Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of rtga
rtga

asked on

Can't change monitor resolution after power dip...

We had several power dips in rapid succession the other day.  My PC didn't go all the way down, just did a restart on it's own.  When it came back up the resolution of the monitor was set too low and the slider on the settings control panel will not move.  What can I do to get the resolution back up and get rid of these huge windows?

Thanks
Richard
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of LeeTutor
LeeTutor
Flag of United States of America image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of stevenlewis
stevenlewis

you can also try this
boot to dos, and from the prompt type
scanreg /restore
choose a date before this happened. note the space between scanreg and /restore
Could it be that your computer is running in safety mode? This would cause all the symtoms you describe.

You said you had several power dips. If these were correctly spaced appart, this might have caused windows to enter safety mode on the next restart. This should normaly correct itself if you restart the machine once more. If not you can press F8 when booting (*before* the Windows 98 intro screen) to get up the boot menu.
Avatar of rtga

ASKER

Stevenlewis,
What format should the date be in and do you insert it between scanreg and /restore?  Better yet, can you type an example for me?
hi rtga

Just type in scanreg /restore as steve suggested and then choose from the list that is presented.

Here is a link to an MS KB about restoring to a previous registry date.

How to Manually Restore the Windows 98/Me Registry
http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q221512
-----------------------------

Also here is another link with more info on scangreg

Command-Line Switches for the Registry Checker Tool
http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q221512


The Crazy One
listening...
Avatar of rtga

ASKER

Tried the scanreg /restore method.  Only one of the 5 was older than the problem but all had "started" next to them.  NONE of them would work. After each attempt I get and "operation failed" message.  Of course, now the one that's old enough to help me is gone from the list since it only keeps 5 in the history.
Avatar of rtga

ASKER

I should add that this appears to only be affecting Windows because I've put in CDROM games that play and display just fine.  All other settings controls appear to work fine as well, only the resolution slider is "locked".
Have tried LeeTudors suggestion? It does sound like either you have a driver that is corrupted or a faulty monitor/video card.
Avatar of rtga

ASKER

LeeTutor was right!!!  After trying the other suggestions (hey, they were easier, or so I thought!) I went back and found that the computer had reverted to a default Microsoft driver for my monitor (Cybermax 900).  It didn't list the driver until I clicked "show all" and there was the Cybermax driver.  I selected it and did a restart and it would allow me to reset the resolution.  All is back to normal.  Thanks to all those who posted! You are a great resource of information.

Richard
Avatar of rtga

ASKER

Got it right on the first try!
Glad to be of help, rtga.