Thread: Reinitializing Windows graphics subsystem

  1. #1
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    Reinitializing Windows graphics subsystem

    Hi everyone,

    << Please forgive the vagueness of my question. I have a fair bit of general programming experience but no knowledge of MS APIs. >>

    I am seeking information on the windows call or calls that would be needed to do the following. I want to completely reinitialize the display under XP but otherwise leave the state of the OS untouched and then issue redraws so that every portion of the display is fully refreshed. The visible effect on a normal system would be for the screen to go blank and then be redrawn.

    I am pursuing this as a work-around for an XP suspend/resume problem that I have been unable to solve in any other way. My laptop (a Thinkpad i-series) was recently upgraded to XP from 98SE. Under XP, when the machine wakes from a suspend, the LCD remains blank but the system is otherwise fully operational (evidence: file sharing is active, the telnetd I installed is active, audio output resumes, the system still responds to mouse and keyboard inputs, resume works fine on an external monitor). I have applied every driver and firmware upgrade available. I have experimented with both ACPI and APM power management --- all to no avail (incidentally, I’m stuck using legacy APM support under XP due to problems in the BIOS, problems IBM has no plans to fix). So this is why I am looking for a workaround.

    Assuming it is possible to reinitialize and redraw the display as described above, I would then be able to do this after a resume, and thereby reactivate the LCD display. I could tie this to a hotkey and have a reasonable workaround for the problem. I have a copy of VC++ that I can use to build the app. As I said, I have a fair bit of general programming experience but no knowledge of MS APIs. Any light you can shed on this problem or the proposed solution will be greatly appreciated. Also, if this query would better go in another forum, please let me know where that might be.

    Much Thanks, Bob Miller
    Last edited by rwmm415; 11-12-2004 at 06:22 PM. Reason: typo

  2. #2
    Registered User Codeplug's Avatar
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    Does the LCD ever come back on? Or do you have to reboot?

    gg

  3. #3
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    No, never. I have to reboot. What's more, user-events that might reinitialize the LCD don't have any effect (switch video hotkey, "Fn+F7", reseting the display dimensions/color depth, etc.). The screen remains black with the backlight off. Only rebooting gets the LCD back.

    -RM

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