Will external monitor work if video card for laptop is bad?

Question

Okay, so I'm making another topic here to clarify. The video card for this Dell Inspiron 1420 Vista laptop (NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS) is fried, and lets just say it for sure doesn't work. Before anyone tries to convince me otherwise, this is pretty much my exact problem:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261189-33-serious-graphics-problem

and basically we're not going to replace it. If we were to run diagnostics, I'm sure it'd come up with something. So now its running on like no video card-- just the minimum settings to display.

However, I am wondering if its possible to have this laptop rely on an external monitor for the rest of its life. I plug in an external monitor through VGA and it DOES NOT pick it up. I suppose its because the laptop no longer supports anymore monitors. Not sure if that's true, that's my guess. If you guys have anymore suggestions, do tell (yes I have done a Fn+F8 and such combination)

But, I still want to change the laptop's primary display to the external monitor. Is it possible? Is it some settings I'll have to toggle with BIOS? Or will I have to take the laptop apart a little bit?

Solution 1

If you think about it you'll see the answer is almost certainly NO. You say the GPU is dead. What is going to drive the external monitor... it's the GPU. THe Fn Key combo just tells the GPU output circuits to shunt or split the GPU output signal, it has no effect on how its created.

Solution 2

You say you don't wish to replace the laptop, have you considered a cheap USB gfx card instead?

Prices depends on you location and your needs but using the google shoping thingy I can find advertisments for USB gfx cards for as low as 40 USD. And using ebay I can get me one for ~40 USD all the way to Sweden ;)

Solution 3

I am wondering if its possible to have this laptop rely on an external monitor for the rest of its life

Considering that the GPU is fried, no. Your question is not clear - are you getting any display, at all ? If you are getting a display then contrary to your thoughts, the GPU is not fried.