a decent enough spec for my needs and for the price (core2 T5600 1.83ghz CPU, 1MB RAM, running on XP Home Edition), manufacturer is HI-GRADE (no, me neither!).

My problem is that the sticker on the laptop says it has an ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 graphics card, but I simply can't find anything in the diagnostics that shows I have any graphics card at all. I ran DirectX Diagnostics and under the display tab it just has 'n/a' listed or manufacturer, chip type etc. Neither can I find anything in Device Manager.

I would like to display the screen on an external monitor but have no idea how to do this, I've followed the troubleshooter guide but most of the options it suggests don't even appear.

Am I being incredibly stupid or has the previous owner removed the card? I didn't think this was even possible.

Any help most gratefully received as I am close to hurling the thing out of the nearest high window!
 
Try reinstalling drivers for the graphics card. There's no way the owner can remove a card from a laptop because it's first of all probably soldered directly onto the motherboard and if he managed to remove it you wouldn't get a display image from the laptop.
 
Thanks for your replies, here's what I've tried so far...

I installed and ran Speccy, the information it displayed for graphics is as follows:

Graphics
Monitor
Name on
Current Resolution 1024x768 pixels
Work Resolution 1024x740 pixels
State enabled, primary
Monitor Width 1024
Monitor Height 768
Monitor BPP 32 bits per pixel
Monitor Frequency 1 Hz
Device \\.\DISPLAY1

All of which means very little to me, but I suspect it means my graphics card/chip isn't working.
Next I tried to reinstall the driver for the ATI Radeon X1300, but it failed, giving the following message:

INF error.
Video driver not found.

I click OK and it then shows the following:

Setup was unable to complete the installation.
Try to setup your display adapter with a standard VGA driver before running setup.

Now, I've searched online and haven't been able to find a way to do this. I've tried uninstalling the VGA driver from the device manager (the driver shows as not working) but it just goes to re-install it when I reboot, and again it doesn't install correctly. Should I just give up and assume that the chip will never work or does anyone have any other suggestions?
 
Thanks John, I checked out that link but can't find my model on there.

Model number is W310DI1. It's on the bottom of the laptop and is also what shows as the model number in Speccy's system information.
 
That would be the model of motherboard you have, not the model of laptop. Where did you get that model number from? Look on a sticker on the laptop for a model number.
 
I got the number from the bottom of the laptop. It also shows that number under -
Accessories > System Tools > System Information > System Model.

There is no other info I can see under the laptop. It has the previously mentioned number number, input rating, another number - D06-0185001 - I have no idea what that is but it doesn't look like a model number to me, modem information, and an XP sticker with the usual bumf on it (prod key, serial # etc). Nothing else on there at all.

Is there anywhere else I can get this information? I've tried running driver detective but it prompts me for the model number and again that number isn't there (which it obviously wouldn't be since you say that's the motherboard model number).

I'm downloaded the driver pack you suggest but it didn't work. It took me through the same ATI setup wizard as the previous one I downloaded (this was sp40462.exe, the previous one I downloaded was sp32731.exe). Neither worked. This time it gave me a message saying something like 'setup could not be completed as no compatible driver could be found for your hardware. setup will now exit').

I've looked at various forums and while I can't find anything relating to my specific problem, a lot of people have reported the same error message about installing a general VGA driver when they have upgraded either to or from XP. I'm guessing this laptop has had it's OS changed at some point before I got it and this is causing the problem.

I'm completely baffled by this, but I really thank you all for your help and suggestions. I don't know if there's anything else you can suggest but if not thanks again for trying.

J
 
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