So, My daughter was using her laptop in bed the other evening and lets just say it ' walked' off the bed and ruined the LCD. No biggie hey? Just unplug the LCD, connect a VGA external and hit FN-F8 right? WRONG!! I have been kicking this beast for days now and nothing I do seems to work. I just can not get this 5517 to use the external monitor *sigh* Any suggestions? Its out of warrenty, so I am considering buying LED / Matte fro here and replacing it. Sure would like to get the external working as sort of a punishment for my daughter -Trice
If you can't plug it up to another monitor device and it doesn't work then I'm really not sure. Does it "turn on" at all? I'm sorry it grew legs and walked off on you two.
If you can still make things out, try right clicking the desktop > screen resolution and setting it up manually for the first time. And if you have an nVidia control panel in the context menu, it would be even better for detecting external displays.
only can see the upper left corner, kind of like a triangle shape. That's how I know its booting and loading windows .
One thing you could try to do is disconnect the broken screen and then plugging the monitor into the back jack. It may over ride the FN F8 button press and just turn straight to the external monitor due to not having a dedicated screen anymore.