HP laptop screen resolution

[lthebmanl]

Hi,

I purchased a HP Pavilion dv9000 back in 2007. In spring of 2010 my school upgraded my computer from Vista to W7. When they did, my screen resolution wouldn't go higher than 1024 x 768.

After several months of using the computer at that resolution I finally asked a tech friend what he recommended. He had me install a NVIDIA driver. The file name is 179.48_notebook_winvista_win7_32bit_beta.

The solution seemed to work. I now have a resolution of 1440 x 900; however, my computer has started to freeze. I will be working on it and suddenly it will lock up - nothing will work to unfreeze it besides doing a forced shutdown. My concerns are growing, as forced shutdowns will inevitably lead to something bad...

My computer seems to run overly warm. When I built the computer on the HP website I pulled out all the stops... I usually work with the computer with the vent hanging off the side of a table so it doesn't get as hot. I'm not sure if this happens to be the issue with my computer, but it has never froze up before...

Maybe it could possibly be a malware issue? Although, I use this computer solely for work purposes and never do much beyond google searches...

Any help would be great.

Thanks!

b

 

[Leeky]

The driver could well be the issue. There is no need to run the beta driver.

What GPU does your laptop have?

 

[lthebmanl]

Hey,

Sorry it took so long to respond - labor day weekend...ya know how it is...

GPU: I went to Device Manager and looked under Display adapters and it says "NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600

 

[Atham]

Try installing the drivers again. If you find older drivers, I would try installing those.

 

[lthebmanl]

The computer **** the bed...

Apparently it's an overheating problem common in the HP dv series. Something must have melted on the motherboard...

I was able to get my files off the hard drive - no thanks to HP - horrible customer service.

I have to check for a recall now or $1600 just went out the window...

Thanks for the help.

 

[mailpup]

You might want to open the laptop and clean out any dust accumulation in the heatsink/fan area. After a few years it can build up in any computer, laptop or desktop, and that can lead to overheating.

 

[lthebmanl]

Understandable, but now the computer wont even turn on.

The LEDs light up but the screen remains blank. This happens for about 15 seconds and the computer restarts the same process over again. This repeats continuously until I do a forced shut down.

This is the third time this problem has happened. HP fixed the problem twice but told me I was SOL this time.