Upgraded Dell E1705 now have letterbox display? Help?

[timrichter9]

Hey all.
New to this forum. Have a Dell E1705 Inspiron that I upgraded to Win 8 online (with download) so I could use the new Office suite.

3 problems (I hadn't thought of)....

1. I cannot seem to find a way to tell what video card I have (I am laptop ignorant) and cannot seem to find a Win 8 driver for the Inspiron E1705. The problem is this. I get two black areas on each side of the display. It's as if the generic Windows driver is not recognizing that the display and I have a 1" wide black strip on each side.


2. The laptop has a media chip reader slot. That is now dead.

3. The touchpad mouse works but the edges do not respond (swiping down the right edge used to scroll the window up and down and similarly for swiping a finger across the bottom edge of the pad (scroll L-R)


Any help out there. I did google it, but cannot figure out where correct drivers are.

Thanks
Tim Richter

 

[rgd1101]

do you mean this?
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/inspn/topics/en/inspn_e1705_sp_spec?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
that come out on 2006 with XP
Processor: Intel Txxx
Motherboard Chipset: Intel Calistoga i945GM/PM
Hard Drive: 100GB 7200RPM SATA (Hitachi TraveStar)
Memory/RAM: 1GB (1,024MB) Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (667MHz)
Screen: 17.0" UXGA TrueLife (1900 x 1200 pixel resolution glossy screen)
Graphics: nVidia GeForce Go 7800 256MB

 

[timrichter9]

That seems to be the one.
Did I make a mistake upgrading it?

 

[mjmacka]

Use windows update. That often fixes video drivers.

Upgrading wasn't a great idea. Office 2013 runs on Windows 7 too. My work PC is 7 pro x64 with office 2013.

 

[timrichter9]

Tried Windows Update, but no dice. Thanks

 

[WyomingKnott]

I've looked at the Dell support site for that machine ( http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/us/en/19/Product/inspiron-e1705 ), and there are no drivers past XP. What version of Windows were you running previously?

Do you know how to get into the Device Manager? (if not, we'll coach you) You can find the model for your display driver there and may have a better chance of finding it online. Also, out of curiosity, what is your current screen resolution defaulting to? Have you tried changing it?

Judging from a search on the hardware list provided by rgd1101 (thanks), there are no drivers past XP. So you may be stuck with a generic driver.