Problem installing drivers from external screen (go 6800)

[caius]

Hi, I hope someone can help me.

I own a Dell Inspiron 9300 with a GeForce Go 6800 card (Windows XP Media center edition).

My system crashed recently and had to be re-installed. Unfortunately, in the process my laptop screen got destroyed and is no longer working.

I connected the laptop to an external screen and it is working fine (with basic video drivers from Windows).

Now to my problem:

Whenever I install nvidia graphics drivers, the laptop switches from the external screen to the laptop screen. Since that one is broken I cannot see anything and therefore cannot access the nvidia control panel to change back to the external screen. Fn+F8 (change from LCD to CRT) does not work, either.

As a result, I have to uninstall the drivers and can only use the basic windows drivers. :)

The laptop repair shop which repaired my system already found out that there is no BIOS setting to allow the laptop to always start with an external screen.

If I got a new screen the problem would be solved. However, I could just as well work with an external screen and really do not want to invest EUR 200+ into buying a new laptop screen.

Is there any way I can switch back to the external screen without using nvidia control panel once I installed the drivers?

Or are there drivers that don't give me the control panel at all?

If not, is there a combination of mouse clicks, using up / down keys and pressing 'enter' which I can follow blindly to get me into the nvidia control panel and the 'change screens' setting?

If anyone has any idea how to solve this problem I would be very grateful!!!

Thanks a lot

Caius

[Phnx]

I found when I had this problem on another laptop that the fn+F8 only works when logged in. Have you made sure that you have logged in (blindly) before trying this?