My talented techy brothers and sisters.....I have an old Toshiba Notebook Satellite P200 which is about three years old. The monitor keeps (every 24 hours) becoming distorted whilst on and requires a reboot - its becoming more frequent.

I think its probably a driver issue rather than a hardware issue (I assume if it were hardware, it would never work properly) and I want to download a monitor driver, but in device manager, it just shows the device as "generic pnp monitor" and so no details on drivers.

I can google "P200 monitor driver" of course, but I don't really know what I'm downloading if I do....and the Toshiba website doesn't show the specific model (P200 1E4) I have.....only lots of other P200 /P205 variants.

Any ideas? Are there any utilities that can find error logs and identify the issue?

Thanks in advance

Underneath the lappy, there will be a sticker or label with the full product code or number. That would help.

OS used ?

Possibilities includes power savings scheme, perhaps a BIOS update may be required.

It's not a driver issue. It looks like an overheating issue , or a looming failure for an old part.

Try and remove all the dust from your laptop, See if you can open it up and clear fans off , these things attract dust like you wouldn't believe it.

Try and run the laptop with plenty of ventilation (on a cooling / fan based laptop tray...

How long does before the problem starts in a well ventilated room, on a raised platform....How long when kept on your lap. The difference may be surprising.

There could be a generic update utility available on the vendor web site that will tell you.

Check ventilation? Is there enough room for proper air circulation? The distortion could be due to a gradual buildup of heat.

UTH beat me to it

Vista, and its the p200 1E4 i mentioned, but as i say, nothing on Toshiba website.
Ok, good tip, i'll try that. Thanks

I think also that it's not a driver issue. It looks like an overheating issue.
But a driver-update would also help.
Try the program "SiSoftware Sandra Lite", it will tell you what grafik-chip that you have and also how hot your Laptop is. This is a freeware that can be downloaded at www.sisoftware.net or from pctipp.ch.

Salut Zämma

Good tip....like the software.....

Thanks

Helpful IT types - amazing what a restorative and beneficial effect a couple of well placed blows had late last night. All seems to be OK now

Thanks all

Good to hear