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Monitor resolution issue - any ideas

Beatnik

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Posted April 12, 2012 at 11:45PM

Hello all

Any ideas about fixing this particularly frustrating monitor issue?

I have had a well trusted 19inch Hannspree monitor on an XP laptop for several years, running nicely at 1400x900 widescreen res via VGA cable. Until...

Two days ago I turn on my computer to find that the resolution has changed and will not allow me to use any widescreen resolutions. This has resulted in some particularly headache inducing settings.

I have tried the standard things - changing lead, refreshing graphics drivers, monitor drivers, changing refresh rate - no success. Uninstalling and reinstalling in safe mode didn't work. Tried rolling back to a previous system point, even altering the default res to 1400x900 in the Registry - no joy.

Eventually I tried out the monitor on two other computers running Vista and Win 7 - exactly the same problem.

So, it appears the monitor has somehow forgotten it is widescreen. Is this possible? Other than for the resolution, the display is fine. A factory reset has made no difference.

I honestly can't think of anything else to do. Has anyone else had this problem / have any thoughts on what to do next? Unfortunately, while the monitor has a DVI port, I don't have access to a machine with DVI out.

Thanks in advance

P

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KRONOS the First

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Posted April 13, 2012 at 8:07AM

I am assuming you are seeing black strips down the side of your desktop? This may well be a sign of a failing monitor or perhaps an over scaling problem. If your card is an ATi then open Catalyst Control Center then click on your display then scaling options and drag the bar to the right. To be honest I do not know where the settings are in Nvidia but they will be there somewhere.

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northumbria61

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Posted April 14, 2012 at 11:30AM

If using Nvidia try this - Look under rotate display and change to Landscape.

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Woolwell

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Posted April 14, 2012 at 12:03PM

Many monitors have an option to adjust the centre of the display and stretch the display to fill the screen. Have you tried the monitor's own controls?

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Beatnik

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Posted April 14, 2012 at 11:49PM

Hmmm

Thanks for the above.

Unfortunately laptop has a bog-standard Intel graphics card - its software only allows limited playing around.

Adjusting the display only stretches the onscreen image - it doesn't affect the actual resolution - if anything it makes it worse.

For anyone who happens to stumble across this forum with a similar problem, I managed to bodge a solution.

It turns out the monitor is no longer broadcasting its DDC information - essentially rendering it non-Plug and Play. This resulted in the attached computer giving it a generic driver which seems to assume it is a 15 inch display.

To get around this, I had to create a custom resolution using a program called Powerstrip and forced the required resolution on the monitor. Unfortunately when I try to run this resolution outside Powerstrip, Windows throws a bit of a wobbler.

It may be a warning for further failures, but at least I will get a few more miles out the beastie before it finally collapses.

P

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