Posted on 04/18/2005 6:12:41 PM PDT by An American in Turkiye
Question for my fellow freepers: My laptop recently got hit by something big. Needless to say, I wiped the entire drive, and reloaded Windows XP Pro. Everything went well, but for some reason, I cannot change my monitor settings. I go to display properties, but I cannot move the slidebar to change the screen resolution. DVD's can't play because it comes up with a message saying my screen settings are wrong. Any idea? BTW, I have a Dell Inspiron.
It sounds like the hit might've messed with your display.
Have you tried installing the latest versions of your video drivers? I mean for both your video chipset and your display.
You need to reinstall the video driver. You can download the video driver from the Dell site.
Do a system restore (to the point you last think it was running well) and come back in safe-mode.
Get spyware hunting software. (webroot has a good program) And STAY OFF NET CONNECTION until you have done all of these.
Tweek from there.
I concur with Alouette and Terpfen. Sounds like display drivers missing.
Try updating the drivers for your monitor.
You need the proper video driver of the video card installed in your laptop. Chances are your video driver is the "Standard SVGA Diplay" which is nothing more than a generic video driver to allow you to access and see Windows. Go to the Dell Inspiron area on the Dell website and download the video driver for your particular model.
I misread. I inserted "for a while" in the "things went well" bit.
Check the video device first, as others have suggested.
if you reloaded xp did you load over the top or format?
I ask because if you just did a restore the .inf file for your video drivers are still on your computer.
If you fdisk'd, then check device manager and see what the properties is for your display. Update the driver and browse the drive. If that doesnt work head to the windows update website, sometimes it will put new versions on there (but the nvidia driver updates are sucky). But check your system config on dell by your system serial number.
but I am surprised xp doesnt recognize it. Did you update to sp2 yet? try that first.
Get a Mac!
Go to Dell support; log in and give them your service tag number. Then select their "detect settings on my computer" or whatever link and it will go thru, probe your hardware, and give you links to the latest driver downloads.
If I am way wrong, it won't hurt anything, and I am sure that some Freeper geek will straighten us out.
LOL
Always one in every bunch! LOL!
Just joshing! lol
The restore disks that came with your computer had the video drivers you need. If you don't have those disks, you will have to download them from the Dell site.
You probably need to call support and let them walk you through it.
Don't know. I'm using an I-Mac from 1999 and it works well with Comcast. I am waiting for the laptop G-5s to come out, but I understand they will not be out for about a year.
You need a different monitor driver from the XP disk, that is all.
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