T60 External monitor problem

[dagashi]

I have a T60 and I am currently running windows 7. It has an ATI mobility X1400 video card.

Up until about 3 weeks ago, I was easily able to output video on my laptop's VGA port. Over the course of my schooling, I plugged it in many times to projectors to do presentations etc, and I have a set up at home where I switch a VGA cable from my TV to a 22 inch monitor which, conveniently enough support the same resolutions. One time when I switched the cable, from the TV to the monitor, it simply stopped showing any image.

I can confirm that my monitor knows that it is plugged into something sending "a signal" as it is not showing the "no signal message" it is simply showing a black screen. Additionally, my computer can correctly detect the monitor as a Syncmaster and can see the native resolution also. All I get is a black screen in all cases. Things I have tried:

I have tried the basics; l I will be tempted to stab the first person that asks me if I've hit fn f7. I have been using and fixing computers for a long time. I've tried different monitors and TVs, different cables, I have tried various driver configurations, various OS configurations (I've formatted 3 times trying XP with various service packs as well as Windows 7), I have tried every possible combination of booting things up in various orders, I have, of course verified the OS settings because I'm not a tard and I know how to output to an external monitor (As I've mentioned I've done this countless times and it's only stopped working recently, and there were no hardware or software changes prior to the incident). I have tried updated drivers, not updated drivers, and every relevant software configuration of which I could conceive. I have spent countless hours searching the internet, these forums as well as others to no avail.
Most recently I've picked up a dock for my laptop as it has both VGA and DVI outputs. My monitor, being the awesome piece of hardware it is has both VGA and DVI input so today after picking up my dock and trying both cable and ports I run into the same issue.

The monitor knows the computer is there. The computer knows the monitor is there. I'm sure there's some kind of no swearing rules on these forums but believe me the first revision of this post in my head has more cursing than a sailor denied shore leave after 6 months. I cannot believe how arduous and difficult this problem has been. I know you're probably going to say "it's a hardware issue" but I would just like someone who knows the difference between the dvi and vga ports and how the computer talks to them to give me some input. How can it be broken and working at the same FJDAFKLDSAJ;LFKDSA time?

Anyway, this has been quite the novel but I wanted to be sufficiently detailed. Thanks you for taking the time to read this and I sincerely hope that someone can help me as I don't have any more money to spend on this thing at the moment.

Ryan

[Harryc]

Have you tried booting up a Linux Live CD?

[dagashi]

Thank you for your quick reply. I am downloading UBCD 503 as we speak, I don't know much about linux but it seemed a diagnostics boot version of linux would be a good choice. Will let you know how it goes sometime over the next 45 min or so.

[Harryc]

Am not familiar with that particular CD. If it doesn't work for you try a Linux Mint Live CD. It's very simple.
http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=67

[dagashi]

K well, in doing my research I read that the VGA port as an analog converter but the LCD and optional DVI use the same digital converter. This made me think the dock would solve my problem since my LCD was showing fine. Now I have NOT tried every combination of turning things on in a specific order with the monitor connected through DVI, only VGA. After waiting patiently for it to download, I burned the distro of linux you suggested Harryc. I rebooted to fiddle in linux and to my surprise and immeasurable pleasure, with the monitor on and connected through DVI, I saw the familiar thinkpad boot logo on my monitor. Silly me, overlooking the basics when I've already done them a million times. I'm guessing the vga port is somehow busted (which I suspected already) but if the DVI port works this through the dock this is more than enough to fix my problem. Hopefully you can imagine some of my frustration as I guess I've spent more than 40 hours trying to fix this problem (currently unemployed it has been a good time waster, I suppose) and picking up a dock on kijiji for 35 bucks was a great solution! Thanks for your help anyway Harry, I appreciate the good experience on the forums.

Lesson learned, if you try to use the dvi on your dock, reboot everything!

[Harryc]

I'm glad it worked out for you.