DirectX games don't work in fullscreen mode anymore

[Mista Toasty]

I have had a problem with my laptop for quite a while now, it does not seem to be able to play directX games in fullscreen mode. It is an Asus N55SL i7 1600x900 version. The strange thing is that i used to be able to play all my games in fullscreen, and then slowly one by one they stopped working, and now i have to play them in either windowed or fullscreen windowed. My pc works fine for OpenGL games and some DirectX games. for example, assassins's creed 3 works in fullscreen and war of the roses.
None of the versions of directX work, I have tried on mount and blade from directX7. I suspect it to be something wrong with the graphics card, my friend has the same problem with a Dell XPS with a Nvidia GT 525.

Games that don't work are: Borderlands 2, Dark Sols, Dishonored, L.A. Noire, Left 4 Dead 2, all Mount and Blades, assassin's creed 2, Planetside 2 and all the total war series. Most of these games did work on fullscreen at one point, now i am forced to type in the -windowed command before starting them.

I have upgraded to the highest drivers on nvidia's website, I have re installed paint.net, c++, directx and i have installed directx sdk.

My Specs are
CPU: Intel i7 2670QM
GPU: Nvidia Geforce GT 635M
Screen: 15.6", 1600x900

 

[ddpruitt]

Don't use the NVidia Drivers. For a desktop this is fine but Laptop manufacturers tend to customize the hardware that breaks the reference drivers. Try the installing the drivers from Asus. First completely uninstall the drivers, reboot, and then install the Asus drivers.

 

[Mista Toasty]

how do you uninstall drivers?

 

[ddpruitt]

Go into the control panel under programs and features and remove nVidia drivers. Then go into device manager, video devices, right click on the video card and remove. Then reboot and reinstall.

 

[maxinexus]

Did you try Alt+Enter keyboard shortcut?

 

[Mista Toasty]

I tried using the bios on the asus website but that was the same.
right now i'm using the default bios because, even though it doesn't fix the games, it fixes skype

 

[Mista Toasty]

Alt+Enter causes the same effect

 

[ddpruitt]

I tried using the bios on the asus website but that was the same.
right now i'm using the default bios because, even though it doesn't fix the games, it fixes skype

You're looking for the VGA driver not the BIOS. I can't provide the direct link but select the correct OS (Windows 7/8) go to VGA and download the nVidia Graphics Driver.

 

[Mista Toasty]

sorry, i meant vga driver