Compaq 1688 laptop video problem

[bikerChucke]

I have a Compaq Presario 1688 laptop. I was reloading the OS when something went wrong and the reload failed. The LCD reset itself to a resolution that it can't support. The screen is only half its normal size and the top half of the characters are all that can be seen. And, I can't get the OS (Win98SE) to reload because it gets to a certain place and the display gets all wacky. Plus, during POST, I get one long and 2 short beeps. I can not reset the video- I've tried everything. I contacted ATI to get their latest driver. None of them work as they all load from Windows, which I can't get reloaded because of the scrambled screen. I've tried booting a vanilla diskette with an appropriated CONFIG.sys and AUTOEXEC.bat but no joy. Whenever I run the driver programs, I get the error "Program too big to load into memory". And, one of the programs is only 158K big. I thought I could figure this on our but I'm stumped. Any ideas?

 

[mikker]

I would format and start all over again.

 

[felixc]

To add some to mikker's, connect an external CRT while you reload everything, it leaves a chance to see something. You may need to find the correct Win98 for your laptop in order to use the native screen resolution.

 

[bikerChucke]

Thanks for your suggestions. To mikker: I have tried reformatting countless times but no joy. To felixc: I have tried connecting an external monitor but again, no joy.