Display not working properly, please help.

[Russ2012]

Hello, and thank you for viewing this thread!

First I will describe what I was doing when the device stopped working.
Then I will describe the steps I have taken in an attempt to resolve the issue, with their results.

System Specs
os: Windows 7(64)
Sony Vaio Laptop Model: VPCF126FM (F-series)
GFX Card: Geforce GT 330M

The problem with my display occur'd when I was attempting to update to the latest nvidia driver supported by my graphics card yesterday(12/15/2013). During this installation I had another monitor plugged in via HDMI to VGA. A bit into the installation my screen flickered(like it usually does when you install a new video driver) but when it came back, my resolution was altered to an extremely low quality, and my plug n play ceased to work.

In an attempt to get my native resolution back, I right-clicked my desktop to get into the screen resolution menu. At this point I noticed that the desktop right-click menu was taking atleast 10 seconds to load, and that I could no longer access my nvidia control panel from there. I ignored that for the time being and once I got into adjust my screen resolution, it's native settings were not available anymore. Shown below.

In my first attempt to solve the issue, I decided to delete all my nvidia drivers and remove any excess with Driver Fusion, and perform a new install of nvidia drivers. I booted in safe mode and ran the program multiple times to get rid of any excess. There was a portion from the nvidia display that was stuck and it says I have to upgrade to pro in order to get rid of it. I continued on anyways and it asked for a reboot. After reboot I attempted to install a fresh download of another version of nvidia drivers, with the custom setting to remove other versions of the software. I got the error below.

After more searching of the web, I found another way to make sure all nvidia applications were removed, and that was by removing all of the information from the C:/ Drive and the registry. I could delete everything except the "NVIDIA Corporation" folder from Program Files. I can click to go into this directory, but if I try it chokes up my computer and it becomes very unresponsive. If I try to delete it, it refuses. I get an "error 0x80070091: This directory is not empty". I believe this folder is the root of my problems, but I am not certain.

Finally, I tried a system restore to a week ago. Again, I got denied with this message after reboot:

After spending a bit of time with Nvidia support live chat, I was suggested to make a new user account. Did that, and still nothing. Another thing I tried was going into device manager, deleting the display and re-installing it via manufacturers website. The driver attempts to update every reboot, but I get this error message:

I am here to ask for help, as I am at a loss. I really hope it's something I can fix, because my life is my laptop and I cannot afford another at this time. Thank you for taking your time to help me with this issue.


***UPDATE***
Surfed the Nvidia forums a bit and found they had a NVIDIA Display Uninstaller available here: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/550192/geforce-drivers/display-driver-uninstaller-ddu-v9-9-released-12-10-13-/

Used this in safe mode and it detected the display adatapter:


I am still unable to install NVIDIA drivers. 🙁

 

[Russ2012]

FINALLY! I have tampered with this thing for around 48 hours and finally fixed the damn NVIDIA glitch.(Props to me)

So as I was stating above, I couldn't get into my NVIDIA Corporation folder located within the Program Files directory on my C drive. Every time I tried, my system would begin to choke up. As I figured this was the root of the problem, i researched on how to do a force delete since I was getting an "error 0x8000(cannot remember exact numbers) cannot delete files since they are in use. I tried a couple of programs that didn't work in force deleting.

Eventually I researched my way to a forum that stated there could be "Bad Sectors" and that the system is just glitching out. So here is the already built-in solution:

1. Be on an administrator account.
2. Uninstall all NVIDIA Drivers and files. Use this as a guide...this is how I figured out the exact location of my problem http://www.overclock.net/t/1150443/how-to-remove-your-nvidia-gpu-drivers
3.Once all that is cleaned out, In windows search type "cmd.exe"(right-click, run as administrator)(I know u are under admin account already, but it was a precaution)
4. type: "chkdsk /r" (Without the quotes)This command will run a very lengthy scan on your computer after a restart. It will scan your entire harddrive and fix any glitches that could be causing your computer to run poorly.
5. Boot in safe-mode and delete the target directory that was causing the issue
6. Install NVIDIA drivers and reboot the pc, this time no need for safe mode.

PS: for all I know, all i had to do was run the chkdsk /r command and everything would have been fine after reinstalling the NVIDIA drivers. These were my steps, I hope they can help others out.