Sunday, December 13, 2015

Dell Vostro 3350 problems upgrading to Windows 10

To get to Windows 10 appeared not an easy and straightforward task on Dell laptop. I chose upgrading from Windows 8.1 but not making a clean install. Can not comment on fresh install but upgrading made problems.
Process started as usually. Double clicking Windows 10 upgrading icon at the desktop clock. Everything went smoothly but during the process close to completing laptop screen went black. Computer was responding and it can be decided by looking on HDD light blinking and also Caps Lock light toggling. Thanks to googling I found recipe that helped.
  • First what you must do is connect external monitor to VGA output socket. You must be able to see login screen. Log in yourself.
  • Than connect to Internet and go to Dell.com and download latest BIOS update for your machine. I updated to A09, but when writing this also found that A10 is available. I suppose this is not critical, just use latest one.
After restart you should see picture on both screens.

Both Windows are 64 bit versions.
Before I was testing different drivers for Intel HD Graphics 3000, newest one and some older, but what actually helped was this BIOS update.
You can also get picture on laptop's screen manually selecting Basic Graphics Drivers, but this is not good solution because you can't use maximum resolution also other features like external monitor connection etc are disabled.