Dell Latitude D610: Video Troubleshooting and Solution

Last week a professor walked into my office with a Dell Latitude D610 laptop with a video problem. It would work fine when running on its own, but when plugged into an external video device it would zoom in as far as it could. It’s a difficult problem to describe, but if you see it yourself you’ll know what I mean. If you haven’t seen it, you’re probably not reading this article. :^)

Anyway, it turns out that she ahd recently bought an external keyboard and mouse for her laptop. The problem was that the Microsoft Intellipoint driver and software were comflicting with the Intel video driver for the onboard video card and causing this odd problem.

The solution was basic. I uninstalled the Microsoft Intellipoint driver and restarted the machine, and voila, no more zooming.

The reason I mention this is that it is apparently not a common problem. I Googled keywords to no end, and spent 45 minutes on the phone with Dell, only to finally figure it out myself. I thought it would be beneficial to share it with all of you fine folks, and hopefully populate Google with this rare troubleshooting tip.