Poor Definition Video Display

[morens]

The biggest mistake I made on this computer was taking the free W10 upgrade nearly 3 years ago.  I have posted previously about W10 going bonkers after upgrading video drivers.  I had added a Radeon HD 5450 to get two display ports.  After each driver upgrade, I would lose one port and have to back down.  I finally stopped doing video upgrades.  My previous post was about after the last time W10 blew up and died so completly that I couldn't recover.  I bought a new computer.  When I had time, I did a clean install on this one with the W10 disk I had created.  That got it running again and I just use it for an auxiliary computer now with one monitor.  My last post was about it not coming out of sleep.  I have seen many posts here and on the MS Forum about this problem with W10.

I decided to try a Radeon HD 6450 just for kicks to see if I could fix the sleep problem.  It didn't.  To boot, here is the new problem that started:

I now have very poor display definition.  The driver and monitor are recognized correctly.  The resolution is correctly set at 1920 X 1080.  Everything I have checked seems to be set correctly.  I backed down to the 5450 and it does the same thing.  I removed the add-on video driver card completely and connected my monitor to the VGA on-board port.  Of course this gives it less definition, but it still looks terrible.  I should explain that by "poor display definition" I mean that any graphics now have rough edges instead of smooth lines.  Even plain text looks jagged.

In frustration, I completely reinstalled W10.  No dice again.  Does anybody think this is a W10 problem just gone completely bonkers?  I would gladly back it down to W7, but the refurbisher I bought it from completely disavows any further support for W7 and will not provide a disk or download link to cut an ISO disk.  MS is unfortunately no help because when I try to use my legitimate Activation Code, the response back is, "This copy of W7 was provided by a refurbisher.  Contact your supplier".  So, alas, it is a catch 22.

Does anyone think this is an actual hardware situation on the motherboard?  Or, am I simply overlooking some setting?  Since I bought this as a refurb, I didn't pay a whole lot of money for it.  I have seen new MS W7 on Amazon (disk) for $64.00.  Does anybody think this would fix it?  If this is a lost cause, I could simply buy another inexpensive refurb for an extra computer.  

P.S.  I guess I should add that I am using a Toshiba TV for a monitor.  It works good on antenna, and DirecTV connected to HDMI1.  The PC is connected to HDMI2.  I swapped the two and tried a new HDMI cable, all to no avail.  And remember, this used to display good PC video.

Thanks!

[TheOldMan · Accepted solution]

I see the problem.  The Radeon HD 6450 did not get an official Windows 10 driver, it is considered Legacy now

and they are not actively updating drivers for it, but some have used the older drivers to allow it to work.  I assume the same for the Radeon HD 5450.  Windows 10 will default to the to the Microsoft basic video driver, which is what is most likely happening and causing the "poor display definition" .  So that leaves trying to manually install an older driver or getting a newer graphics solution.

That  PC - HP Compaq 6005 Pro Small Form Factor PC. - was intended for WinXP or Vista as the support page indicates

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01865086

Installing a good Windows 7 or a newer graphics card that was intended for Windows 7 ( but not totally new style, as they will not work with the Legacy BIOS ) should make this a usable PC again.

[morens]

Thank you very much for your response and well thought-out answer.  It makes a lot of sense.  You have encouraged me to try the W7 solution.  I think I will contact MS one more time to see if I can cajole a W7 link out of them.  I will keep you posted on this thread!

[TheOldMan]

I wait your further dialogue.  I see no reason that the Windows 7 would not install properly.  You might have to resort to a new copy, however.  I am unfamiliar with how the refurb Windows 7 market disks work as far as activation, etc.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @morens

If you can still read all 25 characters of the W7 product key on the PC's case, you can make your own plain W7 installation media--I assume Pro, since it is a business class desktop.

Click on the Windows ISO Downloader.exe link to download the tool to create the W7 ISO file download.

https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/67-microsoft-windows-and-office-iso-downl...

I have zipped up and attached the Microsoft utility below, that will allow you to either put the file on a USB flash drive or burn it to a DVD.

Then you can install the drivers and available software you need from your PC's support page.

Now, before you do that...Not sure why the W10 driver isn't working on the HD 6450 graphics card you have.

It is supported, and there are W10 drivers for it. 

I have two PC's (dc7800 and 8200 Elite) running W10 (latest build) with the HD 6570 (which is just a better version of the HD 6450) with no issues whatsoever.

I gave my HD 6350 to my son who likes to run dual monitors and that also works fine on W10.  Same card as the HD6450 but has the DMS-59 output for dual displays.

This is the driver I used for those model cards... Crimson Edition 16.2.1 Beta for W10 64 bit.

https://www.amd.com/en/support/graphics/amd-radeon-hd/amd-radeon-hd-6000-series/amd-radeon-hd-6450

[morens]

Paul,  thank you VERY MUCH  for the info and links.  Since my refurbisher had already told me they had disavowed any further support for W7 and had no disk or link they could supply me with, I was going to go begging to MS one more time to see if they would honor the refurbisher's Activation Key.  But your link helped me to avoid that.  The download and ISO burn of Windows 7 Pro went fine.  It executed cleanly and installed.  It was a moderately lengthy process, but I'm retired anyway.  I still keep busy with other things in and out of the house, so I went about my various routines and checked on the progress periodically.  After the install completed, I set about the (arduous) task of updating Windows.  Again, it was simply go about my business and check periodically.  A very long process! 

I repeated the update procedure a number of times.  So at this point, I noticed that my display still looked a little grainy.  So I continued to scour the AMD, HP and MS websites for further downloads.  Still no help.  At this point I decided to test the sleep function.  LO and BEHOLD!  The sleep function now works!  It wakes beautifully!  Also, I might mention here that the boot up is also significantly faster than it was with W10.

I got on chat with HP to try to get help on the display situation.  After a fairly lengthy chat, not a lot of help.  It then struck me, as I recalled when I first bought this refurb almost three years ago, that when I was having problems with W10 and the added-on Radeon 5450, I bought a utility that scans the entire PC for drivers and searches for newer updates.  Well, as previously stated, every time it updated the Radeon 5450 driver it caused big display problems so that I would have to revert to the previous driver.  

I started searching for utilities and found one that looked good, but they wanted a monthly cost of about $10.00.  I went to PC Magazine and found a good review for a product called Slimware/DriverUpdate.  They state that they are a Microsoft Partner.  One year is a cheap $19.97 for one computer.  Then I saw that they offer two years, three computers for $39.97.  Not bad.  Then, the next level was five computers, lifetime for $59.97.  In addition, they offer a full, money back refund for 60 days!  So this, I finally jumped on.

After running the scan, installing and rebooting a couple of times, I am finally a happy camper!  This seems to be a very good product.  It found lots of outdated drivers all throughout the entire system, not just display adaptors.

Once again, I really want to thank you and all the others on this forum for being kind and gracious enough to give of your valuable time to help others.  It is greatly appreciated!

Be well!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Glad to have been of assistance.

[morens]

Thanks for all of your help.  Please see my responses above as to how I finally got a good W7 installed.  I really appreciate all of your help and assistance and taking time out of your busy schedule to help me and others on this forum!

Thanks again and be well!

P.S.  Oops!  This should have been addressed to:  TheOldMan

[TheOldMan]

Good to hear it all worked out.  I am glad that I was of some help!

[morens]

Final note to add:

Between Windows updates and the driver update utility I bought and installed (I know, I looked back at my original post about Win 10 upgrades and stated it was a bad idea to use a 3rd party driver utility) it is running very good now.  And I managed to do some additional tweaking on the monitor picture mode settings along with tweaking driver color settings.  The graphics look great and movies play very well.  Also, text now looks normal. 

Once again, all is well!