First of all, i put this into off topic, as, despite being PC related, it had nothing to do with gaming
Back story/general info if it helps
So here is the deal.. i have an Inspiron 9300 that i used to be able to connect to my TV via s-video port on my laptop (then through a convertor into composite cables) and into the yellow slot on my tvs AV slot, and as of a few months ago it stopped connecting, and instead of my laptop screen, the tv started showing no input
I call dell, say the s-video port has buggered up because the cord/tv combo still work when i tried it with another household computer.. anywho i got that switched out for a new one, and it wasn't the problem
I sort of gave up on it until a few days ago, since i got a new tv this week and wanted to start using it with my laptop again (this new tv and the old cord still works with the other laptops in the house)
the graphics card on this laptop is NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800, there probably isn't a problem with that though, since one of the laptops that still works uses an older nvidia model. I have the most up to date version of it installed too.
Problem at hand
So today I noticed within the NVIDIA Control Panel (in the "Change Display Configuration" tab) that the TV was listed as a display that is currently connected.. after a quick reality check i made sure that it wasn't, and sure enough it wasn't connected.. so why on earth is it saying that it is connected.. i tried restarting, plugging in and out the svideo and no changes were apparent.
So my problem, I figure, is this: I can't connect to the TV because the computer thinks i'm already connected to the TV.. how the hell do i get it to realise that it isn't
Things i've tried
- Obviously restarting the computer
- Install the driver again on top of the already installed driver
- Uninstall the driver and install it from scratch
Still, it claims the TV is indeed connected, and my tv still doesn't show that it is picking up any input at all (Still says "AV4" in the top corner, meaning it isn't recieving anything)
Note: it happened a long time ago, so I wouldn't have a clue how far back to (if i wanted to) system restore to, so that's out of the question
Possible solution I haven't tried yet (but don't want to)
I figure that since NVIDIA has been completely removed and reinstalled, the problem is a corrupt Windows app or something like that, and so the 'possible but unwanted' solution is to simply reinstall XP, but i don't want to do that.. so I ask, before i start backing up my files, What else can I attempt to do to fix this?
(Sorry about the long long post)
