I have a Sony Vaio VGN-FE21M, with an nVidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics card. It has been happily working for a few years connected to an external display via the VGA-out, but has suddenly stopped working.
Symptoms
- Hot keys (Fn+F7) have no effect
- Attempting to switch to Dual (or Clone) view via the nVidia control panel results in the monitor coming out of sleep mode, but showing only a black screen
Other Info
- No recent software installations or hardware changes
- The PC has recently rebooted itself thanks to a Windows Update patch (or two)
- Issue started when my wife came back from a road trip with the laptop (hmmmmmmm)
What I've already tried
- I have changed the VGA cable and tested the monitor with another PC - all working fine
- I have updated all drivers (via the Sony-supplied "Vaio Update" tool) - although the most recent drivers are not supported on Sonys according to the website :(
My guess is that this is probably hardware failure of some sort. I have already looked here but am a little nervous about opening up the laptop (and also skeptical that I could fix it).
So... can anyone offer any alternative suggestions / theories / hope ?
