Dell says it has a fix for a driver problem that has some of its customers" flat-panel screens drawing a blank.
Some people who purchased a Dell Optiplex or Dimension desktop PC with a Dell UltraSharp digital video interface or DVI-capable flat-panel displays have reported that the monitors refuse to work after a while, when used with the DVI interface. Dell spokeswoman Mary Fad said on Friday that the company believes that the software drivers for certain graphics cards may cause the problem. Drivers are software that allow hardware such as a monitor to communicate with an operating system such as Microsoft Windows.
Dell prides itself on customer service. However, from time to time, the company has problems with its systems. Often it fixes them using software updates or replacement parts. Last year, for example, Dell launched a service campaign to replace motherboards in nearly 20,000 Inspiron notebooks. The fix involves updating the affected PC"s drivers and resetting the monitor"s EDID, or extended display identification data, which contains the settings for the monitor. When the EDID is corrupted by the driver mismatch, it can cause a display not to work, according to Dell.