My laptop is getting quite old and I would like to completely rehouse the internals into another container and remove the built in display. Instead, I would like to use an external display over HDMI or VGA (most likely HDMI).
My laptop house both of these video outputs. My worry is that I will not be able to access the BIOS or see anything on the external display until my OS (currently Windows 7) boots. This may be an issue as the laptop is likely to fail and perform random disk checks during boot. I also may have trouble accessing my grub boot menu (I have some Linux distros on an external HDD) as I will not be able to see what I'm doing outside of Windows.
I have tried lots of tricks to make my laptop force the output to the external display before windows boots but they have been to no avail. I have tried:
- Using the fn key combination (fn+f4 in my case) during boot to switch displays.
- Closing the laptop lid as it boots.
- Looking for a VGA output option in my BIOS (there isn't such an option).
I am using a Samsung notebook (from 2012) and it has an integrated Intel HD 4000 with the previously stated video outputs. I want to rehouse the laptop as it gets very hot (heavily throttles while playing games) and it will be far easier to clean and prevent the build up of dust.
I was wondering if anybody knows how to force the laptop to output video to the external display before the OS boots?
